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"She was sprawled over
the bed and she was dead. ... I took out my stethoscope
– and listened to make sure her heart wasn't beating."
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Dr. Hyman Engelberg, speaking to an investigator.
(CBS) This story originally aired on April 22, 2006.
A veil of mystery still shrouds the 1962 death of movie
star Marilyn Monroe. While her death was ruled a
probable suicide, rumors persist to this day of a
cover-up, and even murder.
Peter Van Sant examines newly released documents and
audiotapes about the night Marilyn died and talks to the
man who spearheaded an official 1982 investigation in
the movie star's death.
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As the sun came up on Aug. 5, 1962, it seemed so hard to
believe Marilyn Monroe was dead at age 36.
How did it happen? Monroe, who had starred in 30 films
and was an idol to millions, was now coroner’s case No.
81128.
Days after her death, the coroner announced she had died
from a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs. He
ruled her death a probable suicide.
That explanation has fueled a mystery that has lasted
more than 40 years.
"Marilyn Monroe, whatever else her miseries at the time,
had not been talking about killing herself," says
biographer and journalist Anthony Summers, who has done
exhaustive research on the mystery of Monroe's death and
was a consultant to 48 Hours.
"The evidence is that there was a very high level of
barbiturates in Marilyn Monroe's blood. The question
then comes, how did it get there?" Summers asks.
Now, there may be some answers. 48 Hours has been
granted unprecedented access to the only official
inquiry that looked at Monroe’s death as a potential
homicide. The investigation was conducted by the Los
Angeles District Attorney's office in 1982. 48 Hours
obtained hundreds of pages of documents and hours of
audiotaped interviews with witnesses about what happened
the night Marilyn died.
There were many tough questions, but the investigation
really came down to just one: Was Marilyn murdered — or
did she take her own life.
It was a life that seemed to hold so much promise.
Actor Tony Curtis says he'll never forget the day he met
Marilyn on the Universal movie lot. "I call Marilyn and
I make a date … off we went down to Malibu," he recalls.
And just like it would happen later in the movies, he
and Marilyn hit it off. Asked if he was in love with
her, Curtis says, "I'm in love with her now. I've loved
her all these years."
Back then, they were two young actors, hoping to become
stars. "We were brand new, looking for a career," says
Curtis. "Looking for those diamonds in the sky."
For Marilyn, there were pin-up spreads, and bit parts.
Eventually, she did find those diamonds — playing
Lorelei Lee in the 1953 movie "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"
was a breakthrough role for her.
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Marilyn Monroe (AP)
It wasn't long before Marilyn caught the eye of a young
man who had an idea for a new magazine.
"There is no date on the cover, because I didn’t have
enough money for the second issue," remembers Hugh
Hefner, the creator of Playboy. He put his money on
Marilyn, who appeared in a daring pose.
Hefner says he thinks Marilyn put Playboy on the map.
"There is some question as to whether I would be sitting
here talking to you if it was not for Marilyn Monroe,"
he says.
Marilyn was now the sex symbol in America, so it was
only fitting that she would gravitate toward another
famous symbol: baseball legend Joe DiMaggio.
The pair were a bit of an odd couple. While Marilyn was
the sex symbol, Jeanne Carmen says Joe DiMaggio was not
only traditional but also quiet.
"They got married too fast," says Summers. "And things
started to go wrong rather quickly, partly because they
were so different."
Even the honeymoon went wrong — Marilyn left her new
husband to entertain thousands of troops on the front
lines in Korea. After only nine months, their marriage
was over.
Within two years, Marilyn would move from the most
famous baseball player to the most renowned playwright
of the time, Arthur Miller.
"Marilyn came as close to loving Miller as she ever came
to loving anybody," says Summers. "Arthur Miller loved
Marilyn Monroe … he was consumed with interest in how
she ticked."
Marilyn was complicated. Beneath the Monroe image was a
fragile girl named Norma Jean, born out of wedlock and
shuttled through 11 foster homes.
"She had almost no relatives, very few friends and she
was lonely," says Carmen.
But when Marilyn was hurting, she would throw herself
back into her work. In 1958 she was shooting "Some Like
It Hot" with Jack Lemmon and her old friend, Curtis.
Marilyn's performance would earn her a Golden Globe
Award.
But behind the scenes, Curtis noticed cracks in the
veneer. "I knew there was something disturbing her. For
some inexplicable reason, she was going down the wrong
path and no one knew it," he remembers.
In 1961, Monroe and Miller's marriage also ended in
divorce.
Marilyn suffered through bouts of depression; there were
hospital stays and a growing dependency on sleeping
pills. Summers says Monroe saw the pills as a kind of
escape.
But Marilyn’s life had already taken a dramatic turn:
She was about to enter a triangle of fame and power that
would forever add to the mystery of her death. She met
President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney
General Robert Kennedy.
A house on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif. would hold
the secrets of the last chapter in Marilyn's life.
At the time the house, Summers explains, was the home of
JFK's brother-in-law Peter Lawford and his wife, Pat
Kennedy Lawford — the president's sister.
Lawford was an actor who moved in a glittering celebrity
circle. His home was known as the western White House,
and Marilyn was just one of the famous friends who would
be invited when the president was in town.
"Based on your research, is there any doubt in your mind
whatsoever that Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy had a
sexual relationship?" Van Sant asked Summers.
"No. I don’t doubt that at all," he replied. "I think
that comes to us from enough sources that we can be
confident of it."
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48 Hours has spoken with a former Secret Service agent
who says a relationship between the president and
Marilyn was common knowledge among his colleagues.
Marilyn's friend, actress and model Jeanne Carmen, says
she knew firsthand about an intimate relationship
between the president and Marilyn unfolding at the beach
house.
"President Kennedy and Marilyn were in bed when I went
in to take my shower, just, cuddle, cuddle, cuddle,"
Carmen recalls.
JFK had an image as a faithful family man, married to
Jacqueline and father of two children. Summers says it
was the "required image."
Back then, the public had no idea what was apparently
happening behind Camelot's idyllic scenes.
Asked whether the president had told Marilyn he loved
her, Carmen says, "He did tell her that. You know how
men are."
"In her mind, though I’m sure that it seemed like a
thing that might change her life and that she might one
day marry John F. Kennedy. She spoke like that," says
Summers.
According to Marilyn's published letters, on Feb. 1,
1962, Marilyn was invited to the Lawford beach house for
dinner, but this time, it was to meet Bobby Kennedy.
"They just clicked. Marilyn and Bobby just clicked right
in the beginning," says Carmen.
Bobby Kennedy had an equally pristine public image as a
civil rights crusader and devoted father.
But Carmen says Bobby was soon a guest at Marilyn’s
house.
No one can say for sure if the friendship between
Marilyn and Bobby evolved into something more.
"The evidence about Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy is
not nearly as clear cut as much of the evidence about
Marilyn and the president," says Summers. "That they
were having some sort of close emotional relationship
does become clear from talking to the witnesses."
Whatever the tangled relationships were, they were all
about to end. In April 1962, Marilyn began working on
what would be her unfinished movie, "Something's Got To
Give."
"She really was at her best in acting. She was gorgeous.
She’d never been more beautiful," remembers Carmen.
But the camera didn’t catch the trouble brewing. Others
say Marilyn was unraveling.
"She had been seeing a psychiatrist constantly,"
explains Summers. "Almost as a daily session. Sometimes
more than once. She was taking sleeping pills all the
time."
Marilyn was constantly calling in sick at work, creating
costly production delays. Producers were further
outraged when she decided to fly to New York to sing the
infamous "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" song for JFK at
Madison Square Garden.
"I think that Monroe wanted to tell the world about the
relationship," says Summers. But, according to Summers,
Marilyn knew that night the president was moving away
from her. "She was looking into the lights at a man who
she had believed in, hoped that something real might
come of. But it was gone," he says.
Back in Hollywood, Marilyn was soon fired from
"Something's Got To Give" for putting the production so
far behind schedule.
She fought hard to get her job back, posing for
publicity photos, and in July taped an interview for
Life Magazine.
"I am working for one thing and that is in giving a
performance, but I am not at a studio at any time for
discipline or to be disciplined," she said during the
interview.
Marilyn’s campaign worked. On Aug. 1, 1962, she struck a
new deal with 20th Century Fox.
But just a few days later, she would play out her final
scene.
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On Aug. 4, 1962 Marilyn’s day reportedly began with a
series of threatening phone calls.
"She’d been bothered by an anonymous female caller, who
had been saying words to the effect, ‘Stay away from
Bobby, you b****, stay away from Bobby,'" says Summers.
By late afternoon, Dr. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn’s
psychiatrist, was summoned to the house.
"He said she sounded a bit drugged and certainly
depressed," says Summers.
According to newly released documents obtained by 48
Hours, Greenson said he "felt it was possible that
Marilyn had felt rejected by some of the people she had
been close to."
That evening, according to Peter Lawford, he called
Marilyn to invite her to the beach house —but she
decided not to come.
At 7:30 p.m. according to what she told police,
Marilyn’s housekeeper, Eunice Murray, overheard Marilyn
on the phone sounding happier.
"Marilyn came to her bedroom door. I was sitting in the
living room. And she said, 'Good night Mrs. Murray. I
think I’ll turn in now. And she closed the door," Murray
told the BBC in 1985.
By 8:20 p.m., all seemed well in the house when Mrs.
Murray tuned in to catch the last 10 minutes of Perry
Mason, a popular TV show.
Sometime during that night, Marilyn called Carmen with
what would later seem like an odd request.
"She wanted me to bring her over a couple of sleeping
pills because she didn’t have any," says Carmen. "I had
had a few drinks and I just didn’t think I could make it
over there without getting arrested. So I said 'Marilyn,
I can’t come over.'"
This is where the story takes a turn that would be
called into question for decades. At 3:30 a.m., Murray
saw Marilyn lying motionless on her bed. She quickly
called Dr. Greenson; Marilyn's physician, Dr. Hyman
Engelberg, was also awakened and rushed to her bedside.
"She was sprawled over the bed, and she was dead,"
Engelberg said in the audiotaped interview. "I took out
my stethoscope to make sure her heart wasn’t beating.
Checked her pupils because that’s one of the sensitive
ways to tell if a person is dead or not. I said she was
dead. Which, of course, Dr. Greenson knew anyway, but I
had to go through the motions."
Engelberg told investigators in 1982 that he waited
maybe half an hour before calling the police.
Asked why there was a delay, Dr. Engelberg said, "We
were stunned. We were talking over what happened. What
she had said."
The scene contained a mysterious clue: Marilyn was found
clutching her telephone. Who was she calling?
As Marilyn’s lifeless body was taken to the morgue,
police searched the death scene for clues to what killed
her. Had America’s most famous movie star really taken
her own life?
Just 12 days after her death, there was the announcement
of an official finding when the coroner said Marilyn's
death was a probable suicide.
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With that conclusion, the investigation slammed shut.
But it opened a controversy that lingers to this day. By
1982, there was a public outcry. With allegations of a
conspiracy and a cover-up, the Los Angeles District
Attorney’s Office was forced to re-examine the evidence.
Former Assistant District Attorney Mike Carroll had the
daunting task of getting to the bottom of what happened
that night. "So the first question is, was there a
murder?" says Carroll.
"We looked at the photographs of the death scene," says
Carroll. "Looked at autopsy reports. And had to talk to
people because there were some areas that we could not
really determine without talking to people."
Tape-recorded interviews offered new clues about what
happened that night.
Engelberg was queried about the large amount of pills
found at her bedside.
Asked if all those pills had been prescribed by him, Dr.
Engelberg told investigators, "No. Only one had been
prescribed by me … I was surprised to see at the side of
her bed a large number of other sleeping pills."
Marilyn died of a lethal dose of two sedative drugs. The
coroner announced that the toxicologist discovered in
addition to Nembutal a large dose of Chloral Hydrate in
her system.
But there are questions about where the Chloral Hydrate
came from. "I knew nothing about any Chloral Hydrate; I
never used Chloral Hydrate," Engelberg told
investigators, adding that he only wrote her a
prescription for Nembutal.
If Marilyn had all those pills by her bedside, why did
she call Carmen for more? Carroll says no suicide note
was ever found at the scene.
Was the coroner's conclusion of suicide a rush to
judgment?
Dr. Steven Karch, is one of the nation’s top forensic
pathologists. He has written several important textbooks
on drug overdose, and he says major holes in Marilyn’s
toxicology report make it nearly impossible to determine
what killed her.
Asked whether it's possible Marilyn was murdered, Katch
says, "I don't see how you can rule it out.
"I’m bothered by some of the inconsistencies in the
reports," he says. "I’m particularly bothered by where
the medicines came from. I don’t know that they were
hers. I don’t know when they were taken, and I don’t
know what was in her body when she died because the
toxicology is incomplete."
Karch also believes the first investigators on the scene
were too quick to make assumptions. "The really strange
thing is, it says barbiturate overdose death. How did
they know it was a barbiturate overdose death at 4:45 in
the morning?"
Karch says the first investigators on the scene couldn't
have known that.
Former A.D.A. Carroll points to evidence not just at the
scene, but in Marilyn’s turbulent past. She had
overdosed before.
"The bottles were there. She was unconscious. She had a
history of overdose. In fact, she had a history of not
only overdosing, but of being resuscitated," Carroll
explains.
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Marilyn Monroe (AP)
But in a newly released audiotape, Engelberg downplays
any past attempts by Marilyn to take her own life.
Asked if he was aware of other suicide attempts Marilyn
may have made prior to her death, Engelberg told the
investigator, "I'm not aware of any deliberate suicide
attempt. I was only aware of the one time when she
currently had too much to drink and had taken possibly
slightly more than she should have. But that was not a
serious attempt."
Carroll, in his re-examination, insists that the autopsy
performed in 1962 by Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los
Angeles County Coroner’s Office was thorough. In fact,
he had the full report reviewed by a renowned outside
expert.
"He looked over the documents and he told us that this
was a very competent and professional job considering
the state of science at the time in 1962," says Carroll.
But Noguchi himself wanted to investigate further.
Not too long after Noguchi’s initial examination, he
decided he wanted to take a second look at the tissue
samples but they went missing.
Asked what happened to those samples, Carroll says, "I
don't know. I didn’t at the time and I don’t now think
it was a sinister cover-up or destruction of evidence.
"The conspiracy theorists say there’s evidence of a
cover-up," Van Sant said.
"Yeah, I think that’s fertile grounds for people to say,
'Oh boy, we got it now. We have a smoking gun,'" Carroll
replied. "And my experience of the loss of material like
that it's unfortunately pretty common."
Carroll was determined to confront one of the major
conspiracy theories of the day; a man who identified
himself as Rick Stone claimed he was an ambulance
attendant called to Marilyn’s house. He says he watched
a doctor inject something into the dying movie star.
"And he opened that up [a doctor's bag] and took out a
hypodermic syringe that was already filled and injected
it into her heart," Stone said.
However, Carroll says Noguchi looked all over Marilyn's
body for needle marks — but found none.
"He put a needle in her heart. I guarantee it. I was
looking right at it," Stone insisted during the taped
interview.
Carroll dismissed Stone’s account as false and
investigators also talked with Ken Hunter, who is
believed to have been on the scene that night.
Asked about the story that a doctor plunged a needle
into the area of Marilyn's heart and thereafter
pronounced her dead, Hunter told Carroll, "That's b***s***."
Carroll found Hunter to be credible and what he says
sheds light on the most elusive part of the mystery.
Hunter told Carroll he saw Marilyn lying on her side.
Did she really die in that position? The first officer
who arrived at the house shortly after 4:30 a.m. told
the BBC that he believed the body had been positioned
and the scene manipulated.
"No it was not a suicide. Marilyn Monroe was murdered
and there’s no question about it," Sgt. Clemmons, the
watch commander that night, told the BBC.
But Carroll dismisses Clemmons' comments. "Yes, his
opinion was not based on any kind of personal,
professional training or experience. He was not a
detective. He was not an experienced detective and
certainly not a homicide detective."
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Marilyn Monroe (AP)
But the next investigator on the scene was experienced
and he quickly zeroed in on the witness who discovered
Marilyn’s body, housekeeper Eunice Murray.
"The investigator at the scene did have some concerns
about Mrs. Murray. He thought that her answers were
evasive, and that she might have either been distressed
or hiding something," Carroll explains.
The key to the mystery of Marilyn's last night is all
about the timing — questions swirled around the account
of Murray.
On the morning of Aug. 5, 1962, police were called at
4:25 a.m. but allegations persist to this day that
Murray sounded the alarm about Marilyn much earlier.
Was news of Marilyn's death somehow delayed? Was
evidence removed from the death scene? And if so, why?
"There was some form of cover-up surrounding the
circumstances of her death," says Summers.
At the center of the cover-up theory are the Kennedy
brothers.
"I think Marilyn Monroe was in love with John Kennedy
for a while, then I think she fell in love with Bobby,"
says Carmen.
In the months prior to Marilyn's death, no one could
have imagined how dangerous those secret relationships
had become.
During a vacation in February 1962 in Mexico City, the
movie star was mobbed by reporters. But away from the
flashbulbs, she had a series of private, controversial
meetings.
"She spent time socially, talked late at night with
people who were American communists," says Summers.
Most people didn't know it, but Summers says Marilyn was
passionate about politics. "Marilyn Monroe wasn't a dumb
blonde. She devoured books on politics. She liked to
talk to people about politics," he says.
Marilyn's political talks in Mexico were being
monitored, and the FBI had opened a file on the movie
star.
According to newly released FBI documents, Monroe was
considered a potential security risk.
"Here you have a woman who is close to the President of
the United States and to the attorney general who goes
to Mexico and talks into the night with known
communists," says Summers. "She was a security risk."
This was the height of the Cold War; the president was
consumed with the threat of the communist regime in
Cuba.
"This was perhaps the most sensitive time on nuclear
matters in the history of the United States," says
Summers.
Marilyn also was apparently having some highly sensitive
conversations with the president.
One report details a lunch conversation at the beach
house with JFK. "During that lunch nuclear matters,
nuclear testing was discussed," Summers explains.
"Marilyn Monroe was very pleased as she'd asked the
president a lot of socially significant questions
concerning the morality of atomic testing," he says.
That meeting was just three months before the Cuban
missile crisis.
"Discussing nuclear matters at a time of horrendous
international crisis, if anything like that would have
got out, it would have been enormously damaging to the
Kennedys," says Summers.
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Marilyn Monroe (AP)
Which brings us back to Aug. 4, 1962, the last day of
Marilyn's life. While there is no clear proof of a
cover-up, there are troubling conflicts, and unanswered
questions surrounding the events of that night.
On August 4, the president was on the East Coast; Bobby
Kennedy was in Northern California, and according to his
host that weekend, remained there the entire time.
But former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates says, according to his
sources, the attorney general traveled to L.A.
"Our records show that he was in Los Angeles and
probably that information came to our intelligence
function through the FBI," says Gates.
He does not believe Bobby Kennedy saw Marilyn that day.
Had he gone to see Marilyn that day, I think we would
have known it," he explains.
However, Peter Lawford's third ex-wife, Deborah Gould,
says Bobby did visit Marilyn. Gould, who was briefly
married to Lawford in the 1970s, told the BBC that he
went to Marilyn's that day to end the relationship with
the Kennedy brothers.
"Marilyn was, from what Peter told me, knew then that it
was over. That was it, over. Final. And she was very,
very distraught and depressed," Gould told the BBC.
That explains what Lawford eventually told police: He
described a very disturbing phone conversation with
Marilyn that final evening.
"She sounded groggy and depressed, and she said, 'Say
goodbye to Jack,' meaning Jack Kennedy and 'Say goodbye
to yourself 'cause you’re a nice guy," Summers explains.
According to Lawford, that call took place at 7:30 p.m.
or 8 p.m. By 9 p.m., according to police documents, the
message had spread that Marilyn might be in trouble.
What is unknown is whether word reached Bobby Kennedy.
"To be associated with the last hours of her life was a
political nightmare," says Summers. "So it may be that
there was what you might call a benign cover-up, not a
cover-up of a murder, but a cover-up to protect
prominent people."
Carmen says Marilyn kept a diary, which kept tabs on
what JFK and Bobby Kennedy said to her, but Marilyn
herself once denied that she had a diary. In any case,
Carroll says no diary was found by police or employees
from the coroner's office at the death scene.
According to Gould, years after Marilyn's death, Lawford
told her he had made an early morning sweep through
Marilyn's house.
"He said he went there, he tidied up the place and did
what he could before the reporters found out about the
death," Gould told the BBC.
Most mysterious of all these clues was that Marilyn was
found clutching her telephone. It is known that in the
weeks leading up to her death, she called the justice
department, where Bobby Kennedy worked, eight times.
What is not known is who she was calling the night she
died.
"It is very clear, and from excellent sources that we
don’t have the full record of calls made from Monroe’s
residence in the hours before she died," says Summers.
Summers was told by his sources that some of the records
were seized. "A senior former FBI agent has told me that
J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, ordered the
seizure from the phone company of the long-distance
phone tickets, which would show who she had called, or
tried to call in the hours before her death," he
explains.
Asked about missing phone records, Carroll says, "We
never learned that if it is true."
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The phone records are not the only files about Marilyn's
death that are in question. Nearly all of the police
files are gone. The official explanation: They were
"destroyed in compliance with departmental procedures."
For all the mystery surrounding the death of Monroe,
Karch believes Marilyn herself can provide answers — all
it would take are a few strands of that famously blonde
hair.
"Somebody would have to open the crypt and take some
hair and analyze it," he explains.
Karch says tests could be run to look for poisons or
paralyzing drugs, something that was not done back then.
Karch would also like to test for each of the drugs
found at her bedside, including a bottle of peach
colored pills that has never been identified.
Carroll's investigation did not go to the extreme of
opening Marilyn's crypt. But after examining the
available evidence, it did reach a conclusion: there was
"absolutely nothing" that led him to believe that a
murder was involved. "We uncovered absolutely no
evidence of an intentional criminal act with respect to
her death," he says.
"Any evidence the Kennedy brothers were involved in
Marilyn Monroe’s death?" Van Sant asked.
"No evidence of their involvement in her death ever came
up with the exception that she was despondent," Carroll
replied. "The cause of her despondency could have been
one of the brothers. But in terms of involvement with a
criminal activity, absolutely none."
The conclusion: It was an accidental overdose or suicide
that killed Marilyn. In fact, newly released documents
say Marilyn “had obtained secretly … a large and lethal
stock of Nembutal and Chloral Hydrate.”
But Karch is still troubled by what we don't know. "I
would classify this as an undetermined cause of death,
pending further testing. And that’s a perfectly
legitimate diagnosis."
As for the burning question of whether there was a
cover-up?
"If there was no murder, there was nothing to cover-up
except embarrassing information or connections," says
Carroll, whose team never looked into that.
Carroll says it wasn't his job to pursue whether friends
of the Kennedy family were trying to protect their
reputation; he says his job was to find out if Monroe
had been murdered.
"Why do you believe there was a cover-up?" Van Sant
asked Hefner.
"I think that her death had political implications,
particular in Washington with the Kennedys," he replied.
Did Bobby Kennedy come to say goodbye that day? The
truth might have been in Marilyn’s bedroom. But her
diary, if she had one, phone records, and police files
may be lost to history.
All that’s left is her legacy. Marilyn died beautiful,
famous and alone.
"She was just hoping to find something that would be the
answer," says Carmen. "And she never found it. She was
looking in the wrong places."
Hefner plans to be buried right next to Marilyn at
Westwood Cemetery. "I feel such a kinship and close
connection for all that she has meant to all of us but
most especially to me, the fact that I will be residing
to eternity seemed very appropriate."
And Curtis paints Marilyn. "I paint here to capture her
again," he says. "I’m always trying to remember her.
Things that perhaps I’ve forgotten about her, the shoes
she wore, the way she would smile, the way she’d look
over her shoulder."
"She is the stuff that dreams are made of," Hefner said.
"We loved her and we love her still. And that never
dies."
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