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John Gilmore’s Marilyn: PAUL:
It would appear, from what you wrote about the vile opportunism of Robert
Slatzer and Norman Mailer, that the Kennedy connection to Marilyn - from
Jack and Bobby being her lovers, respectively, to their supposed
involvement in her death that the whole story was invented and embellished
by Mailer. Many others, including Slatzer, jumped on the bandwagon, adding
the wildly speculative Mafia connection. Did you find that Anthony
Summers’ bio of Marilyn to be the final and cumulative gathering point
of all these fictions? JOHN:
Mailer didn’t invent the story, he only embellished and gave his own
quirks, admitted by Mailer to “create a controversy and make money.”
Anthony Summers tale is just that, a “tall tale,” riddled with errors
and misinformation- all to “make money,” as with Donald Wolfe et al.
The Mafia “connections” wormed on stage only because of a friendship
with Frank Sinatra and his associates. PAUL:
You wrote that the studio had concocted a “bio” of Marilyn that was
loaded with dramatic tales of mistreatment and abuse of all kinds,
guaranteed to milk sympathy from the fans. Did Marilyn herself add to the
confusion and mythology with further exaggerations? Moreover, should fans
and admirers now disregard all those stories as studio/Monroe
fabrications? Wasn’t the studio publicity loosely based on fact but
decorated and distorted over time? JOHN: The studio decided that it was a sad story turned good, her having been in an orphanage, and then from babysitter to getting a studio contract. Marilyn never was a babysitter (except when playing one in “Don’t Bother To Knock,” then attempting to murder the child). Her parents were dead, Hollywood sold to the fan magazines - the stepping stones to box-office returns. There were a lot of problems and hushing-up when it was discovered that Marilyn’s mother was not dead, but a crazy woman in the nut house. Introduction
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