On the evening of August 4, 1962, American actress Marilyn Monroe died at age 36 of a barbiturate overdose inside her home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. Her body was discovered before dawn the following morning, on August 5. Monroe had been one of the most popular Hollywood stars during the 1950s and early 1960s and was a top-billed actress for the preceding decade. Her films had grossed $200 million by the time of her death ($2.1 billion today).
Monroe had suffered from mental illness and substance abuse, and she had not completed a film since The Misfits, released on February 1, 1961, which was a box-office disappointment. Monroe had spent 1961 preoccupied with her various health problems, and in April 1962 had begun filming Something's Got to Give for 20th Century Fox, but the studio fired her in early June. Fox publicly blamed Monroe for the production's problems, and in the weeks preceding her death she had attempted to repair her public image by giving several interviews to high-profile publications. She also began negotiations with Fox on being re-hired for Something's Got to Give and for starring roles in other productions.
Monroe spent the day of her death, August 4, at her home in Brentwood. She was accompanied at various times by publicist Patricia Newcomb, housekeeper Eunice Murray, photographer Lawrence Schiller, and psychiatrist Ralph Greenson. At Greenson's request, Murray stayed overnight to keep Monroe company. At approximately 3 a.m. on Sunday, August 5, Murray noticed that Monroe had locked herself in her bedroom and appeared unresponsive when she looked inside through a window. Murray alerted Greenson, who arrived soon after, entered the room by breaking a window, and found Monroe dead. Her death was officially ruled a probable suicide by the Los Angeles County coroner's office, based on information about her overdosing and being prone to mood swings and suicidal thoughts.
Despite the coroner's findings, several alternative theories suggesting murder or accidental overdose have been proposed since the mid-1960s. Many of these involve U.S. president John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy, as well as union leader Jimmy Hoffa and mob boss Sam Giancana. Because of the prevalence of these theories in the media, the office of the Los Angeles County District Attorney reviewed the case in 1982 but found no evidence to support them and did not disagree with the findings of the original investigation. However, the report conceded that "factual discrepancies" and "unanswered questions" remained in the case.
Background
For several years heading into the early 1960s, Marilyn Monroe had been dependent on amphetamines, barbiturates and alcohol, and she experienced various mental health problems that included depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and chronic insomnia. Monroe had acquired a reputation for being difficult to work with, and she frequently delayed productions by being late to film sets in addition to having trouble remembering her lines. She also had an FBI file open since 1956 due to her "problematic" relationship with accused communist, author Arthur Miller.
By 1960, Monroe's behavior was adversely affecting her career. For example, although she was the preferred choice of author Truman Capote to play Holly Golightly in the film adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Paramount Pictures declined to cast her due to fear that she would complicate the film's production. The last film Monroe completed, The Misfits (1961), was a commercial failure. During the filming, she had to spend a week detoxing in a hospital. Her third marriage, to Arthur Miller, also ended in divorce in January 1961.
Instead of working, Monroe spent a large part of 1961 preoccupied with health problems and did not work on any new film projects. She went under surgery for her endometriosis and a cholecystectomy, and spent four weeks in hospital care—including a brief stint in a mental ward—for depression. Later in 1961, she moved back to Los Angeles after six years in Manhattan; she purchased a Spanish hacienda-style house at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood. In early 1962, she received a "World Film Favorite" Golden Globe award and began to shoot a new film, Something's Got to Give, a remake of My Favorite Wife (1940).
Days before filming began, Monroe caught sinusitis; the studio, 20th Century Fox, was advised to postpone the production, but the advice was not heeded and filming began on schedule in late April. Monroe was too ill to work for the majority of the next six weeks, but despite confirmations by multiple doctors, Fox tried to pressure her by publicly alleging that she was faking her symptoms. On May 19, Monroe took a break from filming to sing "Happy Birthday" on stage at U.S. President John F. Kennedy's birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden ten days before his actual birthday. This caused a great amount of publicity for Monroe, but also significant speculation about an extramarital affair with the president and concerns from government agents.
After Monroe returned to Los Angeles, she resumed filming and celebrated her 36th birthday on the set of Something's Got to Give on June 1. She was again absent for several days, which led Fox to fire her on June 7 and sue her for breach of contract, demanding $750,000 in damages. Monroe was replaced by Lee Remick, but after co-star Dean Martin refused to make the film with anyone other than Monroe, Fox sued him as well and shut down the production.
Fox publicly blamed Monroe's drug dependency and alleged lack of professionalism for the demise of the film, even claiming that she was mentally disturbed. To counter the negative publicity, Monroe gave interviews to several high-profile publications, such as Life, Cosmopolitan and Vogue, during the last weeks of her life. In 1961, the magazine Time wrote that "in seeking help, she may have done more than the psychiatrists to win popular acceptance of a more modern view of mental illness and treatment for it". After successfully renegotiating her contract with Fox, filming with Monroe was scheduled to resume in September on Something's Got to Give, and she made plans for starring in What a Way to Go! (1964) as well as a biopic about Jean Harlow.
Timeline
Monroe spent the last day of her life, Saturday, August 4, 1962, at her Brentwood home. In the morning, she met photographer Lawrence Schiller to discuss the possibility of Playboy publishing nude photos taken of her on the set of Something's Got to Give. She also received a massage from her personal massage therapist, talked with friends on the phone, and signed for deliveries. Also present at the house that morning were her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, and her publicist Patricia Newcomb, who had stayed overnight. According to Newcomb, they had an argument because Monroe had not slept well the night before.
At 4:30 p.m. PDT, Monroe's psychiatrist Ralph Greenson arrived at the house to conduct a therapy session and asked Newcomb to leave. Before Greenson left at around 7:00 p.m., he asked Murray to stay overnight and keep Monroe company. At approximately 7:00-7:15 p.m., Monroe received a call from Joe DiMaggio Jr., with whom she had stayed close since her divorce from his father, the elder Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio told Monroe that he had broken up with a girlfriend she did not like, and he detected nothing alarming in Monroe's behavior. At around 7:40–7:45 p.m., Monroe telephoned Greenson to tell him the news about the breakup of DiMaggio and his girlfriend.
Monroe retired to her bedroom at around 8:00 p.m. She received a call from actor Peter Lawford, brother-in-law of President Kennedy, who was hoping to persuade her to attend his party that night. Lawford became alarmed because Monroe sounded like she was under the influence of drugs. She allegedly told him, "Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to the president, and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy", before drifting off. Unable to reach her again, Lawford called his agent Milton Ebbins, who unsuccessfully tried to reach Greenson and later called Monroe's lawyer, Milton A. "Mickey" Rudin. Rudin called Monroe's house and was assured by Murray that she was fine.
At approximately 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 5, Murray woke up "sensing that something was wrong" and saw light from under Monroe's bedroom door, but she was not able to get a response and found the door locked. Murray telephoned Greenson, on whose advice she looked in through a window, and saw Monroe lying facedown on her bed, nude and covered by a sheet and clutching a telephone receiver. Greenson arrived shortly thereafter. He entered the room by breaking a window and found Monroe dead. He called her physician, Hyman Engelberg, who arrived at the house at around 3:50 a.m. and officially confirmed the death. At 4:25 a.m., they notified the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
Inquest and 1982 review
Deputy coroner Thomas Noguchi conducted Monroe's autopsy on the same day that she was found dead, Sunday, August 5. The Los Angeles County coroner's office was assisted in the inquest by psychiatrists Norman Farberow, Robert Litman, and Norman Tabachnik from the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, who interviewed Monroe's doctors and psychiatrists on her mental state. Based on the advanced state of rigor mortis at the time her body was discovered, it was estimated that she had died between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. on August 4.
The toxicological analysis concluded that the cause of death was acute barbiturate poisoning; she had 8 mg% (mg/dl) of chloral hydrate and 4.5 mg% of pentobarbital (Nembutal) in her blood and a further 13 mg% of pentobarbital in her liver. The police found empty bottles of these medicines next to her bed. There were no signs of external wounds or bruises on the body.
The findings of the inquest were published on August 17; Chief Coroner Theodore Curphey classified Monroe's death a "probable suicide." The possibility of an accidental overdose was ruled out because the dosages found in her body were several times over the lethal limit and had been taken "in one gulp or in a few gulps over a minute or so." At the time of her death, Monroe was reported to have been in a "depressed mood", and had been "unkempt" and uninterested in maintaining her appearance. No suicide note was found, but Litman stated that this was not unusual, because statistics showed that less than forty percent of suicide victims left notes.
In their final report, Farberow, Litman, and Tabachnik stated:
Miss Monroe had suffered from psychiatric disturbance for a long time. She experienced severe fears and frequent depressions. Mood changes were abrupt and unpredictable. Among symptoms of disorganization, sleep disturbance was prominent, for which she had been taking sedative drugs for many years. She was thus familiar with and experienced in the use of sedative drugs and well aware of their dangers ... In our investigation we have learned that Miss Monroe had often expressed wishes to give up, to withdraw, and even to die. On more than one occasion in the past, she had made a suicide attempt, using sedative drugs. On these occasions, she had called for help and had been rescued. It is our opinion that the same pattern was repeated on the evening of Aug. 3 except for the rescue. It has been our practice with similar information collected in other cases in the past to recommend a certification for such deaths as probable suicide. Additional clues for suicide provided by the physical evidence are the high level of barbiturates and chloral hydrate in the blood which, with other evidence from the autopsy, indicates the probable ingestion of a large amount of drugs within a short period of time: the completely empty bottle of Nembutal, the prescription for which (25 capsules) was filled the day before the ingestion, and the locked door to the bedroom, which was unusual.
In the 1970s, claims surfaced that Monroe's death was a murder and not suicide. Due to these claims, Los Angeles County District Attorney John Van de Kamp assigned his colleague Ronald H. "Mike" Carroll to conduct a 1982 "threshold investigation" to see whether a criminal investigation should be opened. Carroll worked with Alan B. Tomich, an investigator for the district attorney's office, for over three months on an inquiry that resulted in a thirty-page report. They did not find any credible evidence to support the theory that Monroe was murdered.
In 1983, Noguchi published his memoirs, in which he discussed Monroe's case and the allegations of discrepancies in the autopsy and the coroner's ruling of suicide. These included the claims that Monroe could not have ingested the pills because her stomach was empty; that Nembutal capsules should have left yellow residue; that she may have been administered an enema; and that the autopsy noted no needle marks despite the fact that she routinely received injections from her doctors. Noguchi explained that hemorrhaging of the stomach lining indicated that the medication had been administered orally, and that because Monroe had been an addict for several years the pills would have been absorbed more rapidly than in the case of non-addicts. Noguchi also denied that Nembutal leaves dye residue, and he noted that only very recent needle marks are visible on a body, and that the only bruise he noted on Monroe's body, on her lower back, was superficial and its placement indicated that it was accidental and not linked to foul play. Noguchi finally concluded that based on his observations, the most probable conclusion is that Monroe committed suicide.
Public reactions and funeral
Monroe's unexpected death was front-page news in the United States and Europe. According to biographer Lois Banner, "it's said that the suicide rate in Los Angeles doubled the month after she died; the circulation rate of most newspapers expanded that month." The Chicago Tribune reported that they had received hundreds of phone calls from members of the public requesting information about her death. French filmmaker Jean Cocteau commented that her death "should serve as a terrible lesson to all those, whose chief occupation consists of spying on and tormenting film stars", her former co-star Laurence Olivier deemed her "the complete victim of ballyhoo and sensation", and Bus Stop director Joshua Logan stated that she was "one of the most unappreciated people in the world".