Free Marilyn & Me by Lawrence Schiller Page A

I would take some prints of her, drive to her house, and let her tell me personally that the deal was off.
    On Saturday morning, at around 9:00 a.m., I drove to Brentwood.
    Marilyn was in the front yard, dressed in a simple, light-colored slacks outfit. She was on her knees, I think doing something with the flowers. As I got out of the car, she stood up and looked as if she’d been expecting someone else. Her hair was uncombed and loose, her face without makeup. You’d never know it was Marilyn Monroe. She didn’t look like any of the pictures that I had taken.
    “I didn’t know you were going to come by,” she said. She wasn’t very friendly, and she seemed impatient.
    “I just wanted to drop these off for you to see,” I said, handing her an envelope with a few prints and more foreign magazines with cover shots of her. “I’m taking Judi and the baby to Palm Springs for the weekend, but when Pat called last night to say you were no longer interested in doing
Playboy
, I just wanted to hear it direct from you.”
    “Pat wasn’t authorized to make that call,” she said, and I saw that she was upset. It was the first time I felt anger coming from her.
    “Should I discuss this with Pat on Monday?” I asked.
    “It’s still about nudity. Is that all I’m good for?” she replied, but I didn’t think she was looking for an answer. “I’d like to show that I can get publicity
without
using my ass or getting fired from a picture,” she continued. “I haven’t made up my mind yet. Let’s leave it at that. I’ll call you.”
    Her expression said, “Leave me alone.”
    Without another word, I handed her the envelope.
    “I’ll look at them,” she said.
    “And I’m out of there,” I said to myself.

Chapter 8

August 5, 1962
    I n Palm Springs, Judi, Suzanne, and I checked into a junior suite at the Ocotillo Lodge and spent the afternoon around the pool and making plans for Sunday—maybe some shopping and then a drive into the desert. It was good to relax for a bit, I thought, but that didn’t last long.
    On Sunday morning, Billy Woodfield called me at the hotel before 7:00 a.m.
    “Marilyn’s dead,” he said.
    “Come on, Billy,” I murmured into the phone and hung up on him.
    He called right back. “Larry, put on the radio. It’s news. She’s dead.”
    Now I was fully awake, and I understood that he wasn’t jerking me around. “I’m coming back,” I said. “Her house?”
    “Yes,” Billy replied.
    I just didn’t understand it. Marilyn Monroe was deadat thirty-six. I don’t remember what I thought or discussed with Judi on the drive back to Los Angeles, but I remember keeping the radio on all the way home. The early reports were of suicide, but she hadn’t seemed suicidal when I saw her the previous morning. On the other hand, how would I know what “suicidal” looks like? I’d read that she had had such episodes in the past and that she’d been revived every time.
    Back in L.A., I dropped Judi and the baby off, grabbed my bag of cameras, and headed up Santa Monica Boulevard to Brentwood. My adrenaline was coursing through my body. I had to put my emotions on hold so that I could deal with her death professionally. When I arrived at her house, I saw that the front gate was wide open and that there were people all over her lawn. Pat Newcomb, with dark sunglasses on, was being helped into the backseat of a car by a police officer. A second later, Eunice Murray emerged from the house and was taken to the same vehicle. She was white as a sheet. The car drove off.
    There were cops all around, but nobody was asking for press credentials, which I didn’t have with me. As I walked around, I noticed three or four other photographers and a few newsreel cameramen. That was when I saw a broken window on the right side of the house. Inside I could see what looked like an empty bedroom, but I could not see the bed. I lifted my Leica and started shooting. Then my eyecaught someone who might have