An explosive biography reveals all the chilling details of what really happened the night Hollywood screen siren Marilyn Monroe died.
Monroe’s affairs with the Kennedy’s and her involvement with Mobster Johnny Roselli are confirmed in the thrilling, tell-all biography, Jeanne Carmen: MY WILD, WILD LIFE as a New York Pin Up Queen, Trick Shot Golfer & Hollywood Actress by Carmen’s son and author Brandon James.
According to the book, Carmen’s Hollywood life came to an abrupt end after her dear friend Marilyn Monroe died mysteriously on August 5, 1962. The next morning, Carmen’s apartment was broken into and ransacked. She stumbled upon the intruder and was thrown to the ground. The man standing over her was famed Hollywood private detective Fred Otash, who in turn pulled a gun out, pointed it at her face, and pulled the trigger. Lucky for her, the chamber was empty and only a loud click emanated from the gun barrel. Carmen collapsed and broke down in tears shortly after hearing the allegations that Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana had Marilyn Monroe murdered in an attempt to frame the Kennedys and ruin their political careers.
JEANNE CARMEN: MY WILD, WILD LIFE as a New York Pin Up Queen, Trick Shot Golfer & Hollywood Actress by Brandon James is available atAmazon.com at this link:
The landmark book GODDESS: THE SECRET LIVES OF MARILYN MONROE by award winning investigative journalist ANTHONY SUMMERS has just been re-released as an ebook. Publisher: Open Road Publishing [ISBN-13: 9781453265857]
CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO VIEW THE EBOOK COVER ON GOOGLE BOOKS
Another witness had no doubt about the nature of MARILYN’S relationship with ROBERT KENNEDY: JEANNE CARMEN, Marilyn’s neighbor at the Doheny apartment in Los Angeles, said she remembered an astonishing episode, which probably occurred in the spring of 1962. ‘I was at Marilyn’s place one evening when the doorbell rang. She was in the tub, and she called to me to get it. I opened the door, and there was Bobby.’ Carmen said she recognized the Attorney General at once, but was completely nonplussed. So was Robert Kennedy. ‘He had that expression of not knowing whether to run, or walk, or stay,’ said Carmen. ‘I was stunned, and I kept saying, “Come in,” but went on standing in his way. Finally, I got out of the way, and Marilyn came flying out of the bathroom, and jumped into his arms … she kissed him openly, which was out of character for her…‘
That night, said Carmen, she shared a glass of wine with Marilyn and Robert Kennedy — in a somewhat awkward atmosphere — then left them alone. She said Marilyn had told her some time earlier that she had seen John Kennedy, but never said much about the elder brother.
There was another occasion, says Carmen, when John and Robert arrived together with a couple of companions, then left almost at once with Marilyn. There was, she said, one further encounter with Robert Kennedy. She discussed it with some reluctance, and understandably so. If true, it was a remarkable episode, with a bizarre background.
Carmen discovered early on Marilyn’s mischievous delight in nudity. They once went to the movies together, each of them naked under a mink coat. (Given Marilyn’s history of such antics, this seems plausible.) Carmen said they were both friends of comedian Jack Benny; Marilyn had known him since 1953, and witnesses confirm they were friends. Benny’s home number appears in Marilyn’s address book.
Benny, says Carmen, would accompany Marilyn and herself to a massage parlor on Sunset, where they would all have facials. Once, for a lark, and to tease Benny, the two women walked out of the building and “flashed” their mink coats open at Benny, who was waiting outside in the car. Both were naked under the coats.
Carmen says nudity became something of a running joke for the trio— she makes it clear there was no sexual aspect so far as Benny was concerned— and they occasionally ventured forth to a “nude beach.” In the early sixties there was a beach where nude swimming was permitted, well to the north of Santa Monica, near the present Pepperdine University. As a sort of mutual dare, Carmen says, Jack Benny and Marilyn would accompany her to this beach in disguise—Marilyn in her black wig, Benny in a false beard acquired specially for the purpose. It worked, nobody recognized them. The false beard remained lying around Marilyn’s apartment and—in 1962— that was how Robert Kennedy came into the story.
“The beard was lying there,” Carmen says, “when Bobby came to see Marilyn, and I think he asked us what it was for. We explained, and told him about the Benny thing, and he said, ‘You could recognize Benny if he had ten beards on.’ And Marilyn said, ‘Oh, no, you couldn’t. Nobody’d recognize you if we fixed you up.’ And she put the beard on him, I put sunglasses on him, and we put a hat on him like a baseball cap sort of thing. And he looked in the mirror and said something like ‘I could probably get away with this.’ And we said, ‘Okay, we dare you! Let’s go.’”
Carmen is aware her story sounds preposterous, but she says Robert Kennedy simply seemed unable to resist a dare. That, certainly, is in character. They went off to the nudist beach in Carmen’s convertible—Kennedy in his getup and Marilyn in her wig. It was late, she says, and not many people were around. “We walked up and down, and sat on a blanket we brought from the car,” Carmen recalls. “Once we got out there and found nobody cared. Here were two famous people that nobody recognized—we just sort of lounged around. On the way back, we really laughed a lot.”
Checks of her background, and her own voluminous file on her show business career, indicate that Carmen was what she says she was and had many of the friends she claims she had in that period, including PETER LAWFORD and FRANK SINATRA. She correctly named the landlady of the Doheny apartments at the relevant time, and was clearly familiar with the building when we visited it together in 1983. Marilyn did not give up the apartment at once when she moved to her new house in spring 1962.
Follow the incredible journey of Jeanne Carmen’s wild life in this extraordinary, true life story of an American icon by author Brandon James in his thrilling, tell-all biography, Jeanne Carmen: MY WILD, WILD LIFE as a New York Pin Up Queen, Trick Shot Golfer & Hollywood Actress.
Ride along as the legendary Carmen travels the long, winding and sometimes dangerous road from a poverty-stricken childhood in Arkansas, to a bona fide New York Pin Up Queen, to a noted trick shot golfer who falls into the clutches of the mafia in Las Vegas – and finally to a celebrated Hollywood actress who dazzled her celebrity friends, including Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Errol Flynn, among countless others.
Accompany her as her Hollywood life came to an abrupt end after her dear friend Marilyn Monroe died mysteriously on August 5, 1962. The next morning, Carmen’s apartment was broken into and ransacked. She stumbled upon the intruder and was thrown to the ground. According to Carmen, the man was famed Hollywood private detective Fred Otash, who in turn pulled a gun out, pointed it at her face, and pulled the trigger. Lucky for her, the chamber was empty and only a loud click emanated from the gun barrel. Carmen collapsed and broke down in tears shortly after hearing the allegations that Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana had Marilyn Monroe murdered in an attempt to frame the Kennedys and ruin their political careers.
Now, her diary is unlocked … and you get to see this gorgeous and celebrated woman in action through the pages of this book and on her website http://www.jeannecarmen.com
Carmen has been profiled in magazines, including Star, Globe, National Enquirer, Palm Springs Life, Golf, Femme Fatales, Golf World, Fairways, Playboy and American Heritage. She has also been seen on CBS News 48 Hours Mystery, Entertainment Tonight, BBC, History Channel, Golf Channel, Inside Edition, Hard Copy, E! True Hollywood Story, Asahi TV, Discovery Networks, Geraldo, Montel Williams and Larry King Live.
About the Author
The son of Jeanne Carmen, James is a graduate of the world-famous USC School of Cinematic Arts. He has written for many popular magazines, including Femme Fatales, Collecting Hollywood, Classic Images and The Dark Side. He also worked as a consultant on E! Entertainment Television’s TV biography Jeanne Carmen: Queen of the B-Movies for their award-winning series The E! True Hollywood Story.
Jeanne Carmen: MY WILD, WILD LIFE as a New York Pin Up Queen, Trick Shot Golfer & Hollywood Actress is available at Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Hollywood Legend TONY CURTIS has published the book AMERICAN PRINCE: A MEMOIR: Crown Publishing Group: ISBN-13: 9780307408495
Marilyn Monroe said that when she was a child her mother had been sick. Marilyn didn’t mention her father. She had a friend named JEANNE CARMEN, a showgirl, who was very important to her, but on the whole Marilyn made it sound as if she was very isolated. We started to kiss and fondle each other, but that was the extent of the evening. At 11 o’clock, I drove her back.
I liked Marilyn very much and really enjoyed her company. She was a little odd, but so was I. We both acted very outgoing, but deep down we weren’t at ease with ourselves. Her reluctance to open up about her life just made me that much more interested in her, but the next few times I called to make a date she told me she was busy. Marilyn had been spending time at the Twentieth Century Fox studio. She was changing her style, her look, even her persona. When we had first started going out, she spoke in a normal voice, plainly and directly. Now she was learning what the public wanted, and by the end of our relationship she was beginning to talk with that breathy, sexy affectation that became her trademark. She also changed her hair colour, from red to platinum blonde.
On our next date we went for lunch at the Twentieth Century Fox commissary. That weekend I asked Howard Duff if I could use his house again. I bought a couple of steaks and picked Marilyn up at her hotel. Howard had a little grill in his garden. I cooked the steaks, opened a can of string beans, cut up some tomatoes, and uncorked a bottle of wine.
We had a leisurely dinner; then we walked outside in the moonlight. I knew something was going to happen, and so did she.
About two o’clock we went up to the bedroom, and I took off my shirt. Marilyn made herself comfortable, stripping down to her panties and bra, and sat on the edge of the bed. She was magnificent. We started to kiss and hold each other, and I undid her bra. Her breasts were every teenage boy’s fantasy come true. As we began to make love, I could tell that this was not her first time. She moved easily and seemed comfortable, which made her comfortable, too.
Something about it just seemed so right. I was bedding more than a few great-looking girls at this time in my life, but I liked Marilyn more than any of the others. She was different. She was very fragile and vulnerable, which attracted me greatly. We continued seeing each other for awhile. We would go to her friend JEANNE CARMEN’s place, or Howard’s bungalow, and once we even went to Marilyn’s hotel room. We almost never went out at night in public, though.
Marilyn was the first woman I ever truly felt close to. We had real feelings for each other, although I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, and neither was she. Neither one of us was willing – or able – to take what we had between us to the next level.
Pin Up Icon Jeanne Carmen was interviewed by The Los Angeles Times after the death of Marilyn Monroe on August 4, 1962.
In the article, the Times stated that “from other sources”—including Carmen, housekeeper Eunice Murray and film director John Huston—a darker, more mysterious version of Monroe’s last days was already emerging.
The Times reported that Carmen was “a neighbor” of Monroe and that she had seen Marilyn two weeks earlier and had stated that Monroe “looked like death.”
Check out a pdf of the newspaper clipping at this link:
Decades later, according to Jeanne’s E! True Hollywood Story, “After the death of Monroe, Carmen felt her own life was in danger because of her knowledge of Monroe’s affairs with President John F Kennedy and his brother Bobby Kennedy.”
So Carmen “skipped town” leaving Hollywood behind and landing in the small desert town of Scottsdale, Arizona where she lived incognito for over a decade.
Carmen abandoned her platinum blonde locks, had three children and lived a quiet life, never mentioning her prior life in Hollywood.
Carmen would not be seen again on the big screen, TV or in print for over two decades.
Source: ^ “Housekeeper Discloses: Mystery Phone Call Received by Marilyn”, Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1962
The Official Jeanne Carmen Website 