Peculiar and Unreliable Sources
When considering any literary effort pertaining to Marilyn Monroe, it is essentially important to consider the author’s sources; and more often than not, it is equally as important to consider the sources of the author’s sources; in other words, if a secondary source, from whom or from where did the secondary source acquire the information, a near impossibility regarding Collateral Damage due to the author’s paucity of information about his sources. At any rate, Mark Shaw relied on an odd group of peculiar and unreliable sources.
During his opening “Author’s Note,” Shaw declared the following purpose relative to Marilyn Monroe:
most people look at the movie star with a stereotypical perception that she was a sexpot who became a star only because of that appeal instead of her being what she really was: an accomplished actress and a very caring and intelligent human being, as will be presented here (Shaw 9).
Certainly a laudable purpose. And yet, nineteen pages later Shaw called upon a woman named Cara Williams as a source, called upon Cara’s insights regarding Marilyn Monroe’s cinematic career and persona. Cara Williams was not the only peculiar and unreliable source on which Shaw would rely.
Anecdotal Testimony Lacking Any Evidence
Shaw interviewed Cara Williams, then 94 years old, during May of 2020. According to Shaw according to Cara, she worked briefly with Marilyn during the 1940s while both women were employed by Fox. Therefore, Cara’s association with Marilyn must have occurred between late 1946 and late 1947, at the beginning of Marilyn’s movie career. With that fact established, consider the information Cara shared with Mark Shaw.
Cara and Marilyn infrequently shared the mirror in what I assume was Fox’s community make-up room. Marilyn constantly practiced making various expressions during those beautification sessions, according to Cara. She concluded that Marilyn wanted to see what particular face would look best in the film she was working on (Shaw 29), certainly an odd conclusion. During her initial tenure with Fox, Marilyn appeared on-screen in only two films, for four seconds during Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! and for fifty-six seconds in Dangerous Years. Neither film required her to perform any unusual or abnormal expressions, at least not expressions for which she would need to rehearse. Also, Cara announced, Marilyn simply could not act. Why? The blonde was just too concerned with her self-image, meaning, I assume, her appearance. Should we conclude, then, that Cara was not concerned with her appearance?
Evidently, Cara was acutely aware of Marilyn’s reputation and condemned her promiscuous behavior; Cara knew that Marilyn slept around with this executive and that (Shaw 29), meaning, of course, that the movie star simply fornicated her way to the top. Just how she actually knew about Marilyn’s bed hopping, Cara did not explain, and neither did Shaw. Cara also informed Shaw that she, like Marilyn, had posed for the photographer Tom Kelley; but she did not pose in just her skin. She would never have done such a thing; and finally, even though Marilyn was always nice to Shaw’s source, she admitted, she was not interested in being Marilyn’s friend. Obviously, Cara Williams did not like Marilyn Monroe. Was envy possibly involved?
The opinions offered by Cara Williams clearly undermined Shaw’s expressed purpose: to present Marilyn as more than just a sexpot; to present her as an accomplished actress who reached the top on her talent; to present her as a woman of intelligence and humanity. Clearly, also, Cara’s opinions pertaining to Marilyn did not provide Shaw’s readers with an insight into Marilyn’s life or her death. In fact, Cara’s opinions did not provide evidence of anything, except Cara’s possible envy.
Jane Russell, Marilyn’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes co-star, appeared as one of Shaw’s sources at approximately the midpoint of his book. Unlike Cara Williams, at least Jane had some feelings for Marilyn and often referred to the blonde movie star as her little sister. According to his source notes, Shaw did not interview Jane. Instead, he relied on quotations from a biography written by Edwin P. Hoyt, Marilyn: The Tragic Venus, published in 1965, quotations that Shaw did not properly source, a common tactic. According to Shaw, Jane informed Hoyt that her costar was always sweet and friendly with the stagehands and the crew along with also being a thoughtful person, a searching person (Shaw 391). Shaw then referenced a 2007 Daily Mail article in which Jane expressed her opinion regarding Marilyn’s death: her friend did not commit suicide, so sayeth Jane. Someone did it for her, Jane opined in the article. There were dirty tricks somewhere.1Wendy Leigh, the interviewer and the article’s author, asked Jane if she believed that the middle Kennedy brothers were involved in Marilyn’s death, meaning, of course, her murder. Jane nodded her head in agreement. Certainly Jane Russell was entitled to her opinion, but that is all it was: her opinion.
Then Jane Russell the actress suddenly became Jane Russell the expert mind reader; she informed Wendy Leigh: Soon after Marilyn died I met Bobby Kennedy, and he looked at me as if to say, “I am your enemy.” Unquestionably, Jane’s assessment of Robert Kennedy’s expression, or what she assumed was a glaring threat, was likely colored by her opinion2and belief that he was involved in Marilyn’s death; and since Jane’s anecdote starring Robert Kennedy cannot be confirmed, her assessment of how the attorney general looked at her was merely her biased opinion. Like Cara Williams, Jane Russell’s opinions did not provide evidence of anything, except Jane’s obvious prejudice.
But Shaw was not finished offering suspect testimony. Three quarters of the way into his book, he introduced a woman named Janet Peters.
Janet Peters was the married daughter of Marlowe C. Hodge, who, according to Mrs. Peters’ testimony to Shaw, was a real estate agent. He allegedly sold Marilyn’s hacienda after her death; however, the name Marlowe Hodge does not appear anywhere in the Marilyn canon. Some quick research uncovered a obituary for Marlowe C. Hodge dated July 14, 1996, published by Desert News, Salt Lake City, Utah, a Mormon newspaper.3The obituary noted that Mr. Hodge’s daughter, Janet Peters, survived him. The obit’s biographical information mentioned that Hodge was the president of Hodge Sheet Metal, a company which was involved with many heating and air conditioning and fascia projects in the greater Los Angeles area. Evidently, he was also the Sheet Metal and Air-Conditioning Association of America’s president; and he often delivered speeches in his usual articulate manner in many cities at conventions. If the late Mr. Hodge was a real-estate agent, his obituary did not so state. I suppose the referenced death notice could have been for another Marlowe Hodge with a daughter named Janet Peters, but that probability seems minuscule.
At any rate, according to Janet Peters according to Shaw, her father related a story to her involving Eunice Murray. My dad came home one day and told me, Ms Peters informed Shaw during an interview, “I just sold Marilyn Monroe’s house.” Evidently Mr. Hodge encountered Eunice Murray who told him Marilyn was murdered, said it was the Kennedys, Bobby Kennedy, not a suicide at all (Shaw 482). Mr. Hodge revealed that Mrs. Murray was adamant about Marilyn’s murder, meaning what exactly? Odd how Shaw, on one page of his publication, could accuse Eunice Murray of complicity in concealing the facts about Marilyn’s death, accuse her of being a liar, and then on another page offer testimony pertaining to her opinion about Marilyn’s murder at the hands of the evil Kennedys. Shaw admitted that Janet Peters’ testimony was secondhand, a weakness that he simply ignored and announced that her statements, her recollections appeared to be genuine. Surely, as an attorney himself, Shaw realized that the statement by Janet Peters was gross double hearsay, possibly even grosser triple hearsay, and despite her genuineness, offered no evidentiary value at all.
Before I leave Mr. Hodge and his daughter behind, I would be remiss if I did not note the following: the sale of Marilyn’s hacienda became embroiled in the courts due to multiple offers to purchase the house; and by that time, Eunice Murray was no longer involved. Designated by the probate court, Inez Melson took over the sale of Marilyn’s hacienda and the liquidation of Marilyn’s possessions. The hacienda would not be sold until September of 1963. Also, Gary Vitacco-Robles informed me that Mrs. Murray only returned to the hacienda on one occasion: with Marilyn’s sister, Berniece, and Inez Melson to select a burial dress for Marilyn.
Mark Shaw Meets Mario Puzo: Gianni Russo
Gianni Russo portrayed Carlo Rizzi in the 1972 movie, The Godfather. He reprised his portrayal in the movie’s 1974 sequel. Thereafter, Russo appeared in twenty-five movies, most of which were either critical or financial failures. Still, his appearance in the two Godfather movies, considering his lack of any acting experience or formal training, afforded Russo a certain amount of fame; however, three decades plus would arrive and depart before Russo appeared on the Howard Stern Show, during which he imparted an amazing story that involved the former actor, famous mobsters and the world’s most famous actress, Marilyn Monroe. In Collateral Damage, Mark Shaw presented Russo as a reliable source and a man that his readers should believe. Amazing, to say the least, as you shall see.
Tracing the development of Russo’s yarn in the ever sensationalistic, voyeuristic and vulgar media has been humorous, but also informative: the edges of his Marilyn Monroe narrative changed constantly over the years, not unlike the edges of an amoeba.
In 2006, for example, Russo announced on the Howard Stern Show that Marilyn was in her 20s when he first encountered her and their affair began. Shall we engage in some simple arithmetic? When Russo arrived on Planet Earth, December the 12th in 1943, Norma Jeane was seventeen. Three years later on the first day of June in 1946, Norma turned twenty. At that time, Russo was a fresh two-year-old, still in diapers no doubt and pulling on a pacifier. A decade later, Marilyn departed her twenties on June the 1st in 1956; and she attended the premiere of The Seven Year Itch in Manhattan with Joe DiMaggio. At that time, Russo was a twelve-year-old boy and would not become a thirteen-year-old boy until December of that year. But wait. There’s more. For the entertainment website FactsVerse, Russo declared that his affair with Marilyn actually began when he was sixteen and she was twenty-three. The year must have been 1949 when Gianni Russo became an extremely advanced six-year-old in December of that year; but seriously and certainly, this is obvious: neither Norma Jeane nor Marilyn Monroe had an affair with Gianni Russo while they navigated through their twenties and most certainly not when Russo was six years old.
The former pizza clerk and brick mason, facts revealed later, must have realized his errors, or possibly a relative or friend, somebody, advised him that the arithmetic just did not work, advised him that he appeared and sounded foolish; so, in 2019, he began to alter his story. In March of 2019, he told The Sun that his Marilyn affair really began when he was fifteen years old and she was thirty-three. But then, in a 2020 article published by the website IrishCentral, he revised his age upward to sixteen; but he left Marilyn’s age at thirty-three. At least the arithmetic worked in Russo’s favor.
During an interview, Russo reported to Mark Shaw that he first encountered Marilyn one day in 1959 when he was working as a shampoo boy for the hairstylist Marc Sinclaire. One of his lovely customers, who he had yet to recognize, began “moaning” as he messaged her head. She thanked him for “being good at this,” before, as he said, “It hit me. I was shampooing Marilyn Monroe” (Shaw 160). You can believe Russo’s ridiculous anecdote if you like; but speaking only for me, of course, I do not believe for one minute that he was allowed to shampoo the hair of the world’s most famous actress without being told her identity beforehand or that he would not have immediately recognized her, particularly since Some Like It Hot had been released with considerable fanfare in mid-March.
Mark Shaw Did Not Reveal Everything About Gianni Russo
In 1972, following The Godfather’s release, and its resultant acclaim, Gianni Russo began to receive some media attention. Donna Morel, a California attorney and incredible researcher, provided me with two newspaper articles about the unknown and inexperienced actor. What the articles revealed is slightly curious and puzzling.
According to a Thursday, March the 23rd, 1972 Akron Beacon Journal newspaper article, written by Jerry Parker, Russo reported that he spent most of his adolescence, his teenage years, working long hours, both during the work week and on weekends, behind a Staten Island pizza counter. Parker then added: At 18, by his own account, he was a $10-an-hour bricklayer. Since Russo was born December the 12th in 1943, he must have stacking bricks in late 1961. Please note: Russo never mentioned his relationship with Marilyn Monroe to Jerry Parker. Why?
In another 1972 newspaper article written by Margo Coleman, featured in both the Oil City, PA, Derrick, on Friday, December the 22nd, and the St. Cloud Daily Times on Wednesday, December the 27th, Russo asserted that his air-conditioning company had won the contracts to install $9M worth of air-conditioning in the new MGM Hotel in Las Vegas. Evidently, the newspaper fact-checked Russo and learned that those contracts had been let to a Dallas Firm called Continental Mechanical which, alas, has never heard of Russo. Similarly, Russo mentioned his olive oil company and Russo Pasta Products, both of which, he announced, had been purchased, evidently from a man named Vincenzo La Rosa; however, Miss Coleman humorously noted: This will no doubt come as a surprise to Mr. V. La Rosa and his sons who are unaware of having sold their pasta company to Russo—or anyone else. Please note again: Russo never mentioned his relationship with Marilyn to Margo Coleman, either. Why?
To close the loop on Russo’s pasta company, according to my research, V. La Rosa and Sons Macaroni Company began operating in Brooklyn in 1914. Evidently, the American Italian Pasta Company (AIPC) eventually acquired La Rosa’s macaroni operation. Then in 2010, Ralcorp Holdings acquired AIPC followed by ConAgra Food’s acquisition of Ralcorp in 2013. All of the preceding companies are now a part of the multinational corporation, Tree House Foods.
Allow me a brief return to Russo’s balderdash, that his affair with Marilyn actually began while he was one of Marc Sinclaire’s shampoo boys in 1959. Considering what Russo told the Akron Beacon’s Jerry Parker in 1972, the fifteen-year-old must have toiled all those long hours behind the pizzeria’s counter in Staten Island and then headed to Manhattan and his hair washing gig. Marilyn Monroe, he alleged, was a regular customer who appreciated his hair washing skills. At any rate, Russo asserted that Marilyn summoned him to the Waldorf Astoria hotel for a private shampooing during September of 1959, approximately three months before his 16th birthday. That slice of baloney created yet another problem for Russo: his assertion about Marilyn’s residence did not intersect with reality even slightly.
After Marilyn left the Greene’s Connecticut farmhouse in early 1955, she moved into Manhattan’s Gladstone Hotel; but she soon relocated into a more elegant one bedroom suite in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. That suite proved to be too expensive for Marilyn Monroe Productions; so, in late 1955, Marilyn relocated her residence again: she moved into a five room apartment at 2 Sutton Place South. Additionally, after she married Arthur Miller in June of 1956, the newlyweds purchased a luxury apartment located at 444 East 57th Street. She maintained that apartment even after she and Miller separated in 1959 and then divorced. Obviously, then, in 1959 Marilyn did not summon Gianni Russo unto her for a private shampoo at her Waldorf-Astoria residence: she was not living there.
Certainly Mark Shaw’s source, while being imbued with braggadocio, also has a real aversion to telling the truth; and Shaw did not tell his readers the full truth about Gianni Russo, either.
During his February 2005 appearance on Howard Stern’s program, and in various Internet articles, Russo asserted that his sexual cavorting with Marilyn lasted for only a weekend; but evidently, a brief cavort with her was not sensational enough; so he began to report that the relationship lasted off and on for four years. If Marilyn was thirty-three years old when the affair began, she must have been thirty-seven when the four-year affair ended. Not possible, of course: Marilyn died at the age of thirty-six.
Additionally, Russo reported to Mark Shaw that Marilyn was as beautiful as ever at age thirty-three (Shaw 161). Similarly, in various articles and interviews, Russo reported that the movie star was a great lover―the best, he often asserted: she simply wanted to please her partner. But then, during a 2020 Howard Stern interview on October the 6th, Russo told the vulgar shock jock that Marilyn was not really a good lover because she was like a baby. He also reported to Stern that Marilyn was in her mid-20s during their affair and did not have a great body: she was slightly fat. He also told Stern during that interview: I was with her for three days, Wait a minute: I thought the affair with his slightly fat, rotten lover lasted four years. Like most inveterate fabulists who frequently create anecdotes from the whole cloth of their imaginations, he simply could not keep his fabrications aligned. As I have already demonstrated, Gianni Russo was still a youngster when Marilyn was in her mid-20s. Besides, any man who alleged that Marilyn in her mid-twenties was unattractive is―well, pick any pejorative you like.
Like Robert Slatzer, another inveterate fabulist that preceded Russo, a photograph in the latter’s possession, he has asserted, proved his purported relationship with Marilyn. In the photographic panel displayed below, on the left is the aging, former actor seated beside his cropped photograph; and on the right is the actual photograph which includes another unidentified man also looking sideways at Marilyn. Russo has invariably asserted the following about that photograph: 1.) The shirtless man facing away from the camera, looking sideways at Marilyn, is him; 2.) Mafia don Sam Giancana snapped the photograph; and 3.) Giancana took the photograph at Cal-Neva Lodge in July of 1962 during Marilyn’s purported Weekend from Hell, the now infamous weekend of July the 28th.
In July of 1962, Russo was eighteen years old; and he would not leave his teenage years until mid-December of 1963. By his own admission, at age eighteen, Russo was building masonry walls in the Greater New York Area. So, how could he also have been in California cavorting with a gang lord and the world’s most famous actress? Besides, the man in the photograph appears to be older than eighteen, possibly in his mid to late twenties, and his face cannot be seen. Plainly, then, the man in the photograph could be any man, and the photographer could have been anybody; but the real problem with that snapshot follows the photograph.
After the publication of Russo’s book by St. Martin’s Press in 2019, Donna Morel began to investigate Russo and his sensational assertions about Marilyn Monroe, his alleged relationship with the actress and his assertions about her death. Donna uncovered the two newspaper articles that she provided to me along with a press release pertaining thereto, a series of photographs that had been taken at Cal-Neva lodge, the now infamous late July weekend in 1962; and the press release appeared to contradict several of Russo’s assertions. After diligent hunting and research, Donna located an individual who was a guest at the Cal-Neva Lodge the weekend of July the 28th in 1962 and was also married to one of the entertainers who performed briefly at the lodge that weekend. The source Donna located, now past the age of eighty-five, requested anonymity; therefore, hereafter I will refer to that individual as the Married Guest.
Donna initially wrote the Married Guest a letter in April 2019 which included Donna’s telephone number. Eventually, in May of 2019, Donna received a telephone call and a story about Russo’s photograph that completely contradicted the yarn spun by the Hollywood Godfather. Recently, Donna graciously provided me with the Married Guest’s telephone number. On Tuesday, August the 10th, 2021, at 10:00 AM, I engaged Donna’s source in a ninety minute conversation. The story I received confirmed what Donna had already reported to me. The individual to whom Donna and I spoke took the photograph, not Sam Giancana, who, according to the actual photographer, was not even at Cal-Neva that weekend. The Married Guest admitted to knowing the gang lord well and humorously commented: Sam Giancana never took a photograph of anybody in his entire life!
As you have probably already assumed, the man in the photograph was most certainly not Gianni Russo; the man was an employee, a roadie who worked for an entertainer who performed that July weekend. Unfortunately, the Married Guest could not recall the roadie’s name but commented that he was a nice man, not boy. Furthermore, when I asked if Robert Kennedy was at Cal-Neva that weekend, I received laughter and a firm absolutely not. To my question about the presence of mobsters other than Sam Giancana, I received a precise answer: There were no mobsters there. To my question regarding the alleged yarns about all the bad things that happened to Marilyn Monroe that weekend, the Married Guest replied: Nothing bad happened to Marilyn. It was a big party and everybody enjoyed themselves, including Marilyn. According to the Married Guest, the blonde movie star was a very funny gal but she did get drunk one night. Before we ended our dialogue, my conversational partner expressed dismay and amazement with Gianni Russo’s stories. Truly, everyone who listens to Russo talk should be dismayed and amazed, a statement that will become even clearer as we proceed; and I hasten to denote this: two reliable sources who were also guests at the Cal-Neva Lodge that weekend, Betsy Hammes and the actor Alex D’Arcy, told Donald Spoto virtually thirty years ago that Giancana and his gang were not there. Their testimony has been completely ignored, not only by Mark Shaw, but the entire risible Marilyn-Was-Murdered-World.
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive, Sir Walter Scott admonished. One lie leads to another and that one leads to another and yet another and another.
Marilyn’s Purported Weekend From Hell
That infamous July weekend has a singular significance in Russo’s incredible yarn. Marilyn was there, according to Russo, because the MOB wanted to capture photographs of her in a wanton threesome with the middle Kennedy brothers. Those photographs could then be used as leverage against the Kennedy Administration, primarily the attorney general, and force the politicians to cease antagonizing organized crime and associated mobsters. The preceding scenario is nothing new. The alleged Weekend from Hell has been written about and debated for decades; and the written accounts have been filled with inconsistencies and contradictions. What Russo alleged and reported to Mark Shaw simply adhered to that pattern.
Gianni Russo’s account of that weekend, as reported by Shaw, has a surrealistic flair. After Marilyn learned of plans to film her in a threesome with John and Bobby Kennedy, she became extremely angry. According to Shaw according to Russo, Marilyn lit into Bobby right in front of me and anyone else within earshot; and Russo also claimed that he actually heard “Marilyn screaming” from her cabin (Shaw 163), a noteworthy first: not even one of the many conspiracist writers who alleged that Marilyn endured a horrific weekend ever alleged that Marilyn was in her cabin screaming. The commonly accepted scenario describes Marilyn as a woman completely gone, knocked out, so drunk and drugged that she could barely walk. Likewise, not even one of the conspiracist writers alleged that the Attorney General of the United States was in Tahoe that weekend or that the President of the United States was scheduled to also be there, but like a coward, failed to show. With that in mind, ponder the following.
President Kennedy’s itinerary for that weekend proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, and to a mathematical certainty, that he was never scheduled to make an appearance at the Cal-Neva Lodge.
Friday, July the 27th, was a busy day for President Kennedy. He engaged in two policy meetings and four meetings with foreign diplomats, not including the luncheon he hosted honoring the Prime Minister of Laos.
After meeting with James Loeb, the American Ambassador to Peru, he left DC for Hyannisport and a relatively festive weekend. On Saturday, the 28th, he celebrated the First Lady’s 33rd birthday while sailing near Hyannisport. Then on Sunday, the 29th, the president and the First Lady attended mass at St. Xavier Church, followed by a cruise to Egg Island accompanied by several friends. On Monday, the 30th, the president returned to DC.
Keep in mind that Russo stated unequivocally: Robert Kennedy was at the Cal-Neva Lodge that July weekend. Russo also insinuated that the attorney general arrived on Friday, July the 27th. With that in mind, ponder the following.
On the evening of July the 26th in Los Angeles, the attorney general delivered a speech to the National Insurance Association, during which he spoke primarily about civil rights and equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of race. I have a Department of Justice transcript of his speech. A photographer, Charles Williams, took the photograph displayed below. Standing to Robert Kennedy’s right, shaking his hand, was a judge named Jefferson while the president of the NIA, Theodore A. Jones, stood to Robert Kennedy’s left.
During the day following his speech, Friday, July the 27th , Robert Kennedy returned to Washington; and then on Saturday, the 28th, he joined the president and Jacqueline for her 33rd birthday celebration. The Boston Globe reported on that festive event in the newspaper’s Sunday edition: Among those present, wrote Frank Falacci, were Attorney General and Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy.
To end this recitation of Robert Kennedy’s itinerary, he was in Washington on Monday, July the 30th, where he spoke to a large group of educators to open the President’s Council on Youth Fitness. Energetic Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy gave a pep talk on the importance of physical fitness yesterday, reported a Port Chester New York newspaper, The Daily Item, in its July 31st edition.
Obviously, then, Robert Kennedy was not with Marilyn Monroe at Cal-Neva Lodge at any time during the weekend of July the 28th as absurdly asserted by Gianni Russo; and for a man of his ilk to assert as much, along with all the other garbage he has asserted, borders on deranged if not criminal behavior. But then, he maintains that is exactly what he was―a criminal, and a murdering criminal at that.
Finally, Gianni Russo has tendered an opinion regarding Marilyn’s death, has stated that he knows how she was murdered and who murdered her; but I will discuss that piece of Russo prattle when I discuss Mark Shaw’s hypothetical scenario regarding Marilyn’s death.
A Disgraced Policeman: Sgt Jack Clemmons
Sgt Jack Clemmons was the first police officer to arrive at Fifth Helena on Sunday, August the 5th. Remarkably, Sgt Clemmons was a friend of Marilyn’s first husband, Jimmie Dougherty. As an aside, it is actually a misnomer to label Dougherty Marilyn’s husband: he married Norma Jeane when she was barely sixteen years old; they divorced when she was twenty. Dougherty often testified that he never met and did not know Marilyn Monroe; but on the morning of August the 5th, after Clemmons left Fifth Helena Drive, he telephoned Dougherty and broke the news of Marilyn’s death, which he called, at that time, a suicide.
Mark Shaw evoked Sgt Clemmons as a source a few times in Collateral Damage. The sergeant initially appeared on page 157 as Jimmie Dougherty’s friend. Then, many pages later, Shaw noted Sgt Clemmons’ concern with the time that elapsed before the police were notified after the discovery of Marilyn’s body, some four to five hours, Shaw asserted incorrectly. Then Shaw offered a Clemmons’ direct quotation, evidently lifted from one of Clemmons’ many interviews now available on YouTube: Someone can’t swallow that many barbiturates without throwing up, Clemmons evidently testified, therefore she could have gotten drugs in her body by another method. According to Shaw, Sgt Clemmons suspected that Marilyn had, in fact, vomited, but all traces of it may been cleaned up before he arrived (Shaw 329); the sergeant also concluded that the murder weapon was possibly a suppository or an enema. Shaw also mentioned that Sgt Clemmons observed additional empty containers of pills and scattered capsules and pills of another nature (Shaw 592), meaning obviously that capsules and pills had been dropped either in Marilyn’s bed or on the white carpeted floor, something I had neither read nor heard before.
Eventually, Shaw landed on Sgt Clemmons’ story that he observed Eunice Murray operating a washing machine and clothes dryer close to dawn, obviously destroying evidence of vomit or another bodily discharge (Shaw 601), which could have proved Marilyn was murdered. In fact, Marilyn did not own a washing machine or a clothes dryer. She used a laundry service; but Shaw did not allow that fact to encumber him or his speculations about Marilyn’s bodily discharges, the evidence Eunice Murray possibly destroyed.
Within the text of Murder Orthodoxies, I devoted many words to Sgt Jack Clemmons and his testimony to many conspiracist authors from Robert Slatzer to Anthony Summers to Donald Wolfe, who became a close friend of Jack Clemmons. I also traced the testimony the sergeant offered during the many interviews he gave and during the many television documentaries on which he appeared, until his death in 1998.
For thirty-six years, Sgt Clemmons declared that Marilyn Monroe did not commit suicide: she was murdered by an injection administered directly into her heart by Dr. Ralph Greenson. Certainly, a scientific impossibility, proven by Dr. Noguchi’s autopsy and Dr. Abernathy’s toxicological tests; but evidently, the once LAPD COP repeated the heart injection theory so many times that he actually grew to believe that event actually happened when, in fact, it did not.
Jack Clemmons’ testimony was often inconsistent and contradictory; and his recollections of August the 5th, what he was told by those present and what he saw, changed over the passing years. He even began to assert that Marilyn’s house and her bedroom, even her bed and her bedside table, were exceptionally tidy, appeared to have been cleaned with all things neatly arranged. One look at the police photographs taken that August morning clearly indicated otherwise. Remember, according to Mark Shaw, the sergeant also allegedly saw pills and capsules scattered here and there.
Sgt Clemmons’ career as a policeman came to a dishonorable end in 1965 due to his involvement with Frank Capell and the Thomas Kuchel libel incident. Like Frank Capell, Jack Clemmons evidently did not have a problem twisting the facts. If you want to read more about Sgt Clemmons, here is a direct link to Murder Orthodoxies, August the 5th in 1962. Follow the links at the bottom that page to subsections featuring the first officer at the scene of Marilyn’s death.
A Professional Anti-Communist: Frank Capell
Frank Capell hated Communism, and he hated anybody who promoted or even sympathized with the Communist philosophy. He was quite literally a professional anti-Communist. Capell considered the Kennedy clan to be Communists, otherwise known pejoratively as Commies. So he hated the entire clan just on general principles; but he specifically hated Robert Kennedy. Once the former attorney general announced that he would seek a New York senate seat, the anti-Communist crusader knew that the attorney general would use that senate seat, if elected, as a catapult to the presidency, which had to be prevented. Therefore, enlisting the assistance of LAPD sergeant Jack Clemmons, and New York City media personality Walter Winchell, Capell wrote and published The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe, a scurrilous political hit piece aimed at stopping the most dangerous American Commie of them all.
After using the unbridled fabulist, Gianni Russo, as a significant source, Mark Shaw used Frank Capell as his most significant, a peculiar subterfuge, indeed.
Within the text of Murder Orthodoxies, I devoted a complete subsection and many words to Frank Capell, his anti-Robert Kennedy diatribe and the false imputations therein; so I am not going to repeat all of those words here. I hope you will follow this direct link and read Some Anti-Kennedy, Anti-Communists. I would be remiss, however, if I did not note a few important considerations.
Frank Capell and his associates, which included Maurice Ries, the originator of the MM/RFK affair yarn, were the first aggregation to link Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy in an affair; they were also the first to insinuate that Marilyn’s death could have involved the former attorney general: he had recanted on a promise to leave his wife, Ethel, and marry the actress. That broken promise prompted Marilyn to threaten public exposure of her affair with the young Kennedy as a form of retribution; but Robert Kennedy could not allow that to happen. Besides, as Capell noted, Communists simply eliminated persons who had become threats by using murders disguised as suicides, heart attacks and accidental deaths. Is that what happened to Marilyn Monroe? Was Marilyn about to do some talking, (Capell 57) he wondered rhetorically and asserted that Communists have no aversion to murder. Despite his proclamations, Capell’s political diatribe did not present any tangible or verifiable evidence to support that Bobby Kennedy was even romantically involved with Marilyn, much less enmeshed in her death. He offered only opinion and cleverly worded insinuations.
Capell denounced the investigation of Marilyn’s death and her autopsy, which he considered to be hopelessly flawed, incompetent and incomplete. Marilyn’s autopsy findings, according to Capell, did not reveal barbiturates in her organs, only the tested sample of her blood, a false statement. He also asserted that the toxicology reports did not mention Chloral hydrate, which, according to the newspapers, had been found in Marilyn’s blood; but Capell failed to mention or publish an August 13th amendment which indicated Chloral hydrate in Marilyn’s blood and pentobarbital in her liver. Displayed below are the two reports.
Since Marilyn’s stomach was empty at autopsy, Capell asserted that the drugs must have entered her body via an injection; but once again, he failed to note an important detail: the concentration of pentobarbital in Marilyn’s liver, 13.0 mg%, was three times higher than the concentration in her blood, 4.5 mg%, completely consistent with a large ingested overdose. With an injection, or a hot shot, that relationship would have been exactly reversed; but then Capell often engaged in cherry picking, as indicated by his flawed analysis of the toxicology reports.
Still, Mark Shaw presented Frank Capell as a diligent investigator, one who searched for the facts leading to the truth, when nothing, in fact, could have been further from the truth. For instance, Capell noted that the attorney general often stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel when he visited Los Angeles; and one of his visits is an interesting one (Capell 57), Capell proclaimed, referring to Robert Kennedy’s visit to Los Angeles on July the 26th and 27th in 1962. Capell presented a copy of an itemized accounting of the hotel’s charges to Kennedy’s room. Capell accusingly revealed that the attorney general had the charges billed to the National Insurance Association, obviously a deep and dark secret, and that his inquiry disclosed that the National Insurance Association […] was originally known as the National Negro Association, made up of some individuals who have connections with small negro insurance companies in the South […] (Capell 57). As I have already noted herein, the attorney general delivered a speech to that business association on the night of July the 26th and then returned to Washington on the 27th. Obviously Capell was not as diligent an investigator as Shaw alleged; he did not even investigate the purpose for Robert Kennedy’s visit to Los Angeles during those two days; and if he did, he did not disclose that information, another example of gross cherry picking along with excluding pertinent evidence. Capell’s only purpose was to toss vague imputations at the National Insurance Association and Robert Kennedy.
You might be wondering how Mark Shaw presented the accounting of hotel charges. Shaw noted: the accounting proved that Robert Kennedy was in Los Angeles on the 26th and the 27th and would have permitted him two days within which to have spent time with Marilyn (Shaw 483), a completely false, misleading statement. According to FBI file 77-51387-284, pertaining to Robert Kennedy’s arrival in Los Angeles on the 26th, his airplane arrived late. At 11:15 PM, his airplane had yet to land. The FBI file did not denote the precise moment of Robert Kennedy’s touchdown; but it is clear he did not deliver his speech until quite late Thursday or quite early on Friday. Then on Friday the 27th, he would have spent at least eight hours, five and one-half of which would have been in the air, returning to Washington, DC, assuming he had booked a non-stop, coast-to-coast flight. Obviously, Shaw’s assertion about the amount of time Robert Kennedy could have spent with Marilyn was a gross exaggeration. As an aside, you might be wondering: why was the FBI concerned about the attorney general’s flight? FBI file 77-51387-287 indicated that his life had been threatened that day via an anonymous telephone call; and earlier on July the 17th, a similar anonymous telephone threat announced that Kennedy’s going to die. Obviously, the FBI had reason to be concerned.
Mark Shaw’s False Mystery
Capell published a copy of an invoice from Arthur P. Jacobs Company, Inc., displayed below, dated July 31, 1962, which noted the cost of three telegrams the company had sent on Marilyn’s behalf, one to Steve Allen and another to Phil Silvers, both sent on June the 11th. On June the 13th, the Jacobs Company dispatched a telegram to Robert Kennedy and his wife, Ethel. Capell noted:
Stories made the rounds that Bobby Kennedy interceded with 20th Century Fox on Marilyn’s behalf when she was dropped, since she sent a personal telegram to him at McLean, Virginia, as soon as her contract had been canceled by 20th Century Fox (Capell 57).
Evidently, Capell did not employ his keen investigative skills to discover why Marilyn sent a personal telegram to the attorney general; and likewise, he did not attempt to discover the text of the telegram. Mark Shaw merely lifted this receipt directly from Frank Capell’s 1964 pamphlet and included a copy of it in Collateral Damage.
Shaw then noted that Capell had secured the document from Marilyn’s accountant, Arthur P. Jacobs. By his own admission, the entire situation mystified Shaw; but more importantly he noted: The substance of the telegram is unknown and why Marilyn would have sent it to both of them [Bobby and Ethel Kennedy] is unknown but if Ethel became aware of the telegram, it may have caused her to question Bobby about his relationship with the movie star (Shaw 483). The innuendo in the preceding statement is remarkable: Shaw implied that Ethel did not know about the telegram even though it must have been delivered to the Kennedy’s home in McLean, Virginia. Also, his assertion that the text of the telegram, and Marilyn’s motivation for sending it, still remained a mystery was, and is, completely false; and Shaw’s analysis of the mystifying situation is acutely problematic.
First. Marilyn had been struggling with Fox since her odd dismissal for appearing at the president’s birthday celebration and the Democrat Party fund raiser at MSG earlier in May of 1962. After Darryl Zanuck re-assumed management control of Fox, he instructed those involved in Marilyn’s odd dismissal to solve their problems with her immediately. As a result of Zanuck’s directive, Marilyn became heavily involved with the Fox negotiations in an attempt to obtain various concession from the studio. Ultimately, she won those concessions, and Fox rein-stated her; but at the time of her death, the revised contracts remained unsigned.
Second. Shaw incorrectly identified Arthur P. Jacobs as Marilyn’s accountant. He and his company were, in fact, Marilyn’s press agency; Patricia Newcomb worked for Jacobs; he eventually became a movie producer. His production company, APJAC Productions, produced Planet of the Apes and all that movie’s sequels.
Third. The content of the telegram that Marilyn sent to both Robert and Ethel Kennedy is known and has been known for many years. Even Anthony Summers, thirty-six years ago in 1985, published the text of that message and included an actual copy of the telegram. Below is a transcription of Marilyn’s witty and humorous expression of regret followed by a copy of the actual telegram.
Dear Attorney General and Mrs. Kennedy: I would have been delighted to have accepted your invitation honoring Pat and Peter Lawford. Unfortunately, I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. After all, all we demanded was our right to twinkle.
Marilyn Monroe
Fourth. While Donald Spoto reported that Peter and Pat Lawford tendered the invitation to attend the party honoring them, Gary Vitacco-Robles reported that the invitation actually originated with Ethel Kennedy. Ethel Kennedy’s invitation, Gary asserted, disputes the allegations of an affair between her husband and Marilyn (Vitacco-Robles KEv2:27). John Seigenthaler reported that Ethel constantly teased her husband because he had danced the twist with Marilyn during a Lawford dinner party, an event that will resurface later; but regarding the party that Marilyn could not attend, over 300 attendees joined the Kennedys to honor the Lawfords. According to Gary Vitacco-Robles, the celebration ended in a fun-filled pool party, during which many guests either jumped or were pushed into the pool fully clothed, including Ethel Kennedy. Gary noted: Time magazine described it as a “Big Splash in Hickory Hill,” and U.S. News and World Report announced, “Fun in the New Frontier: Who Fell, Who Was Pushed” (Vitacco-Robles KEv2:27). Frank Capell even noted cynically that many of the guests at Kennedy’s frequent parties ended up in the attorney general’s large swimming pool, fully clothed. My my. Imagine that. I must ask: was it not more appropriate and much better that the guests ended up in the swimming pool fully clothed instead of fully unclothed?
Fifth and finally. If Marilyn and Robert Kennedy had been involved in an affair, Marilyn would not have received that invitation, not from anyone. That should have been apparent to Shaw. Certainly, the attorney general would not have wanted his wife and mistress in the same location at any time; and most certainly, if Ethel knew of or even just suspected an affair, as insinuated by Shaw, she would not have wanted Marilyn anywhere near her or her husband. Also, I must comment: I am sure Robert Kennedy got a chuckle from Marilyn Monroe’s comparison of her struggles with 20th Century-Fox to a minority protesting and fighting for his or her rights.
Capell secured a copy of an Affidavit of Creditor from Agnes Flanagan, one of Marilyn’s many hairstylists; and Shaw referenced that affidavit. Curiously, Shaw reproduced a portion of Ms Flanagan’s affidavit in his book on page 482. Shaw failed to mention that Whitey Snyder, Marilyn’s personal makeup artist, also submitted an Affidavit of Creditor. With an enlargement of the June 26th hair-styling charges form Agnes Flanagan appended at the bottom, those affidavits are pictured below.
Shaw noted: of special importance is that the charges for Marilyn’s “Hairstyling” for “Dinner Party Peter Lawfords Home” is for Ms. Flanagan’s assistance on July 26 […] (Shaw 484). That date, Shaw asserted, coincided with the date of Robert Kennedy’s arrival in Los Angeles and his stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel. As I noted earlier, while Robert Kennedy delivered a speech in Los Angeles on July the 26th, his airplane arrived late, sometime after 11:15 PM. Also, as I noted earlier, Shaw published only a portion of the Flanagan affidavit; but Shaw obviously was not being attentive; or maybe his heated ardor to convict Robert Kennedy of Marilyn’s murder adversely affected his eye-sight. The affidavit from Ms Flanagan did not reference any hair styling charges for July the 26th. Her affidavit included charges for a June 26th Lawford dinner party; and an affidavit provided by Whitey Snyder, Marilyn’s personal makeup artist, also included charges for that date and dinner party. Clearly noted at the bottom of each affidavit are the words referencing the JUNE 26 DINNER. That Lawford dinner party in late June was the last time Marilyn and Robert Kennedy actually met. I suppose it is possible that Mark Shaw simply made an honest error, misread the affidavit; but considering the many other errors and misstatements in Shaw’s publication, I have doubts that are more than reasonable.
Frank Capell’s Dishonesty Mark Shaw Ignored
Like Sgt Jack Clemmons, Frank Capell’s career came to an ignominious end in 1965. Capell, along with the LAPD sergeant, a former LAPD motorcycle COP, Norman Krause, and an industrialist, John Fergus, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to libel Republican Senator Thomas Kuchel. Briefly, Senator Kuchel supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and allied himself with Robert Kennedy to ensure that the legislation, instigated by President John Kennedy, became law; but in Frank Capell’s abnormal world, that civil rights act represented Communism on the march, a march that had to be stopped. Capell, Sgt Clemmons and Fergus convinced former policeman Krause to sign a false affidavit which declared that an intoxicated Senator Kuchel and another man, also intoxicated, had been arrested by Krause in 1949 for driving under the influence of alcohol―and also for committing a homosexual act in said automobile. The conspirators hoped the resultant controversy and public’s outrage over Senator Kuchel’s behavior would end in his removal from public office.
As noted in the FBI files regarding the smear campaign against Thomas Kuchel, an unnamed but currently employed officer of the LAPD, more than likely Sgt Jack Clemmons, then still an LAPD sergeant, provided to several interested parties, a group which undoubtedly included Fergus and Capell, some damning information about Senator Kuchel, information obtained from unidentified sources within the Los Angeles Police Department. This damning information prompted those interested parties to investigate the senator’s reported arrest which led to the discovery of former police officer Norman Krause, who had retired from the LAPD in 1950 and joined the construction industry. It is clear from additional information in the FBI files, along with contemporaneous news-paper articles, that Fergus, Clemmons and Capell, who the conspirators represented to Norman Krause as a congressional investigator and implied that he was a federal agent, a violation of federal statutes, essentially enticed Krause to sign an affidavit based on false information and an implanted imputation: Senator Thomas Kuchel was the man Krause had arrested in 1949, fifteen years hence. After obtaining the signed affidavit from Krause, Fergus distributed at least one-hundred copies of it to government officials on the east coast and also delivered a copy to Senator Kuchel’s office. On October the 21st in 1964, Senator Kuchel contacted the FBI and requested a thorough investigation by that bureau and the Los Angeles Police Department. Those investigations followed soon thereafter.
The conspiracy ended unceremoniously for the conspirators. After three weeks of testimony from forty-three witnesses, on February the 17th in 1965, a Grand Jury indicted the four men involved and charged them with a felonious conspiracy to commit criminal libel and a felonious attempt to smear Senator Kuchel in order to affect his moral reputation. However, the four men agreed to plead either guilty or no contest to reduced misdemeanor charges and also agreed to publicly apologize to the senator. As part of that plea deal, the Los Angeles District Attorney dropped the charges against Sgt Clemmons, who had been encouraged to resign from the Los Angeles Police Department prior to the grand jury’s indictment. A Superior Court Judge fined Capell $500 and placed him on probation for three years. Although the Thomas Kuchel incident ended Capell’s unethical and dishonorable career, he managed to publish his anti-RFK diatribe as the summer of 1964 neared its end.
In Collateral Damage, Mark Shaw praised Frank Capell and the latter’s acumen for pursuing the truth while also noting that Capell’s reputation had been batted about by those associated with the Kennedy family (Shaw 484). Actually, Capell’s reputation had been batted about for years prior to 1964 and by more persons than just those associated with those implied to be unfairly dishonest Kennedys. Clearly, for an investigator who constantly searched for the facts and the truth, that is, according to Mark Shaw, Frank Capell and his minions did not have any qualms at all about twisting and creating facts to suit their personal agendas, regardless of who they slandered; and any author who presents Capell as a reliable, primary source about any topic, but particularly Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy, exposes himself to serious doubts and also serious questions.
It is remarkable indeed that Shaw could proclaim Capell’s truthfulness when the latter’s history of lies and distortions, his actual reputation and his involvement in the Thomas Kuchel incident, indicated otherwise: Capell and his reputation deserved to be batted about, to be questioned. Even Anthony Summers admitted that Capell, along with his pamphlet, were rendered suspect and worthless by poisoned politics, poison and politics that Mark Shaw simply ignored; and we are left to shake our heads incredulously.
Capell offered a surrealistic confirmation of Shaw’s foregone and erroneous conclusion, that Robert Kennedy caused the murder of Marilyn Monroe in order to silence her, and that was Shaw’s only interest in Capell. Shaw followed in Capell’s footsteps; and even though the actual facts were readily available to Shaw, and Capell, neither man was interested in finding or revealing them or revealing the truth; and so Shaw engaged in the same type of character assassination and calumny by innuendo as Frank Capell. Sad, in a way, that Mark Shaw would, for all intents and purposes, assume the mantle of a man as dishonest as Frank Capell simply to smear a decent man who was assassinated fifty-three years ago under suspicious circumstances.
Sources like Brenda DeJourdan, Cara Williams, Jane Russell and Janet Peters only offered opinions and beliefs and speculations. None of those sources offered any evidence whatsoever. Gianni Russo’s stories have been so inconsistent, contradictory and obviously false that he cannot be taken seriously as a reliable witness to anything involving Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy. And, too, it is clear that Russo’s only purpose has been to garner for himself an additional fifteen minutes of fame. He has revealed himself to be an incorrigible fabulist and braggart. Sgt Jack Clemmons and Frank Capell were poisoned many decades ago by hatred and malignant politics; and each man has been proven to be untrustworthy. Citing them as sources in the twenty-first year of the twenty-first century has not altered their lack of character, has not rehabilitated those prevaricators and libelists; and even though Shaw’s use of those sources is difficult to understand, he revealed his remarkable reason for doing so, which will appear later.
