An Unrecognized, Hearing Impaired Marilyn Could Not Swim

Not one person in northern Mexico recognized Marilyn Monroe, not in the beach hotel bar nor the Mexican jewelry store where the soon to be newlyweds found their bands of gold. Certainly an oddity in my opinion.

Slatzer asserted that he paid $100 US for an engagement ring while he and Marilyn shopped at that Tijuana jewelry store. After slipping what looked like a genuine, flawless blue-white diamond […] onto her ring finger, he announced to all present: There―now we are officially engaged. Marilyn excitedly embraced Slatzer; and, as everyone in the jewelry store watched with open-mouthed surprise, she rewarded her soon to be husband with a great big kiss (Slatzer 158). Even after her overt display of affection, neither clerk nor customer recognized that the gorgeous and excited kisser that October evening was Marilyn Monroe. I wonder, keeping in mind that Marilyn was shoeless after leaving the attorney’s office, did the open-mouthed shoppers notice Marilyn’s bare feet?

Later that night, not one person in the Foreign Club, not even Carlos Arruza, who would have been familiar with Hollywood’s beautiful female stars, recognized America’s fastest rising cinema star, even though she had recently garnered accolades for the following four films: first, The Asphalt Jungle, then the Academy Award winning, All About Eve, followed by Clash By Night and then Don’t Bother to Knock. In January of 1952, as previously noted, the Foreign Press Association of Hollywood presented Marilyn with the first Henrietta statue for being voted the Best Young Box Office Personality in American cinema for the year of 1951. Was the Mexican press excluded from the Foreign Press Association? Her nude photographs, after their discovery, became a national, virtually a worldwide scandal when the story broke in June of 1952. In early September she acted as the Grand Marshal for the Miss America Beauty Contest and parade; and she also appeared at the première of Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business in Atlantic City. Marilyn was already inordinately famous by October of 1952. Yes, in my opinion, it is extremely odd that not one person in Tijuana recognized Marilyn Monroe, a famous movie actress whose rise to fame actually began in 1950, even before she became Joe DiMaggio’s girlfriend, which also added to her considerable celebrity and face recognition.

But then, Slatzer attempted to deflect any caviling doubt pertaining to the preceding oddity. He informed Anthony Summers unequivocally that Marilyn would not have been recognized: She was not looking like the raving beauty, Marilyn Monroe, Slatzer asserted. She had no makeup on, had her hair pulled back, looked just like any little girl going to Tijuana for the weekend, obliquely asserting, and falsely of course, that mousey Norma Jeane was plain and unbeautiful (Slatzer 115). Any-little-girl-Norma did not look like Marilyn Monroe unless she was properly made-up in late 1952, also a false implication. I, for one, cannot accept that Marilyn Monroe, with or without make-up, would not have been recognized by at least one person who would have reported her presence in Tijuana to the Mexican press.

By the way, Marilyn never mentioned, and no one has ever found, her blue-white diamond engagement ring. Never. Slatzer never mentioned that engagement ring to Anthony Summers. The weekend husband never mentioned the gold wedding bands; and apparently Robert F never mentioned Marilyn’s hearing impairment to Anthony Summers, either.

Marilyn suffered from Ménière’s disease or syndrome, Slatzer asserted, a condition that caused diminished hearing in her right ear. When she talked on the telephone, Slatzer observed, Marilyn invariably placed the telephone receiver to her left ear; but the photographic evidence confirms that Marilyn often listened with her right ear as well when she talked on the telephone. Besides, a recent study commissioned by cell phone manufacturers confirmed that right-handed persons, which Marilyn was, more often than not hold the telephone in their left hand against their left ear so they can keep their dominant, writing hand free. For those who are left-handed, the opposite applies.

Also, symptoms caused by Ménière’s syndrome are considerably more severe than diminished hearing in one ear; the symptoms, which grow progressively worse, include vertigo, poor balance, severe nausea and vomiting. Also, persons with the condition suffer an increased incidence of migraine headaches; and the syndrome can lead to complete deafness. While some afflicted persons experience brief attacks, most experience long durations of symptoms; and when the symptoms finally subside, those attacked are often exhausted and require several hours of sleep to fully recover. An extremely rare disease, very few persons suffer with it and those who do are usually over forty years old, an age Marilyn never reached.

Not one of Marilyn’s real husbands or real friends ever reported that she struggled with hearing loss, experienced vertigo or balance problems. No one ever reported, including Marilyn, that she struggled with migraine headaches. Certainly, diminished hearing, even in only one ear, would have adversely impacted Marilyn’s ability to sing; and vertigo or balance problems would have adversely impacted her ability to dance, also. And yet, the problems and difficulties that Ménière’s disease would have caused Marilyn have never been reported. Obviously, Slatzer artificially afflicted Marilyn with the rare syndrome simply to create a special detail about her that only he could reveal, a special secret, a contrivance designed to lend credence to his suspicious narrative, a suspicious narrative which asserted also that Marilyn could not swim.

According to Slatzer, on their initial date, they visited the beach after eating dinner. His date informed Slatzer that she was not much of a swimmer. She then stripped naked and only ventured into the ocean waist deep, suggesting, even though she did not fear nudity, she feared the water. After Marilyn moved into her hacienda on Fifth Helena in 1962, which had a swimming pool, Slatzer commented to her, so he asserted in his faux memoir, perhaps she would finally learn to swim.

I am not going to suggest that Marilyn was an Olympic swimmer; but based on the photographic evidence and the evidence provided by home movies taken by Milton and Amy Greene, Norman Rosten and Sam Shaw, Marilyn knew how to and could swim. Even according to Slatzer, she swam buff in the Pacific Ocean when they visited Rosarito Beach before their alleged trip down the center aisle.

Additionally, Marilyn swam in the hotel pool when she filmed River of No Return in Canada, photographs so prove; and she certainly swam in a pool while filming Something’s Got to Give in 1962, managing a combination breast stroke and back stroke, a dog paddle and a semi breast stroke. Also, according to Tommy Zahn, a legendary southern California surfer who befriended Marilyn and actually dated her in 1946, she was exceptionally agile in the water and more than physically fit. He and Marilyn frequently surfed in tandem, he testified. How likely is it that Marilyn would have surfed in the ocean if she feared the water or could not swim? Zahn also testified that Marilyn’s ability to withstand cold water impressed him (Eubank 93). Her ability to endure cold water calls into question Slatzer’s assertion that Marilyn left the water at Rosarito Beach because it was cold; and too, Slatzer never mentioned that his friend and lover of sixteen years was, at any time in her life, a Southern California surfer girl. Both Marilyn and Tommy Zahn were a part of the Los Angeles surfing community. Various reports, testimony and other evidence strongly suggests that Marilyn actually met Peter Lawford when they both were a part of that surfing community.