Clem Heymann’s initial foray into Kennedy World, A Woman Named Jackie, appeared in 1989, five years after Peter Lawford’s death. Perhaps you, like me, find it rather odd that Peter Lawford was in eternity for five long years before Heymann released his first book about the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe, a publication that featured many lengthy quotations from the dead English actor. Additionally, 1989 was five years before Jackie Kennedy departed Planet Earth; but the ever exploitive Clem Hey­mann published an updated version of his book in 1994: the updated version included additional tidbits of a much juicier and much more salacious nature than appeared in the first edition. Then, in 1998, thirty years after Robert Kennedy’s assassination, Heymann published RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert Kennedy. Labeled unconscionable and ridiculous by Paul Notley, who also observed that the author lacked any capacity for moral outrage or any competence as a journalist.1“RFK Account Unconscionable” by Paul Notley. The Edmonton Journal, 5 December 1998. The article’s author also termed the book sloppy journalism […], hardly journalism at all, but quasi-pornographic gossip.Heymann’s candid biography prompted Liz Smith to opine: Nobody deserves C. David Heymann for a biographer.2“The Inexhaustible Kennedy Legacy” by Paul D. Colford. Newsday, Hempstead, New York, 8 October 1998.

Heymann followed his candid analysis of Robert Kennedy’s life with American Legacy: The Story of John & Caroline Kennedy, published in 2007. Caroline was fifty years old at that time. Two years later, in 2009, Heymann published Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story. By then, the father of the fifty-two year old Caroline Kennedy had been dead for forty-six years, Robert Kennedy for forty-one years, Jackie for fifteen years and John Kennedy, Jr. only for a mere ten. Caroline could have read Heymann’s publications; and she would have learned a considerable amount about her parents, her uncle, their complex and controversial sex lives, or at least their sex lives as portrayed by Clem Heymann. I do not know if she engaged in that pleasure. Many others did, however, which led to additional controversies and accusations of dishonesty. The same accusations that marred each and every biography produced by Clem Heymann also marred his Kennedy productions.

While he claimed that he based his accounts of Kennedy lives on the recollections of Kennedy friends and confidants, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Pierre Salinger and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., just to mention a few, as with his earlier works, literary columnists and critics, Kennedy biographers and historians greeted Heymann’s work with skepticism, derision and criticism. The critics dismissed the water color landscapes of Kennedy lives painted by Clem Heymann because the painter was dishonest and fraudulent. As frequently happened, Clem’s living sources would later contradict his assertions. Kristi Witker, for example, denied that she was romantically involved with Robert Kennedy as Clem had asserted; and Janet Villella denied that she provided the yarn to Clem that she had observed Robert Kennedy and Rudolph Nureyev3“Second ‘RFK’ Sex Story Denied.” Gannet News Service, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 16 September 1998.smooching in a telephone booth.

David Talbot, who wrote Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, simply refused to comment on Heymann’s Kennedy tomes. For Talbot, according to a July 2009 Guardian article, written by Chris McGreal, Heymann was not a credible or reliable Kennedy source. Also Laurence Leamer, who wrote three Kennedy biographies, summarily dismissed Heymann’s effort about the romance and affair shared by Jackie and Bobby Kennedy, noting that the publication represented a new standard of crudity and prurience. Leamer expressed a certain pity for Heymann, a man who would obviously stoop very low just to make a buck […]; and according to a June 2009 New York Daily News article, Pierre Salinger, John Kennedy’s former press secretary, described Heymann’s narratives using more graphic language, calling them bullshit, while Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a Kennedy historian, categorized Heymann4“Author Alleges Jackie and Bobby Kennedy Began Affair After JFK Assassination” by Chris McGreal. The Guardian. 6 July 2009.
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/07/bobby-jackie-kennedy-jfk-book>as a man who was beneath contempt.5“For Jackie Kennedy/Bobby Kennedy Affair Rumors Third Time Not Charm,” New York Daily News. 25 June 2009.
<https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/jackie-kennedy-bobby-kennedy-affair-rumors-time-not-charm-article-1.375546>

The posthumous publication of what will most likely be Heymann’s final book, Joe & Marilyn: Legends in Love, along with the publication of David Johnston’s Newsweek article about the dubious nature of Heymann’s previous work, sparked an explosion of criticism and commentary regarding the author’s unsavory and often dishonest literary practices.

As several Heymann detractors accurately noted, writing about the dead renders an author libel-proof: the dead are not in the position to file suit and neither are their families. Those facts, existential and legal, allow writers like Heymann to corrupt history and fabricate with impunity; and Johnston remarked that Heymann’s ability to finagle big advances from respected media outlets, which also praised and promoted the author’s fraudulent works, both astonished and bemused him; and he was certain that Heymann’s methods hadn’t changed over the years. Heymann fabricated so many people and events for his literary works, asserted Johnston, that the dubious biographer could not keep them straight.6Op. Cit. JohnstonHeymann’s many fabrications will appear again later; but if Heymann’s Kennedy narratives prominently featuring Marilyn Monroe and the biographer’s Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love undergo a comparative analysis, astounding and monumental discrepancies quickly become apparent.

Marilyn made her first appearance in Heymann’s A Woman Named Jackie. Heymann noted that Marilyn contributed $25K to John Kennedy’s presidential campaign fund. Joe Kennedy must have kicked in $30 million of his own money, wrote Heymann. Others contributed, including several Mafia figures. Marilyn Monroe gave $25,000, as did other stars. It was the most highly subsidized presidential campaign ever run in this country (Heymann: Jackie, 216). In Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, the same campaign fund became a slush fund, which suggested Kennedy corruption and greed. Odd. The Kennedy family was inordinately wealthy. Would they have risked creating or even need to create a slush fund that used campaign donations for financing illegal shenanigans? Perhaps, but I have my doubts.

By 2014, Marilyn’s donation to John Kennedy’s presidential campaign slush fund had diminished $17K: in Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love, Heymann asserted that Marilyn donated $3K to the campaign slush fund before reconsidering and donating an additional $5K (Heymann: Legends, 264 and 266). Which donation amount should we accept as fact? As far as I know, though, a canceled check signed by Marilyn Monroe showing any of the preceding amounts has never surfaced.

Generally, Marilyn’s sexual activity was a significant topic for Heymann. Specifically, the author focused on Marilyn’s purported sexual activities, her affairs and trysts with the middle Kennedy brothers. In A Woman Named Jackie, Heymann asserted the following: Jack and Marilyn met at Peter Lawford’s home in 1957 but saw little of each other until 1959 when JFK arranged to spend several uninterrupted days in Palm Springs with Marilyn. It was there that their affair began (Heymann: Jackie, 233: emphasis mine). Heymann did not reveal the calendar dates when Marilyn met then Senator John Kennedy in 1957 nor the calendar dates of those several uninterrupted days in 1959 when they were together in Palm Springs commencing their affair; and so I could not compare Heymann’s assertions with the actual locations of Marilyn and John Kennedy in 1957 or 1959, a relatively easy to accomplish comparison. Also, he did not actually pinpoint the location of the tryst in Palm Springs, either, a hotel, a house, a car’s back seat, and neither did he provide a source for that tidbit of gossip. Obviously, Heymann expected his readers to just accept his statements as facts and ignore any vagueries. Additionally, he did not offer any sort of verifiable evidence that might have pro­ven his geographical assertions, a usual shortcoming and actually a tactic of C. David Heymann’s; but then, there are inconsistencies with what Heymann alleged regarding the lover’s first meeting and their first sexual encounter in A Woman Named Jackie and what he asserted nine years later.

In RFK: A Candid Biography, Heymann stated: Since their initial walk on Peter Lawford’s private stretch of California beach in 1957, and their initial episode of sex at Frank Sinatra’s California home in 1959, Jack and Marilyn had connected a number of times on both West Coast and East (Heymann: RFK, 304: emphasis mine). Once again, Heymann did not provide any calendar dates, reveal his source or provide evidence to substantiate his assertions; but it seems reasonable and logical to assert this: the events to which Heymann alluded in A Woman Named Jackie and then in RFK: A Candid Biography were the same events. Likewise, it seems logical and reasonable to combine Heymann’s assertions from each book to further elucidate what Heymann actually alleged: Marilyn and John Kennedy experienced their first sexual rendezvous in 1959 at Sinatra’s Palm Springs home. However, additional investigation uncovered some problems with what Heymann asserted.

In 1947, Sinatra built a residence in Palm Springs, California, designed by architect E. Stewart Williams in a style that would eventually be termed desert modernism. That house, now famous, was christened Twin Palms: the architectural design featured two tall and slender palm trees. Sinatra occupied Twin Palms until 1954. That year, he leased the house to a couple from Texas and relocated into a larger residential compound about seven miles southeast of Palm Springs in Rancho Mirage. Sinatra eventually sold Twin Palms to the Texans in 1957. Obviously, then, Marilyn did not have a sexual encounter with John Kennedy in Frank Sinatra’s home in Palm Springs during 1959. Frank Sinatra then lived in Rancho Mirage. An honest mistake by Heymann and his researchers? Not likely. A fabrication? More than likely and what follows is why I believe Heymann’s assertions in A Woman Named Jackie and RFK: A Candid Biography were, and are, fabrications.

In Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love, Heymann asserted: Nothing happened at the first meeting between Kennedy and Monroe. Clem then reported: They [John and Marilyn] met and took a long walk along the beach. […] They met again in 1959, this time for what a­mounted to a furtive sixty-minute tryst in the Kennedy-leased penthouse suite atop the Hotel Carlyle in New York. (Heymann: Legends, 264). It appears, then, as if during the twenty or so years that elapsed between writing A Woman Named Jackie and Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love, Heymann translated the initial sexual encounter between Marilyn and John Kennedy from Palm Springs to Manhattan and the Carlyle Hotel’s penthouse. Obviously, an initial sexual encounter, even between the magical John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, can occur only one time and in only one place. Thus, the various accounts offered by Heymann in his various Kennedy publications regarding the initial sexual encounter between Marilyn Monroe and John Kennedy must be considered suspect if not judged to be outright fabrications.

Heymann claimed in A Woman Named Jackie that Peter Lawford perceived both the benefit and the danger of Marilyn’s association with John Kennedy. Lawford apparently saw John as a product, the sale of which could be enhanced by Marilyn’s celebrity and the patronage of her stardom. Of course, Lawford realized also that the threat of disclosure was a real concern. In Lawford’s astute political opinion, although, I understand, he was not a political creature, a husband committing adultery, humiliating and embarrassing his wife and family, could not and would not be elected to the office of President by the American people; and here I must confess to a certain confusion regarding John Kennedy’s womanizing: who knew, who was in the dark, and so forth.

Biographical accounts more than suggest that the president’s insatiable desire for sex was well known, which will become apparent. Purportedly, many of his friends and advisors often acted as his pimp, a service also provided allegedly by Peter Lawford, who was also an inveterate womanizer married to the presidential candidate’s younger sister. To maintain the apparent ruse that only a handful of John Kennedy’s most trusted pals and advisors knew he would crawl between the sheets with virtually any woman possessing a pulse, should be considered preposterous and silly. Certainly and fairly, it must be asserted that virtually all men possess and suffer from an insatiable desire for women, beautiful or otherwise. Still, according to Heymann, John Kennedy’s aides expressed concern when they learned that he planned to entertain Miss Monroe during the 1960 Democratic National Convention while Jackie remained behind in Hyannisport. At the time, Jacqueline was pregnant with the couple’s third child.

For decades it has been reported and believed by many persons that Marilyn attended the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, held between the dates of July the 10th, the second Sunday of the month, and July the 15th, the following Friday night. Heymann asserted in two of his books that Marilyn arrived in Los Angeles in early July to attend the convention and cavort with the presidential candidate. On the second night of the convention, for instance, Tuesday July the 11th, Heymann asserted that John Kennedy, along with Marilyn, Peter Lawford and Ken O’Donnell, one of Kennedy’s political advisors, attended a party thrown at Pucchini’s, a restaurant owned by Frank Sinatra. Then on Friday night July the 15th, according to Heymann, Marilyn was in the Los Angeles Coliseum when John Kennedy accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic National Committee. Hildi Green­son, the wife of Marilyn’s psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, sat next to Marilyn, so sayeth Heymann; but apparently Hildi did not accompany Marilyn to the nude swimming party at the Lawford’s beach house after John Kennedy’s acceptance speech, at least Heymann did not so allege: he alleged that only Marilyn swam nude with various sharks that night.

Various accounts of the alleged swimming pool parties that featured blatant nudity and overt sexual activity implies that the Lawford’s swimming pool was private and hidden from view; however, that suggestion was, and always has been, completely false. While a fence separated the Lawford’s property and swimming pool from Santa Monica Beach, the fence was not solid: a person on the beach could easily observe any activity in the Lawford’s pool. Lawford’s neighbors also could have observed any wild swimming pool parties and orgies.

During the day following, Saturday the 16th of July, according to Heymann, Marilyn attended a celebratory party thrown by the Senior Kennedy at Romanoff’s, a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Heymann alleged that Kennedy and Marilyn were together during that entire Saturday before the future president elect flew back to Boston, departure time not divulged.

On the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum website, those that are interested can view a video of his twenty-two minute, “New Frontier” acceptance speech as it was broadcast by CBS television in 1960, which began at 11:00 PM PCT. Occasionally, the television cameras scanned the large crowd, probably searching for attending celebrities, considering the proximity to Hollywood. If Marilyn Monroe was there, arguably the biggest movie star in the world in 1960, the cameras never located her; and I find that strange indeed. Also, there are no contemporaneous media reports that Marilyn attended the Democrat convention in 1960 or that she was even in Southern California; and that media void leads to obvious and pertinent questions: where was Marilyn and what was she doing during July of that year?7In his book, Carl Rollyson, Jr. made an egregious error when he reported that John Kennedy delivered his acceptance speech on July the 12th in 1960. Rollyson also reported that Marilyn attended a dinner party at Peter Lawford’s beach house with Sammy Davis, Jr., another egregious error by Rollyson. Link to video of acceptance speech: <https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/acceptance-of-democratic-nomination-for-president>

With the arrival of mid-June in 1960, the production of Let’s Make Love ended. Marilyn’s brief affair with her co-star, Yves Montand, which began in late April, also ended with the end of filming. Montand returned to his wife in Paris while Arthur Miller, Marilyn’s soon to be estranged husband, left for Nevada with John Huston. Playwright and director intended to scout filming locations for The Misfits and to refine the screenplay for what would be Marilyn’s final completed movie. For wardrobe and make-up tests, along with preproduction meetings required in order for filming to begin in late July, Marilyn departed for New York City on June the 25th. She arrived in Manhattan the following day.

During the first week in July, Miller joined Marilyn in New York City where, beginning on the 5th, she performed several screen tests for The Misfits. Then on July the 8th, according to biographer Gary Vitacco-Robles, Marilyn invited James Haspiel and the Monroe Six, a group of devoted fans, to view the wardrobe screen tests at the Fox-Movietone Studio on West Fifty-Fourth Street (Vitacco-Robles: ICON v2, 241). According to April VeVea, on July the 11th, Monday, the second day of the Democratic convention occurring in Los Angeles, Arthur Miller informed the Music Corporation of America that Marilyn was ill. Obviously her illness prevented her from engaging in the preproduction activities planned for that day and on the 12th in New York City. Additionally, on July the 11th during the Democrat convention, the emcee introduced the DNC’s Committee for the Arts, primarily many of Hollywood’s major movie stars of that era. Marilyn Monroe was not a member of the committee; that is to say, she was not one of the stars introduced.8Link to introduction video: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El-yJomvQAc>

On July the 13th, Wednesday, the fourth day of the Los Angeles convention, Marilyn located Ralph Roberts playing poker in Maureen Stapleton’s Manhattan apartment. According to Roberts’ memoir, Marilyn telephoned and asked him to give her a massage. Upon entering the Miller’s apartment, also in Manhattan, Roberts found Marilyn watching her television set as Arthur Miller slept in the couple’s adjoining bedroom. They’re showing the Democratic National Convention on television, she announced as Roberts unfolded his massage table. Would it be alright to have it on during the massage? (Roberts 32). Then on July the 14th, Thursday, the conventions fifth day, Marilyn sent Ralph Greenson a telegram from Manhattan, accompanied by a bouquet of roses. The telegram noted that she would be in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, July the 17th (Vitacco-Robles: ICON v2, 241). The most famous actress in the world would soon depart for the west coast.

The date on which Marilyn boarded an airplane and then flew to Los Angeles varies with biographer. Gary Vitacco-Robles indicated that she departed New York City on Thursday, July the 14th and arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday the 16th. Donald Spoto indicated that she departed on Sunday July the 17th and arrived the following day. April VeVea also indicated that Marilyn returned to Los Angeles on the 17th of July. According to Donald Spoto, Marilyn attended a therapy session with Dr. Greenson on the 18th of July, kept an appointment with her internist, Dr. Hyman Engelberg, and then met with Yves Montand, who had returned to America to make another movie. She departed for Reno, Nevada, by airplane on July the 20th. The following day, Huston filmed the first scene of The Misfits in Nevada. Regardless of the actual date Marilyn left New York City, she obviously did not participate in the events and shenanigans as asserted by C. David Heymann. Marilyn was not in Los Angeles during the week of July the 10th and she was not with John Kennedy during the Democratic National Convention in 1960. Besides, Judith Campbell alleged that she was John Kennedy’s play pretty during that eventful week.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention what J. Randy Taraborrelli asserted relative to Marilyn’s presence at the DNC’s 1960 political convention. In his literary effort, The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, the author alleged that the woman living that secret life flew into Los Angeles on July the 15th just to witness John Kennedy’s speech accepting the Democrat presidential nomination. Marilyn attended the historic event, according to Taraborrelli, with the nominee’s sister, Pat Kennedy Lawford; but apparently the television cameras of CBS that searched for celebrities could not locate John Kennedy’s sister or Marilyn. I hasten to note: Taraborrelli failed to mention Arthur Miller. Did the playwright stay behind in the Miller’s Manhattan apartment while Marilyn traveled to Los Angeles for a rendezvous with the presidential candidate? Tara­borrelli also asserted that Marilyn left Los Angeles immediately after meeting John Kennedy back stage following his speech. She boarded another airplane and flew into the inky black night sky, destination unrevealed by Tara­borrelli; but Marilyn must have returned to New York City: no other option was possible.

John Kennedy’s speech ended at approximately 11:30 PM Los Angeles time on the 15th. Allowing only ninety minutes for her brief meeting with John Kennedy and a rapid transportation to LAX, Marilyn must have boarded her return flight to Manhattan at approximately 1:00 AM on July the 16th, pacific time. The clocks in Manhattan would have registered 4:00 AM eastern time; therefore, she must have landed in New York City at approximately 9:30 AM eastern time on July the 16th, assuming she found a non-stop, coast to coast flight departing LAX at 1:00 AM pacific time. If we accept the dates provided by Donald Spoto and April VeVea, on the very next day, then, Marilyn boarded another flight and returned to Los Angeles. Possible? I suppose so, but not very realistic and certainly impractical; but then, if we accept the dates provided by Gary Vitacco-Robles, Marilyn was en route to Los Angeles on July the 14th, the 15th and the 16th; and therefore, she could not have attended John Kennedy’s acceptance speech at the Los Angeles Coliseum nor met him backstage on July the 15th.

Heymann asserted that Marilyn telephoned the White House and spoke to Jacqueline Kennedy. During her conversation with Jackie, Marilyn admitted that she and President Kennedy were having an affair; and according to Heymann, Marilyn also admitted that she would eventually replace the First Lady. How did Heymann learn of this telephone conversation? In A Woman Named Jackie, Heymann attributed the startling revelation to Peter Lawford, who had been dead for almost five years when A Woman Named Jackie reached book stores in America; but then, in Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love, he placed the telephone call anecdote in the mouth of Ralph Roberts, not only Marilyn’s personal masseur, but her confidant and a man who was virtually like her brother, a man who seldom spoke to the press or granted interviews about his relationship with Marilyn. Ralph Roberts died on April the 30th in 1999, fifteen years before CBS published Heymann’s final book. So, when did Heymann interview Ralph Roberts about Marilyn’s explosive telephone call to Jacqueline Kennedy? Heymann did not reveal the date of the Robert’s interview, yet another suspicious and deceased Heymann source. Still, why would Heymann attribute the anecdote to two different sources?

In 1989, when A Woman Named Jackie appeared, Ralph Roberts was still alive and available to contradict Heymann’s assertions; but Peter Lawford had entered eternity five years earlier in late 1984. When Hey­mann wrote Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love prior to his death in 2012, Ralph Roberts had joined Peter Lawford as a member of the dearly departed. Heymann was then free to put the telephone call anecdote in Ralph Roberts’ mouth, a more credible and powerful source than Peter Lawford, considering Roberts’ close relationship with the actress. As the years elapsed following Lawford’s 1984 death, several Marilyn biographers and historians began to question the assertions and accounts that Marilyn was actually close to Lawford or was even his friend. Besides, changing sources from book to book and using dead sources was common for Clem Heymann.

Donna Morel provided me with a list of quotations that Heymann reported came from the mouth of Ralph Roberts; but it is a well known fact that Roberts seldom spoke about his relationship with Marilyn, granted interviews about his dear friend, offered impromptu assessments of her behavior or spoke salaciously about her. As Donna correctly noted, Heymann attributed salacious comments about Monroe’s life that Roberts denounced as erroneous. The quotes contradict the on-the-record recollections of Roberts about Monroe. Donna then continued:

Stony Brook University’s Heymann collection, donated in 1997, (two years prior to Ralph Roberts’s death), contains no interview transcripts or taped conversations with Roberts. Heymann’s personnel files at Stony Brook containing documented interviews conducted by Heymann and his researchers that date as far back as the mid-1980’s provide no mention of any contact with Ralph Roberts. Additionally, in the listing of “interviewees” Heymann includes at the back of all of his previous books (many of those listed, I discovered, never gave interviews, and some are invented individuals), Roberts was never listed as an interviewee.

Clearly, everything Clem Heymann asserted about Ralph Roberts and his alleged quotations should be regarded, at best, with extreme suspicion, if not completely disregarded as incredible fabrications.

In A Woman Named Jackie, Heymann asserted that Marilyn spent several hours alone with John Kennedy in his duplex atop the Carlyle after John Kennedy’s birthday gala in May of 1962 (Heymann: Jackie, 366). However, in RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert Kennedy, Heymann asserted that Marilyn wished JFK an even happier birthday in one of the bedrooms at the Kennedy Suite in the Carlyle and then she found her way to another bedroom in the same suite, where she gave delight to her devoted moth, the attorney general (Heymann: RFK, 309). Similarly, in the text of Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love, Heymann asserted that a drunken Marilyn spent an hour in bed with JFK but passed the remainder of the night with Robert F. Kennedy, whose aggressive nature and perseverance had obviously paid off (Heymann: Legends, 314). Salacious and lurid and voyeuristic, of course, but most certainly untrue. As an aside, the comparison of Robert Kennedy to a moth came from Adlai Stevenson as quoted by Arthur Schlesinger. Each man attended the Krim’s after party and spoke with Marilyn. Schlesinger quoted Stevenson’s letter to a friend. Stevenson wrote the letter about his Marilyn encounter, which could only occur, he wrote, after breaking through the strong defenses established by Robert Kennedy, who was dodging around her like a moth around the flame (Schlesinger 590).

Marilyn’s escort for that evening in May of 1962, when the Democrat Party celebrated John Kennedy’s birthday slightly early and the Krims tossed an after party, was her ex-father-in-law, Isadore Miller.9Isadore is often also spelled Isidore.Heymann claimed that once the after party ended, Marilyn put Isadore in a taxi cab and then returned to the party and ultimately ended up in bed with the middle Kennedy brothers; but, as you might have already concluded, such was not the case. Marilyn and Isadore left the party together. Marilyn’s chauffeured limousine delivered Isadore to his apartment in Brooklyn during the early hours of May the 20th and then delivered the weary actress to her apartment where James Haspiel met her curbside. After speaking briefly with Haspiel, a conversation to which he attested, Marilyn retired to her apartment where, as Ralph Roberts attested, he gave her a message until she finally fell asleep. Marilyn did not spend the night with John or Robert Kennedy after the Krim’s party. In fact, she spent no time with them at all.

In what must be termed an egregious error, and certainly a humorous one as well, Heymann asserted that Marilyn saw President Kennedy on May the 19th in New York City during his birthday celebration, which occurred just two days ahead of his forty-fifth birthday, meaning in Heymann’s biographical world, John Kennedy was born on the 21st of May. Actually, John Kennedy was born on the 29th of May in 1917.

Heymann falsely asserted, that as a child, Norma Jeane had lived in a series of orphanages when in fact she lived in only one: the Los Angeles Orphans Home.

In yet another false assertion, in A Woman Named Jackie, Heymann declared that Marilyn’ s doctors had admitted her to Payne-Whitney Hospital multiple times in hopes of abating her addictions. Both agencies [the FBI and the Secret Service] also knew that Marilyn had on several occasions been in and out of New York’s Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in a futile effort to break her dependency on sleeping pills and alcohol (Heymann: Jackie, 364). In fact, Marilyn mistakenly admitted herself into Payne-Whitney on one occasion after being coerced into doing so by her therapist at the time, Dr. Marianne Kris. Only an appearance by an angry and threatening Joe DiMaggio secured her release.

Additionally, persons who were members of the actresses inner circle have disagreed with the repeated assertion that Marilyn Monroe was an alcoholic. Eunice Murray testified on several occasions that Marilyn seldom drank hard liquor or whiskey because those types of alcohol upset her stomach. According to Donald Spoto:

As for chemical dependence,  Marilyn was never an alcoholic: in fact, she had little tolerance for liquor, as the premiere party for How to Marry a Millionaire demonstrated. A few evenings of overindulgence make for good gossip but not an accurate diagnosis of alcoholism. […] Liquor often made Marilyn ill, and she had little tolerance beyond one or two modest drinks; she preferred champagne, which did not upset her stomach (Spoto 256 and 395).

Evidently, Clem found Marilyn’s autopsy confusing, as if Dr. Noguchi’s report had been written using an indecipherable language or a complex calculus. In RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert Kennedy, Heymann noted the following:

An autopsy conducted later that day by deputy medical examiner Dr. Thomas Noguchi found copious amounts of a wide array of barbiturates in Marilyn’s blood and liver. An examination of her stomach contents revealed a number of not fully dissolved Nembutal capsules but no evidence of Seconal (Heymann RFK 323-324: emphasis mine).

Many years later, in Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love, Heymann offered the following: Surprisingly, he found no trace of barbiturates in Marilyn’s stomach lining or digestive track […] (Heymann: Legends 355: emphasis mine).

Which one of the preceding assertions, separated by a time span of sixteen years, is correct? Well, the first assertion is completely false; and the second assertion suggests that the absence of undigested capsules surprised Dr. Noguchi, when in fact, the autopsy surgeon stated, on several occasions, that the absence of undigested capsules in the stomach of overdose victims was not at all unusual, a comment corroborated by Dr. Cyril Wecht, Dr. Boyd Stevens and Dr. Nicholas Cozzi. We must presume that only Clem Heymann experienced a false surprise; and regarding Marilyn’s stomach lining, Dr. Noguchi observed pinpoint hemorrhaging in her stomach wall beneath it, which, according to the autopsy surgeon, indicated that Marilyn had swallowed a large quantity of barbiturate capsules.

Clem Heymann frequently cannibalized quotations from previous books for reuse in subsequent publications; however, the quotations that he recycled were not always recycled verbatim. Additionally, the author often attributed the recycled quotations to different sources. For example, in A Woman Named Jackie, regarding President Kennedy’s friend, the actress Shirley MacLaine, Heymann asserted: Although Shirley and Jack never became lovers, she made a comment that could well have become his epitaph: “I would rather have a President who does it to a woman than a President who does it to his country” (Heymann: Jackie, 286). Nine years later, however, in his Robert Kennedy tome, Heymann used a similar quotation as an epigraph for his Chapter 15, entitled SEX: I’d rather have a president or an attorney general who does it to a woman than to the country (Heymann: RFK, 226: emphasis mine). Clem attributed the preceding recycled and discrepant comment to none other than Marilyn Monroe. Are we to accept that Shirley MacLaine and Marilyn Monroe offered the same preference and metaphor about John Kennedy’s sexual antics, preferring that he screw a woman instead of America? Why were the words attorney general missing from the book pertaining to Jacqueline Kennedy but those words appeared in Heymann’s candid biography of Robert Kennedy? What could possibly explain such an obvious discrepancy? Was the author just lazy and so he failed to revisit his notes or the text of his previous books? Did he merely fabricate so many quotations that he simply could not keep them organized in his mind. Did he suffer with a poor memory? Speaking only for me, of course, I believe and select all of the preceding reasons.

There are many other major discrepancies in Heymann’s books involving Marilyn, Joe DiMaggio and the Kennedy’s, not to mention major historical errors. One of them involves Marilyn’s Red Book of Secrets; but that contradiction will appear in the section dedicated to the legend of Marilyn’s Little Red Diary. In fact, there are many falsities in Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love. However, allow me to present one final contradiction or major falsity that involves Marilyn’s last day alive. What follows are the events of August the 4th as portrayed by C. David Heymann in A Woman Named Jackie and also Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love.

About 2:00 PM, Robert Kennedy, accompanied by his brother-in-law, Peter Lawford, arrived by car at Fifth Helena in Brentwood. Since Marilyn had spoken to Bobby the day before, when he agreed to visit her, a large Mexican buffet greeted the attorney general and the British actor along with a chilled magnum of champagne. According to Heymann, the alcoholic Marilyn was already drunk, semi-polluted. Yet again, Heymann failed to consult Marilyn’s autopsy report, or he simply ignored it. According to Dr. Abernathy’s toxicology tests, Marilyn’s blood did not contain any ethanol: she did not imbibe on the day of her death.

At any rate, Peter Lawford poured himself a glass of bubbly and went to sit by Marilyn’s swimming pool so the estranged lovers could talk privately. Soon, they began to argue and after about ten minutes of shouting, Marilyn became hysterical. She informed Bobby that she intended to call a press conference and expose the fraudulent Kennedy brothers.

After Marilyn’s threat, Bobby really lost his temper and informed Marilyn in no uncertain terms that she could no longer contact him or the president. With that, Marilyn became insanely angry, began shouting invectives and swinging her fists at Bobby. Wildly, she grabbed a nearby kitchen knife and lunged at her former lover; but Lawford, who had by then entered the kitchen where the two must have been quarreling, grabbed Marilyn’s arm and prevented her from stabbing the attorney general. The two men finally wrestled Marilyn to the ground and disarmed her, a wrestling match and take down that did not impart any bruises on Marilyn’s fair, white skin. Peter Lawford then telephoned and summoned Dr. Greenson, who arrived about an hour later (Heymann: Jackie, 369).

In Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love, Heymann recounted the events of August the 4th but with obvious differences, including the testimony allegedly obtained during an interview with Peter Lawford who claimed, according to Heymann, that Marilyn became hysterical, went batshit, and began to shout expletives. Finally, she totally lost control, and in her inebriated state tossed the contents of her half-filled glass of champagne at Bobby; but Peter Lawford, who had wandered inside just in case he had to separate the angry couple, received the mad champagne attack instead (Heymann: Legends, 349). Then, suddenly calm, for apparently, as she emp­tied her goblet of its bubbly, she also emptied her heart and mind of its venom, Marilyn apologized to Peter and offered him a napkin. Certainly odd, to say the least: the knife with which Marilyn attempted to stab the attorney general in Heymann’s narrative from twenty-five years previous had mysteriously and miraculously transformed itself into a glass of harmless champagne; and we know that Marilyn was not intoxicated: she was not drinking, and she had not consumed champagne or any other form of liquor.

One certainly questions how a biographer, a writer as experienced as C. David Heymann could make such an egregious error, allow such a major contradiction to remain in his tome. In his notes for the chapter in which the anecdote appeared, Heymann alleged that his source, Peter Lawford, altered his original story and transformed the kitchen knife attack into a champagne attack. Okeedoke. Eye witnesses often change their testimony; but when did Lawford change his?

Peter Lawford died in 1984 on Christmas Eve, five years before A Woman Named Jackie was published in 1989. Heymann also included the knife scenario in his biography about Robert Kennedy, published in 1998, nine years later. Giving Heymann the benefit of a slim doubt, something I am reluctant to do, perhaps he did not have time to correct his manuscript before A Woman Named Jackie was published in 1989. Heymann neither revealed how long he researched Jacqueline Kennedy’s life nor how long it took him to compose the seven-hundred page effort; but certainly, Heymann could have altered the text of RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert Kennedy. Why, then, did he choose to keep the knife scenario in his 1998 book, published fourteen years after Lawford’s death? By the time Atria Books published Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love in 2014, two years after Heymann’s death, Peter Lawford had been dead for three decades, thirty long years. He certainly did not change his testimony postmortem.

Finally, following the alleged violent scene that unfolded in Marilyn’s hacienda, Heymann asserted that Marilyn’s visitors contacted and reported the ugly events to Dr. Greenson; however, Clem was unsure regarding from where they placed that telephone call. In RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert Kennedy, Heymann quoted Peter Lawford as follows: We finally knocked her down—remember, violence that imparted no bruises on Marilyn’s fair skin10I consulted several medical websites in order to learn the factors that contribute to easy bruising. Each site listed some medical conditions and drugs which promote easy bruising, like aspirin or other blood thinners, Each site also noted the following two significant factors: aging and fair skin.—and managed to wrestle the knife away. Bobby thought we ought to call Dr. Greenson and tell him to come over. The psychiatrist arrived at Marilyn’s home within the hour (Heymann: RFK, 322). Clearly, the preceding quotation infers that Marilyn’s guests telephoned Dr. Greenson from her hacienda and then waited patiently for the psychiatrist to arrive. And yet, in Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love, after the champagne tossing incident, according to Lawford, according to Heymann, Robert Kennedy immediately exited Marilyn’s hacienda. Lawford followed the attorney general, and they drove away.  After we drove off, Lawford allegedly reported to Clem, RFK suggested we contact Marilyn’s psychiatrist—maybe he could help her. So I pulled into a service station and called Dr. Greenson from a public phone booth. I described the scene that had just taken place. Greenson thanked me and said he’d drive over to see Marilyn (Heymann: Legends, 349).11Speaking only for me, of course, I find Lawford’s reference to his brother-in-law as RFK slightly unusual and therefore, slightly suspicious.

Clearly, since the accounts contradict each other, both accounts of what purportedly transpired on August the 4th in 1962 cannot be factual, including the placement of the purported telephone call to Dr. Greenson; and even though David Heymann’s discrepancies and contradictions are more than astounding, they pale in comparison to what follows hereafter.