Joe and Marilyn by C. David Heymann

Yup.

I knew it.


My ability to detect lies is pretty good; I think.

ohnston’s Newsweek piece shows that Heymann’s supposed interviews with conveniently deceased figures like Pierre Salinger almost certainly didn’t happen, according to records in Heymann’s own archives. He raises questions about whether Heymann invented interviews with one of the book’s critical sources, a Holocaust refugee the author claimed, with no supporting evidence, had been Monroe’s therapist. And he raises serious doubts about whether Heymann talked to DiMaggio’s son, who died 15 years ago and was notoriously press-shy. Heymann dedicated Joe and Marilyn to Joe Jr.
Any one of these likely fabrications would necessitate pulling the book. When you add them up, it’s incredible that CBS, Simon & Schuster, and Atria/Emily Bestler continue to sell it, while refusing even to discuss the issues. So I decided to look into it, as well. And it’s clear that Johnston just scratched the surface in his piece.
For instance, Heymann claimed to have talked to Lotte Goslar, Monroe’s mime teacher, for the book. But Goslar died in 1997. Susan Strasberg, another source, died in 1999. Monroe’s makeup artist, Allan “Whitey” Snyder, whom Heymann cites two-dozen times, died in 1994. Yankees legend Bill Dickey died in 1993, and gossip columnist Doris Lilly died in 1991.

Here's a quote from a site that I found when looking up Rose Fromm.  According to this author, who is a great writer- Rose Fromm was an uncredentialed psychiatrist who worked with Monroe in LA but it just sounded totally fake to me.  I don't think this lady existed.  Of course I have no way of knowing if she did- but it just sounded fake.  Immigrant fleeing from the Nazis providing first-hand accounts affirming what people think they know about Marilyn- the refugee treating her in LA but settling in New York- it just sounded fake to me.

And I was totally going to check when these people interviewed for this book died.  It all seemed convenient.  Even the author has died.  Nobody can ask him anything.  The only clue I got that the book wasn't trying to fill in gaps that can't actually be verified is the index.  There's a pretty heavy index like there is in many biographies and that makes all the details easy to research- and if the author was hiding things- easy to debunk.

I know that authors often make quotes of things that are actually recollections that remember words differently than spoken; but this book has so many details I don't remember from anywhere else that it annoyed me from the beginning.

I too noticed that there was much content from Joe Jr.  And I couldn't understand why the guy- who just died before publication- would reveal so much.  But of course maybe the man did decide to tell all he knew, in contrast to what he did in the past.  It's certainly possible.  But it can't be verified.  The Marilyn legend is so big and so broad (about this broad) that I don't expect to get so many new details from one book.  But it is really an interesting book.

I notice the vulgarity ascribed to Marilyn- yet the book is still so admiring of her.  To me that's a new choice in the course of her legend.  In other books, authors don't try to pretend like she wasn't promiscuous, but they don't have he using the language of sex or being straightforward about it.

Here's the quote that is at the front of the book that got me started- along with YouTube conspiracy theories- about distrusting this book:

The history of any public character involves not only the facts about him but what the public has taken to be facts. - J. Frank Dobie

Is there a J. Frank Dobie?  Let's see what Google tells me:  Yep, there seems to be.

With Google at our fingertips, it's tempting to think we can research anything.  And we can.  But who knows what one finds and how many people are just quoting someone else...  but this book really had me questioning so many things- all of them possible, but just not seeming right- that I considered making lists of all the things I don't remember from other Marilyn books and trying to find discrepancies.

On p. 15- the beginning of chapter 2- it might be obvious but I've looked a few times- it says that Joe didn't go to Hawaii- as if I should have known he was planning to go... but I can't find any reference to Hawaii before that- none.  I'll be embarrassed if I look again and see it- but it seems to me a case of poor editing.... but speaking of poor editing- I don't remember having found any spelling mistakes and that's rare in books these days.  I think I'll just finish the book and return it- letting others question its veracity as they already have.

I really like the idea of a double biography and I've watched the Marilyn legend grow and the DiMaggio one shrink- but these insights from many people who seemed to have witnessed so much seem contrived.  Not all the interviewees speak the same or anything- it's just that they seem to say exactly what the author would want them to say to move the narrative along.

In this telling, Marilyn seems more like a girl of today.  There's still the haunted childhood and the crippling anxiety and the drugs and the sex but I don't know- it's more frank about the sex, and about her career and it seems to discount the fact that these well-known episodes- her firings from Fox, the calendar, the first Playboy cover, the divorce interviews- were all part of a brilliant publicity campaign that's worked better than any other one ever.  If she's so focused on her career than of course she does things to further it.  She's not just a victim in this book but she's also truly in love- even while there's such a fuss made of the fact that she was courting Arthur Miller (husband #3) the whole time.

This author has written much about the Kennedys too and I wonder if that's touched upon here.

To me it seems like the story unquestioned that Joe wanted a housewife rings a little false.  Who marries Marilyn Monroe to get a housewife?

I think that was a useful fiction to get Marilyn into the consciousness as a misunderstood victim but its outlived its veracity and we'll just have to see what comes next in the Marilyn legend.

Another discrepancy I remember is Hugh Hefner saying that the Golden Dreams calendar shot hadn't been in any magazines while earlier it was said it had been airbrushed and widely published in magazines...  Did Hefner mean it hadn't been published unairbrushed or did Hefner ever say anything about it at all?  it's hard to trust this author.

I also think that if Marilyn said "Who's Joe DiMaggio?" and "Who's Babe Ruth?" she could have nearly counted on the idea that the people she was talking to would think that was funny; if not charming, and wonder at her credulity- not necessarily take it seriously.  Lots of people say things to be funny and say things that could be taken in two directions and she's constantly portrayed as trying to get attention at times while at others going silent and under the radar.

Does anybody else think the name "George Solitaire" for the man assigned to keep DiMaggio alone when he wants to be- is a stretch?  But there he is in all the other sources and I guess it's true.  There was a man named Solitaire who traveled around with Joe managing his alone time.

It's not as weird as Caster Semenya being one who can cast something or Bruce Jender but hey- we're living inside a narrative.

I'm starting to wonder if Marlilyn was late all the time so she could be known for being late.  I can see her actually prepared to do whatever it was she was supposed to be doing but waiting so people would have to wait...   I guess the publicity that I've been exposed to of her as crafty and intelligent has certainly worked on me.

I once had a book in my hands that was a compendium of every where and when Marilyn had been and that would be a good way to fact check this book.

It also would be a way to invent stories to fit into the missing times.

If she was in Miami, could she have gotten on a speed boat and raced up to Palm Beach to see Kennedy for instance.  I read a novel where she tried to save his life in Dallas, after not really dying herself.  I also read a novel about Princess Diana (Both died at 36) living a normal life somewhere in America after having a nose job that took off just a bit..)

Back to how convenient the tidbits in the book are....   there sure are many of them.