Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys

Summary

United States of Kennedy Episode: Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys
Hosts: George Civeris & Julia Claire
Release Date: February 9, 2026
Podcast: United States of Kennedy (iHeartPodcasts)

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Episode Overview

This episode dissects the decades-old rumors, speculation, and conspiracy theories surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s connections with John F. Kennedy (JFK) and Robert F. Kennedy (RFK). Hosts George and Julia dig into the origins and evolution of these alleged affairs, address why they remain so persistent, and critically assess prominent books and pop culture portrayals—from tabloid pamphlets to the 2022 Netflix documentary, The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes. The episode explores the facts, the myths, and the cultural context that continue to make this story so compelling.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Marilyn and the Kennedys in Public Memory

• Only one surviving photograph shows Marilyn Monroe with JFK and RFK, from the 1962 Madison Square Garden birthday event ([03:03]).
• Despite limited direct evidence, speculation about her affairs with both brothers—and even possible involvement in her death—has persisted for decades.
• Quote: "But that hasn't stopped decades of conspiracy theories... especially how it may or may not intersect with her untimely death in 1962." (Julia Claire, [03:03])

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2. Why the Truth Is So Elusive

• The story's reality is clouded by unreliable, often self-serving sources, and the fact that almost all principals are long deceased.

• There is a "cottage industry" of people writing semi-fictional accounts of their proximity to Monroe or the Kennedys ([05:16]).

• Archival limitations and contradictory records muddy the historical waters further.

• Notable moment:

  "If we are kind of wishy-washy about whether things are true or false, it isn't because we haven't done enough research. It's actually because we've done too much... Everything contradicts the last thing you read."
  (George Severis, [04:46])

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3. Timeline of the Rumors and Theories

a. Early Focus on RFK

• Early rumors centered on RFK, not JFK.

• Source: A 1964 FBI document and anti-communist activist Frank Capell’s pamphlet, The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe ([09:20]).

• Capell’s conspiracy: Monroe was a communist agent, her death tied to her connections with the Kennedys.

• Quote:

  "A 70 page pamphlet, it evokes a madman."
  (Julia Claire, [09:20])

b. Norman Mailer & the Shift to JFK

• Norman Mailer’s Marilyn: A Biography added high-profile literary speculation but admitted its own conjectures ([11:26]).
• Mailer’s public admission:

  "I was doing something you don't normally do with a book, which is getting into the end of a book with a half-finished exploration."
  (Norman Mailer quoted by George Severis, [12:31])

• Arthur Miller, Monroe’s ex-husband, mocked Mailer’s self-aggrandizement.

c. Earl Wilson & Gossip’s Evolution

• 1974: Gossip columnist Earl Wilson “sets the record straight,” shifting the focus from RFK to JFK as Marilyn’s supposed lover ([18:57]).
• Wilson’s declaration:

  "Now that it's out in the open... I have chosen to tell the true story of Marilyn Monroe's liaison with the brothers Kennedy..."
  (Earl Wilson quoted, [19:04])

d. Rumors, National Enquirer, and Enduring Urban Legends

• From the ‘70s on, rumors drifted toward JFK, spawning claims about secret love children and murder plots.
• The “zone has been flooded” with stories—most deriving from hearsay, not hard evidence ([38:48]).

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4. What Do We Actually Know?—The Four Confirmed Meetings

• According to biographer Donald Spoto:

  1. October 1961: Party at Peter and Pat Lawford’s Santa Monica home ([25:16]).

  2. February 1962: Manhattan dinner hosted by socialite Fifi Fell ([26:49]).

  3. March 24, 1962: Both JFK and Monroe were houseguests at Bing Crosby’s Palm Springs estate—this night, a phone call with Marilyn’s masseur, Ralph Roberts. Marilyn allegedly tells Ralph this was the only night of her affair with JFK ([28:16]).

     • Quote:

       "Marilyn told me that this night in March was the only time of her affair with JFK..."
       (Ralph Roberts quoted by George Severis, [29:13])

  4. May 1962: JFK’s birthday gala at Madison Square Garden (where Monroe sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President") ([35:13]).

• No evidence suggests more than brief encounters; the iconic photo at MSG is routinely cropped to suggest intimacy that the full context doesn’t support ([38:01]).

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5. The Family, Sex, and the Allure of Power

• The Kennedys’ well-documented philandering and obsession with Hollywood inform why even implausible rumors seem credible.
• The Kennedy men were raised to treat women as sexual conquests ([22:01]).
• Joe Kennedy’s own affair with Gloria Swanson and the family’s general fascination with showbiz are discussed as factors converging with Marilyn’s ambitions ([22:07], [23:07]).

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6. Netflix Documentary "The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes"

(Discussion starts at [38:58])

• Based on journalist Anthony Summers’ research from the 80s, who compiled over 650 interviews.

• The documentary is notable for its immense volume of interviews, but ultimately finds no bombshells—Summers concludes Marilyn likely died (accidentally or intentionally) by overdose, and that the timeline and coverup are “fudged,” not evidence of murder ([56:53]).

  • Quote:

    "In many ways, the documentary is so unsatisfying because you don't get a big bombshell at the end, which then almost makes you feel complicit... I would have preferred it if Bobby Kennedy shot her in her Rumor."
    (George Severis, [41:18])

• The documentary spotlights:

  • The importance of Hollywood fixers and private eyes (most notably Fred Otash, [51:49])
  • Alleged bugging of Marilyn’s house—though no such tapes have surfaced ([54:16])
  • Conversations with surviving family of Monroe’s psychiatrist, her housekeeper Eunice Murray, and the unreliable, changeable nature of those accounts ([59:45])

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7. A Culture of Conspiracy: Why the Myths Persist

• The combination of tabloid culture, contradictory (and possible destroyed) records, and the Kennedys’ notorious secrecy have fed the legend.

• The police, FBI, and Kennedy insiders may have contributed to a coverup, but hard evidence linking Monroe's death directly to the Kennedys does not exist ([61:06]).

• Julia’s Occam’s Razor:

  "It's like fairly plausible that she had affairs of varying lengths with either or both of them. But I think that she was obviously like a very troubled person and her death kind of got just swept up in the existing conspiracy theories that surround the Kennedys."
  (Julia Claire, [61:43])

• George’s summary:

  "Gun to my head, if I were to say what I believe, I think it sounds like the one night stand with JFK probably happened and it was no more than that..."
  (George Severis, [62:02])

---

8. Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Myth

• The hosts end with an appreciation for Monroe as an actor and the person beneath the legend ([63:28]).

• Recommendation to watch Monroe’s films (e.g., Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)—her talent and comedic presence are cited as worth revisiting.

• Quote:

  "She is just completely electric on screen. You can't take your eyes off her. And she's funny. She's really funny."
  (Julia Claire, [63:58])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On endless contradictions:
  "Everyone has an ulterior motive... there’s a cottage industry of people writing semi-fictional accounts..."
  (George Severis, [05:08])

• On the persistent rumors:
  "It's kind of the germ that launched a thousand National Enquirer covers."
  (Julia Claire, [38:29])

• On how the story endures:
  "People were writing pamphlets...a crazy guy passing out these 70 page pamphlets on the street."
  (Julia Claire, [15:15])

• On the futility of speculation:
  "The more research you do, the less you know."
  (Julia Claire, [06:31])

• On Marilyn’s legacy:
  "Her lasting legacy could be proven to be much more positive than that of any of the Kennedys."
  (George Severis, [64:47])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:03] Debunking the photographic “evidence” and introducing the web of speculation
• [09:20] Anti-communist conspiracy theory origins (Capell)
• [11:26] Norman Mailer and intellectualizing the rumors
• [18:57] Earl Wilson and the shift of focus from RFK to JFK
• [25:16] Recap: The four confirmed encounters between Monroe and JFK
• [35:13] MSG "Happy Birthday" and cultural context
• [38:58] Netflix documentary dissection: what’s new? What’s credible?
• [51:49] Hollywood fixers & Fred Otash’s role
• [59:45] Discussion of accounts by Monroe’s housekeeper, Eunice Murray
• [63:28] Final reflections—Marilyn beyond the myths

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Final Reflections

Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys is a case study in American mythmaking—a blend of Hollywood glamour, political intrigue, and irresistible gossip. The hosts demonstrate that while the truth likely lies in a narrow, less glamorous lane (a brief affair and a troubled star’s early death), the cultural machinery that builds and sustains conspiracy is ever-hungry. In closing, George and Julia urge listeners to see past legends and appreciate Monroe’s real artistry.

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For further exploration:

• Watch Marilyn Monroe films, e.g., Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Some Like It Hot
• Read The Kennedy Imprisonment by Garry Wills (for Kennedy family context)
• See the Netflix documentary: The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes

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Episode in a sentence:
Despite endless intrigue and speculation, the story of Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys is mostly smoke—fuel for the tabloid era and a case study in the making of American myth.

Transcript

[Julia Claire]

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[George Severis]

At.

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[George Severis]

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[George Severis]

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[George Severis]

I'm George Severis.

[Julia Claire]

And I'm Julia Claire.

[George Severis]

And this is United States of Kennedy, the podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week we go into one aspect of the Kennedy story, and today we are talking about perhaps the most famous member of the Kennedy extended universe, the Marilyn Monroe.

[Julia Claire]

Only one photograph survives of Marilyn President John F. Kennedy and then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy at the famous Madison Square Garden celebration where she SANG Happy birthday, Mr. President. But that hasn't stopped decades of conspiracy theories surrounding her involvement with the two of them, especially how it may or may not intersect with her untimely death in 1962.

[George Severis]

So today we are going to take a look at exactly how those theories started, how they got out of hand, how they relate to everything from the FBI to communism to Norman Mailer. And if they bring us any closer to the truth, then we'll chat about the 2022 Netflix documentary the Mystery of Marilyn Monroe, the unheard tapes, and talk about whether or not it complicates or clarifies the narrative.

[Julia Claire]

So let's dive in.

[George Severis]

Yes, let's dive in. And I want to open with a Reddit comment that our dear researcher found for us that really summarizes his thoughts and increasingly our thoughts about this whole topic. So this is again from a random person on Reddit, because we are nothing if not dogged reporters on this.

[Julia Claire]

We're journalists.

[George Severis]

That's right. So this is a comment. It says, we know they met only a handful of times at public events. Marilyn was familiar with the Kennedy family through Pat Newcomb. She became friends with Pat Kennedy and met Bobby Kennedy a few times. Bobby was also friendly with Kim Novak and Judy Garland. Everything else is disproven, hearsay, photoshopped pictures, and even fabricated FBI papers. It's batshit the lengths people will go to prove this affair.

[Julia Claire]

Well, let's throw our hats in the ring.

[George Severis]

That said, we are gonna finally unco the truth once and for all in this episode.

[Julia Claire]

So strap in and look no further than this episode. We're getting everything straightened out here.

[George Severis]

And I want to say if we are kind of wishy washy about whether things are true or false, it isn't because we haven't done enough research. It's actually because we've done too much. And I'm not even joking. Every source you read about Marilyn Monroe's Alleged affairs and or one night stands with both RFK and jfk. Everything contradicts the last thing you read.

[Julia Claire]

Right.

[George Severis]

Everyone has an ulterior motive, whether it's making a name for themselves or trying to prove that they were closer to Marilyn than they actually were.

[Julia Claire]

Yes.

[George Severis]

I mean, our producer pointed out that there's a cottage industry of people writing semi fictional accounts of their friendship with whether it's Marilyn or Jack or Jackie Kennedy. And so this is kind of what we have to go off of when discussing things like this.

[Julia Claire]

And also compounded by the fact that everyone involved in this is long, long dead and modern record keeping didn't exist yet.

[George Severis]

Yeah, I mean, to be honest, one of the most convincing things to me was the fact that Sy Hirsch in his 1997 book The Dark side of Camelot, despite being very critical of the Kennedy family and spending five pages on Marilyn and jfk, did not mention the alleged one night stand they had. And that I was like, okay, interesting. If he, presumably he has turn every stone to find any kind of evidence to suggest that the Kennedys were hypocritical, that the Kennedys were, you know, not who they said they were, if he isn't mentioning it at all, maybe it does mean that it never happened or that there wasn't enough evidence that said, you know, of course then I kept reading our research doc and immediately was locked back in and ready to, ready to argue that it actually all did happen.

[Julia Claire]

I know it is one of those cases in which the more research you do, the less you know, it's really confusing. And you understand why these conspiracy theories have persisted as long as they have. The waters are just so muddied. Yeah. And after having done the research and read what we had to read for this episode, I'm like.

[George Severis]

Well, it's like you start to be convinced by something and then you remember, oh right, this was written by a full on anti communist conspiracy theorist pamphlet. Like these are the ramblings of a crazy person and they. But they sound like they could be plausible.

[Julia Claire]

And everyone has a motive. Everyone wants to claim proximity to these extremely famous, powerful people. Considering Marilyn so often described herself as not having a lot of friends, you wouldn't think that by how many people claimed that they were essentially her best friend.

[George Severis]

The friends actually came out of the woodwork after her untimely death. Interestingly enough, it's funny how that happens. So I want to go through kind of a timeline of the theories and then maybe that'll help bring us somewhat closer to the truth. One Thing that I hadn't fully realized is that until basically the 70s, the main theories about Marilyn and the Kennedys had to do with her alleged affair with rfk rather than JFK. I mean, despite the happy birthday, Mr. President of IT all and the fact that they crossed paths a few times, the main narrative was that she was having some sort of affair with Bobby Kennedy, RFK, who was JFK's attorney general, of course, and people would go so far as to imply that they were going to get married and he was going to leave his family. And then she was so depressed about the fact that he wouldn't leave his family. That had to do with her mental and emotional deterioration. So that's the main narrative until later on. So apparently there was evidence that rumors of an RFK Maryland affair existed as early as a 1964 FBI document. But then it was more popularized when this guy named Frank Capel, who is an anti communist conspiracy theorist. So again, grain of Salt, wrote this 70 page pamphlet called the Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe. And he sort of like picks up these rumors that existed and then wildly theorizes about them. He ties it all to, you know, communist conspiracy theories. Because of course, Marilyn, due to her proximity to Hollywood, was of course tied to people that were alleged communist or communist sympathizers. You know, anyone from Arthur Miller to director she worked with. And so part of the conspiracy theorizing here was connecting Maryland's communist connections with the Kennedys, who were also, according to this person, not hard enough on communism.

[Julia Claire]

A 70 page pamphlet, it evokes a madman.

[George Severis]

It's the equivalent of like a 16 part blog series or something like you can easily imagine the contemporary version of Frank Capel having a substack is Ryan Lizza.

[Julia Claire]

That's right, it's the contemporary Frank Capel.

[George Severis]

And I want to just get the timing right. So 1964 is when Capel wrote the Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe.

[Julia Claire]

Two years after her death.

[George Severis]

Two years after her death, I want to say one report said of his other book, Treason is the reason that it was, quote, so full of demonstrable falsehoods as to be ludicrous if it were not such a sad commentary on the gullibility of the audience Cappell expects to reach. So the reviews are in.

[Julia Claire]

Well, now I want to read it.

[George Severis]

So after that we have Fred Lawrence Giles and he, he was a writer. Fred Lawrence Giles wrote this book called Norma Jean the Life of Marilyn Monroe, which also kind of played with the RFK rumors and brought them to the mainstream. We have A quote here. This is a very funny quote because he's trying to be coy with who he's talking about. So he said Marilyn was involved with a married man. He was not in the film industry. He was an Easterner with few t Christ on the coast. He had come west mainly to work out the details of a film production of a literary property in which he had had a hand, and to escape the pressures of his work as a lawyer and a public servant. For the attorney, his holiday on the west coast was a lark, a vacation from his wife and children. He and Marilyn were discreet, almost never venturing beyond the stuccoed wall surrounding his friend's beach house. Their relationship had nowhere to go. Publicity about the affair might destroy all his chances for an important political career. So there you go. And people speculated it was jfk, but it couldn't be JFK because it was an attorney. And this was before the Kennedys were in the White House. So that is why it would affect his budding political career, etc. Etc. So we have Frank Capel and Fred Lawrence Giles. They popularize the theory. And then Julia, which of our favorite male writers enters the ring.

[Julia Claire]

Now, of course, we are talking about Norman Mailer. Norman Paler wrote a hasty book called Marilyn, A Biography. He just kind of cribs large swaths from Giles's book and then cycles back to there being some conspiracy centering around the supposed affair and Marilyn Monroe's death, though not how Frank Capel had initially conceived of it.

[George Severis]

Yeah, so one of the important and obvious differences between Norman Mailer and Capel is their political differences. Capel comes at it from an anticonron communist perspective and believes there's some sort of communist conspiracy, whereas Mailer thinks it's the opposite, thinks it was a conspiracy against rfk. He is sort of open about the fact that his book is light on facts and light on research. On 60 Minutes, there was a famously contentious interaction that Mailer had with an interviewer who I believe was Mike Wallace, where Wallace keeps pushing him, being like, do you stand by the things you wrote in this book?

[Julia Claire]

And.

[George Severis]

And Mailer says, I was doing something you don't normally do with a book, which is getting into the end of a book with a half finished exploration. And I decided it was important enough to get out there half finished rather than not get into it at all. And then, you know, in this video we watched, the narrator says, the best criticism of the book we've heard so far is from Norman Mailer's own. It got out there half finished.

[Julia Claire]

And this is 1973.

[George Severis]

Okay, so we're like over 10 years after Marilyn's death at this point.

[Julia Claire]

Marilyn's former husband, who's also a famous playwright, Arthur Miller, wrote, Norman Mailer saw himself as Monroe, quote, in drag, acting out his own Hollywood fantasies of fame and sex unlimited and power.

[George Severis]

You know, one of the amazing things about this era is these sort of dick swinging matches between famous men, between.

[Julia Claire]

These men with no upper body strength.

[George Severis]

No, it is true. Obviously I do not mourn the end of toxic masculinity, but I miss the entertainment value of men who think so highly of themselves getting into public shouting matches, sort of Real Housewives style.

[Julia Claire]

Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer, Scylla broth.

[George Severis]

That's right.

[Julia Claire]

RIP to our toxic male authors.

[George Severis]

Yes. Rest in power. So that's what happens with Norman Mailer. A fun fact about the book is that it's called Marilyn A Biography. But there is debate about whether it is meant to be Marilyn Colon A Biography or Marilyn. And then the subtitle, A Biography by Norman Mailer. And because of the sort of ethics of new journalism where you didn't have to adhere to the same standards of objectivity and things like that, there's plausible deniability where he himself doesn't think he is writing an objective account. So the idea of the subtitle being A Biography by Norman Mailer sort of complicates the book as a factual account of things.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, he says point blank that he did some research and then filled in the blanks via speculation. He says, I speculated.

[George Severis]

And the other funny thing with the book is that he was originally hired to essentially write a glorified opening essay for a book of erotic photos of Marilyn Monroe. And then as he was writing the essay, it got too long and then became a book of its own. So it all has the sort of spirit of like one coke fueled week where he decided, wait, I actually have more to say.

[Julia Claire]

Right. It really just strikes me as a money grab.

[George Severis]

Yeah, completely. It's funny, we live in a time when obviously it's very difficult to know what to believe and what not to believe when you read things on the Internet. And there's something almost refreshing about remembering things like this have always existed. Like people can just, have always been able to sort of just publish whatever and be like, all right, now you guys deal with it.

[Julia Claire]

People were writing pamphlets. Yeah, the image that that evokes for me, just like a crazy guy passing out these 70 page pamphlets on the street.

[George Severis]

So often a conspiracy theory will start in the most unlikely place, but then all it takes is like a couple of people repeating it or saying it on television for it to reach a mainstream audience.

[Julia Claire]

We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after this break.

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[Julia Claire]

This is US Olympic gold medalist Tara.

[George Severis]

Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.

[Julia Claire]

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[George Severis]

A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust.

[Julia Claire]

So when it came to getting the.

[George Severis]

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[Julia Claire]

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[George Severis]

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[Julia Claire]

And we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

[George Severis]

So this brings us to Earl Wilson. Earl Wilson was a gossip columnist and he has stood in the sidelines watching people speculate about RFK now for close to a decade. But he in his heart knows that the real affair happened between JFK and Marilyn. And so finally, after the Mailer book, he decides the gossip mill has been going on long enough and it's time for him to tell the truth, which is that it was actually JFK rather than RFK having the affair. And so he releases a book in 1974 called Show Business Laid Bare. And he says this is a direct quote. Now that it's out in the open, now that it's in the public domain, with the whole world having been misinformed about it, I have chosen to tell the true story of Marilyn Monroe's liaison on with the brothers Kennedy. It's a story I have withheld for several years until Norman Mailer wrote a book repeating the gossip that the sexiest of the sex symbols was having a great love affair at the end of her life with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. But the time has come to set the record straight. I am telling what I know. I am taking nothing from other men's books. And by the way, this was a jab at Mailer who heavily quoted other people's books. I am not snatching at dreams. I knew Marilyn Monroe for 13 years and through many, many interviews and meetings and cocktails, I photographed Marilyn Monro scores of times. And preposterous as it was, Marilyn Monroe photographed me. So anyway, the man whose Companionship she enjoyed most in her last tortured year was not Bobby Kennedy, but was his brother, the young President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. And so this brings us to JFK. Basically, starting in 1974, the rumor mill kind of switched from being RFK focused to JFK focused. And then through today. I mean, there still are books being written about it today. There's still fictionalized accounts of it today. This, this very sticky story has persisted that Marilyn had some sort of affair with jfk.

[Julia Claire]

Right. And I think the thing that we will come back to time and again is that there actually isn't a lot beyond hearsay. Certain people corroborated what other people have said via interviews. It's all kind of subjective first person accounts, usually of people who were being interviewed many years, sometimes decades after the events had happened. So it's very hard to know what to believe. I think it is one of those things where it's a kind of Occam's Razor. And I do still think that the conspiracy theories are mostly just that.

[George Severis]

Yeah. But of course it's difficult because all of this exists with the backdrop of Kennedy's known reputation as a philanderer, as someone who was having affairs fully out in the open in the White House, as someone who was known to enlist his team to destroy evidence or kind of fabricate narratives that were more convenient for his family. The other thing which I haven't forgotten from when we were reading that book with Matt Sipman, the Kennedy imprisonment then Kennedy imprisonment, is there's a whole chapter in that book about how the Kennedy boys were really raised to view women as objects.

[Julia Claire]

Right.

[George Severis]

And the dad was really like, have as much sex with women as you can. It's your birthright as a man.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah. And also just to set the scene, there's the kind of objectification, the familial commitment to objectifying women among the men, but also the Kennedy family's fascination with Hollywood and celebrities. And celebrities. You know, we talked about on previous episodes that Joe Kennedy had a long time affair with Gloria Swanson and was just a dog and kind of passed that on to his sons. And we've also talked about the fact that JFK was very interested in Hollywood gossip and he had this connection to the Rat Pack and always wanted to know who was doing what, who was sleeping with whom. And it just seems like many of the Kennedys, over the course of the generations have wanted to be actors, not politicians. So there is this kind of generational fascination with Hollywood that really dovetails and makes the Marilyn, of it all, a lot more plausible to believe completely.

[George Severis]

And again, you know, in terms of the Kennedy men's relationship to women, you hear something like, well, actually, the brothers shared Marilyn, and they both had affairs with her. And you think if it was any other family, you would think, well, that's probably not true. That sounds like something a gossip columnist would make up. And it probably was. But in this case, you are kind of like, well, if there's any family that would do something like that, it is the Kennedys.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, it's both. Not only the Kennedy fascination with Hollywood, but it's also, from what we know about Marilyn, she was so kind of intellectually aspirational. She was so desperate to be taken seriously, and she was interested in serious things, and she married Arthur Miller. She wanted to be kind of in a world of smart people.

[George Severis]

I mean, yes, part of the narrative in the documentary, which we'll get to later, is that she was having conversations with JFK and with other important political figures about politics, including nuclear proliferation.

[Julia Claire]

That's. I mean, that was where I almost threw my remote across the room.

[George Severis]

We're meant to believe that she was partly. Well, I mean, to be clear, the documentary does not actually make this assertion, but one could start believing that that part of the reason she was allegedly killed was because she knew too much about nuclear proliferation and about communism and about Cuba. I mean, there was a certain paranoia during that era in general, a paranoia about Hollywood and about politics. I mean, this is the time of McCarthy. There's the time of the Cold War. So obviously, when you have Marilyn Monroe on the one hand and President John F. Kennedy on the other, you're not going to get people reacting normally.

[Julia Claire]

Right.

[George Severis]

So with all that to say, I think one thing we can do is at least go through the facts we do know. And so we have. According to biographer Donald Spodo, JFK and Marilyn met at least four times. And these are times that can be corroborated and that we can at least say they crossed paths. The first time was October 1961, after a photography session for a magazine story, when Marilyn asked Alan Snyder to deliver her to a party at Patricia in Peter Lawford's Santa Monica beach house. So, Julia, who are Patricia and Peter Lawford?

[Julia Claire]

Peter Lawford was an English actor who was kind of secondarily affiliated with the Rat Pack, and his first wife was Patricia Kennedy, not a Kennedy that we hear about very often. I really didn't know anything about her before this, but apparently another one of the Kennedys with a big Hollywood fascination who had gone out there, met Peter Lawford, the two of them got married, and they settled down in Santa Monica, and they had this beach house there that was the site of many a fabulous party.

[George Severis]

Yeah. And the beach house is very important to Marilyn's relationship with the Kennedys because those are the two Kennedys that actually lived in Los Angeles where Marilyn Monroe lived. So a lot of her alleged interactions with both RFK and JFK were in and around that community. And both of us were surprised we did a. To know about this because there's obviously connections between the Kennedys and the Rat Pack. They came up when we were discussing the relationship between the Kennedys and organized crime, because the Rat Pack was sort of affiliated with organized crime, depending on who you ask. But somehow I had missed the fact that Pat Kennedy, literal sister to Bobby and Jack, was married to sort of a secondary member of the Rat Pack. All right, so that's October 1961. They interact at a party at. At Pat and Peter Lawford's house.

[Julia Claire]

And it should be noted that because this is JFK and RFK's sister, when they are in town, very often they stay with Pat and Peter.

[George Severis]

Right. And of course, as we'll learn later on, you know, people that think RFK was somehow involved in her death point to the. They're like, oh, he was staying at. At his sister's house in, in Santa Monica when Marilyn died in Los Angeles. Okay. The second encounter occurred in February 1962, when Marilyn was again invited to a dinner party for the President, this time at the Minh Manhattan home of Fifi Fel, the wealthy socialite widow of a famous industrialist. I mean, Fifi Fel is the most fabulous New York social. She knows where the bodies are buried.

[Julia Claire]

I love her. I don't know anything about her, and I love her, and I would die for her.

[George Severis]

Please do not write in with what her political opinions are or what her family is doing now. I don't really want to know.

[Julia Claire]

I'm sure it's all. I'm sure it's all perfect. I'm sure that everyone is above board. But also, we need to bring back names like Fifi Fel.

[George Severis]

We need more women named Fifi Fel.

[Julia Claire]

It's evoking an image of the woman who falls out the window on Sex of the City.

[George Severis]

Yes. And so those are their first two encounters, both at parties, seemingly above board. There's no major gossip coming from either of them. But then their third meeting is a bit more salacious.

[Julia Claire]

So the third meeting occurred on Saturday, March 24, 1962, when both the President and Marilyn were house guests of Bing Crosby in Palm Springs. On that occasion, she telephoned Ralph Roberts from the bedroom she was sharing with Kennedy.

[George Severis]

Right? So Ralph Roberts, this is where things.

[Julia Claire]

Get complicated as if it weren't already.

[George Severis]

So there's parts of the Marilyn story that are in, like, a contemporary way. The obsession with health and wellness that actors had even during that time really mirrors the kind of like earwan Pilates culture of today. So Ralph Roberts was her massage therapist, and he had recommended this book, the Thinking Body. Apparently she called him to be like, hey, my friend and I are having a dissertation agreement about the solus Muscle S O L U s. And then she's like, can you explain the solus muscle theory from the Thinking Body yet again? Because I'm with a friend who is dealing with all sorts of muscle and back ailments. And so he explains it, and then allegedly, she puts JFK on the phone and he casually, as though it's not a big deal that he is literally in the same bedroom as Marilyn Monroe, has a whole conversation with. With the masseur.

[Julia Claire]

I guess in today's version of la, this guy would be like her Reiki healer, maybe.

[George Severis]

Yes. And this is according to Ralph. This is a direct quote. Marilyn told me that this night in March was the only time of her affair with jfk. Of course, she was titillated beyond belief because for a year he had been trying through Lawford, that's Peter Lawford, his brother in law, to have an evening with her. A great many people thought after that weekend that there was more to it, but Marilyn gave me the impression that it was not a major event for either of them.

[Julia Claire]

Them.

[George Severis]

It happened once that weekend and that was that. I gotta say, even if it happened once, I have a hard time believing it wasn't a major event for either one of them. I mean, she's having sex with the President and he's having sex with the most beautiful and famous woman in the planet.

[Julia Claire]

But, okay, that's what we're supposed to believe, that they're like, oh, who cares?

[George Severis]

What's funny is. So that night, obviously, as one might imagine, is the source of much speculation. And our wonderful researcher even made a spreadsheet with different accounts of it and what each account says or doesn't say. And the one thing that is constant in all of the accounts were that the phone conversation was about this book, the Thinking Body.

[Julia Claire]

What incredible press for the Thinking Body.

[George Severis]

You know, that era is the body keeps the score I feel is the thinking body. And we should say, you know, to plug it. The Thinking body by Mabel Ellsworth Todd. So there you go, shooting to the.

[Julia Claire]

Top of everyone's to read queue.

[George Severis]

One of the other accounts quotes Marilyn as saying, jack and I have only done it twice so far. Again, not corroborated anywhere. But there you go.

[Julia Claire]

I know all of this is so thorny because outside of these four interactions, which by the way, three out of four of them all happened in the year of her death, I want to.

[George Severis]

Just say one more thing about the thinking body, which I guess is my favorite topic in the world. The argument they were having apparently was about the thigh bone and the hip bone and where does the thigh bone connect with the hip bone? And so they were having some sort of debate about again, the soless muscle. But then according to our researcher, the Solas muscle is in the lower calf. So it does not make sense for it to come up in a discussion about the hip and the thigh bones. So it just goes to show you, you know, even then, Even in the 60s, people in Los Angeles did not fully understand how the human body works.

[Julia Claire]

The soless muscle connects to the hip.

[George Severis]

Yes, exactly.

[Julia Claire]

Wow. Yeah, I love this. And you know, you really see where there's a direct line between the Thinking Body and RFK Jr. Oh my God, that's right.

[George Severis]

Wow, that is a really good point. RFK Jr is still talking about the soulless muscle in the White House.

[Julia Claire]

Now we're cooking with gas.

[George Severis]

He's like, if we stop eating food dyes, we will finally connect our thigh muscle to our hip muscle. We're going to take a short break. Stay with us.

[Public Ad/Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investors Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey.

[Julia Claire]

This is US Olympic gold medalist Tara.

[George Severis]

Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.

[Julia Claire]

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[George Severis]

A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust.

[Julia Claire]

So when it came to getting the.

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[Julia Claire]

PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you.

[George Severis]

Learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services, LLC equal housing lender NMLS ID 35953.

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And Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.

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[George Severis]

And we're back with United States of Kennedy.

[Julia Claire]

So the fourth and final meeting took place in May of 1962 at the aforementioned legendary birthday gala for JFK at Madison Square Garden. It's crazy to think that that. And again, I don't want to make too many connections between Trump and jfk.

[George Severis]

Yeah.

[Julia Claire]

But it is the kind of thing Trump would do is have a birthday party at msg.

[George Severis]

You know, the comparison between JFK and Trump is something that once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's really true in our episode with Matt Sitman because it really sort of becomes apparent in that book, the Kennedy imprisonment. But the similarities are just so clear. I mean, Trump famously had relationships and marriages with actresses and models. There's the obsession with the idea of a star studded event. Like Trump wants a big celebration in Madison Square Garden where a lineup of people come and celebrate him.

[Julia Claire]

Right. If pyrotechnics had existed, they would have been used at this 1962 event.

[George Severis]

And I want to say also something I didn't know is that this event was a full lineup of incredibly a list people from that time. So outside that context, it does seem crazy that Marilyn would come out and do this like sexy, sensual version of Happy Birthday. But the lineup included Peggy Lee, Bobby Darin, Maria Callis, Jack Benny, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte. I mean, she wasn't. Well, I was about to say she wasn't the most famous person there. Maybe she was technically the most famous there, but you know, yes, Brad Pitt is at the Oscars, but so is George Clooney. Like it wasn't this inappropriate thing where it was a serious event and everyone else was a Nobel laureate. And then Marilyn Monroe comes out and.

[Julia Claire]

Desecrate, which is how it's been portrayed as such in the decades since. But it was like very much an entertainment first event.

[George Severis]

It was billed as like a birthday celebration. It was like a week or two before his birthday, I think. But yeah, I think it's easy to take that clip out of context and make it seem way more inappropriate than it is.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, she was just being weird.

[George Severis]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's it. So those are the four times. The four confirmed times. Again, who knows, maybe they've had many other secret meetings. But these were the four confirmed times that they've crossed paths. Two of them were at pretty uneventful parties. The third one, allegedly they were in the same bedroom when they were house guests of Bing Crosby. And then the fourth one was the Madison Square Garden celebration. Again, as Julia said, that is the only event where there's a surviving photograph of the two of them. And the photograph is interesting too, because people often crop it to make it seem like a much more intimate moment than it was uncropped. It's very clear that they're in a crowded room and JFK is crouching to hear her better because they're in like a crowded, loud room. But if you zoom in on that them, it seems like a much more intimate moment.

[Julia Claire]

Right. And it's her and the two brothers. And it looks like it again from like a wider angle. It just looks like the three of them are talking at a party. It doesn't look particularly salacious, in my opinion.

[George Severis]

So I know we're ending the timeline in the 70s, but needless to say, since then there have been people that have come out alleging that they are the love child of Marilyn Monroe and jfk. It is one of those things that is so, so easy to get attention for.

[Julia Claire]

It's kind of the germ that launched a thousand National Enquirer covers.

[George Severis]

Right, exactly.

[Julia Claire]

And it's been 60 years now almost or over 60 years since her death and since all these alleged events happened. And it just, it's just kind of a story that won't die.

[George Severis]

Yeah.

[Julia Claire]

I think because there are so many claims in the ether and because, because the Zone has been flooded with information and, and speaking of which, it's still.

[George Severis]

Happening today because the other thing that we watched for this episode was the 2022 Netflix documentary the Mystery of Marilyn Monroe. The Unheard Tapes.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, so this documentary came about with this book written by an Irish writer named Anthony Summers in 1985 called Goddess and it's all about, about Marilyn. He became interested in the conspiracies surrounding her death in 1982, a few years before when the LA County District Attorney's office reopened the case of her death 20 years after it happened. So this writer, Anthony Summers, thinks that he's just going to work on it for a few months and see what turns up. And he ends up working on it for three years and he interviews hundreds.

[George Severis]

Of people, apparently 600 people.

[Julia Claire]

People, yeah. He got 650 taped recorded interviews over three years with people from all manner of connections or non connections to Marilyn and the Kennedys. And he uncovers a lot of volume, but not in my opinion, not a lot of depth.

[George Severis]

You know, there's something about bragging about the number 650, whatever it was, that is a red flag to me because did most of them say, say either the same thing or Wildly contradictory things, because that's actually less helpful than having, you know, five incredibly well sourced interviews or something. I get the sense, you know, we've sort of come into contact with a lot of conspiracy type figures. Not directly, but I just mean through the stuff we've read and watched for this podcast. And I felt like he was one of the more sympathetic ones. It seemed like he was interested in the trailer truth rather than. Yeah, than trying to push an agenda.

[Julia Claire]

I think he is. And I think they show some footage from his home in Ireland and he does have like boxes and boxes of real research. It doesn't seem like conspiracy theory, red string, cork board situation. And honestly, I think the most credible thing about him is that he, at the end of the documentary, basically ends up concluding the same thing, that her cause of death has been reported to be, which is that it was either an accidental or intentional killing of herself.

[George Severis]

Yeah, I know. It's funny. In many ways, the documentary is so unsatisfying because you don't get a big bombshell at the end, which then almost makes you feel complicit in all the hearsay over the years because you're like, oh, I see. I would like it more if there was a conspiracy. Like, I'm seeing this guy present years and years and years of research, and it's actually coming to a pretty boring conclusion. And that doesn't satisfy me. I would have preferred it if Bobby Kennedy shot her in her Rumor. So I'm thinking it was interesting to try to work through my own reaction.

[Julia Claire]

So I think the centerpiece of his interviews was the surviving family members of Marilyn's psychiatrist for the last two years of her life, this man's wife, his son and daughter, and apparently Marilyn had kind of become integrated into their family life. Again, we don't know how true or false this is. It was known that her existence was quite lonely. So it's certainly possible that she would spend a lot of time with their family. They claim that she had mentioned having a boyfriend figure who she called the General. And that was what everyone in the Justice Department called Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. So there's a lot about this psychiatrist that gets very murky as well. And psychiatrists of the 50s and 60s, 60s, I'll say it should have all been arrested because they were all so unethical and prescribing with abandon. And also the fashionable psychiatry of the day was Freudian psychoanalysis, which is.

[George Severis]

I didn't get. Was he a psychoanalyst? That was sort of not explained.

[Julia Claire]

It wasn't Explained there was the one part in the documentary where it talked about how she was talking to certain people in her life about how haunted she was by certain childhood memories. That does suggest to me that she was in Freudian psychoanalysis.

[George Severis]

Yes. The psychiatrist's family members are what the documentary is sort of built around. It does this interesting thing. It's framed around the actual recordings of the phone calls. And then occasionally they will have actors lip sync the recordings, which I thought.

[Julia Claire]

Was goofy as hell.

[George Severis]

It was definitely goofy as hell because, you know, these are probably like theater actors who were hired to do this and they were like, this is my time to shine. I'm in period clothing and I'm doing very dramatic lip sync reading of these phone calls. But the thing with documentary is that, you know, you have all this amazing audio footage. It is tough to present it in a compelling way. So I sort of see how they got there. But in terms of how the documentary adds to the narrative we already have, it spends the first third to a half describing where Marilyn Monroe was in her life. It goes through her upbringing, her rise as a star. She's one of the first people that is hounded by the paparazzi, for example, she's unable to go anywhere. She is both celebrated and made fun of in the press and by the public because she has this Persona of being like a bimbo. It talks about her marriage to Arthur Miller, which was very volatile. At some point, he allegedly called her a whore in a letter.

[Julia Claire]

That's what the documentary alleges, is that right after their marriage, they were in London when she was beginning to shoot, I think the. Oh, the Prince and the Showgirl.

[George Severis]

Yes.

[Julia Claire]

And she found some notes that allegedly that he had written for himself where he talked about how disappointed he was that he had married her and called her a. And all of these things, which I just want to say this really underscores my belief that men think that they want a really hot woman. Almost none of them can handle one. They're too insecure. It's been true for all of history. Joe DiMaggio was the same way. He.

[George Severis]

Yes, it talks about her marriage to Joe DiMaggio as well. So this is someone who had two marriages that did not, you know, that did not lead to happiness with two men that did not treat her well. So it paints a portrait of someone who has had two failed marriages, is emotionally and mentally in not a great state, is unable to really leave her house and have, like a normal public life because she's hounded by the press. She's also much like, like many Hollywood stars at the time, abusing drugs both uppers and downers. She was abusing sleeping pills. There's this really apparing footage of her leaving a mental hospital that she had checked into. And everyone is asking her, how are you feeling? And she's like, I'm feeling fantastic.

[Julia Claire]

I feel wonderful.

[George Severis]

I feel wonderful.

[Julia Claire]

Yes. It's really so sad. I had never seen that footage before. And it is, as George said, harrowing. When you just see the volume of photographers that are swarming her as she is leaving a mental institution, it would mess anyone up, let alone someone who had a very traumatic childhood, as she did. And, you know, the misfortunes that she suffered goes back a long way and also had been fairly recent as well. She had really wanted children. She had miscarried when she became pregnant with her husband Arthur Miller's child. She was becoming increasingly volatile to work with. There's a lot of stories from the set of the Misfits that they talk about in the documentary where she would show up very late and she would be a little bit mentally incapacitated from all the drugs. Just. It's very sad.

[George Severis]

Yeah. And the two things that people who worked with her seem to agree on are, A, that she was a troubled person, but B, that she had this, like, incredible well of talent and also intellectual curiosity. I mean, there was a quote from, I can't remember who, but one of the directors she worked with that was like, there's so much more she has to give, and her best work will be later in her career. She has this deep well of sophistication and talent, and she really wanted to be an artist, true actress. She didn't want to be a bimbo Hollywood star.

[Julia Claire]

When she first began in Hollywood, she didn't really have any training. And then the more famous she got and the more access she got to legitimate theater circles, she really wanted to be a serious actress. And as I said, she studied at the Actors Institute with Lee Strasberg, who originated the Method and was kind of taken in by he and his wife. And everyone who went to class with her said that she was just a very serious person. And the implication from that director that George mentioned was that her best work was probably ahead of her, even as, like, pilled out as she was in the Misfits. That's considered to be one of her best performances.

[George Severis]

And I think her intellectual ambition, as you mentioned earlier, also ties into her alleged connection to the Kennedys, because she wanted to be around people that she felt were smart and knowledgeable. And I think that also has to do with her marriage to Arthur Miller. I think she really respected him and realized that he was like one of the great American writers and I think liked being around him, liked learning from him. And I think, of course, he, as you mentioned, did not really respect her on an intellectual level. Although, you know, as often happens with these relationships between maybe, you know, sort of like an older intellectual man and younger beautiful woman, he does compliment her, but in a condescending way. It's very, it's like, you know, people don't know this, but she has such an interesting mind. And it's my job to fill it with ideas.

[Julia Claire]

Right? I mean, she was infantilized over and over again by the public, the press, and the men in her life who all I think just wanted to possess. And then when they realized that she was her own person, became very disappointed by that.

[George Severis]

And that is why she was of course, murdered.

[Julia Claire]

That's right, she was murdered by the CIA. And that part of the episode starts now.

[George Severis]

And that is our final word on the matter.

[Julia Claire]

We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after this break.

[Public Ad/Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosure disclosures.

[Julia Claire]

Hey, this is US Olympic gold medalist.

[George Severis]

Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.

[Julia Claire]

As athletes, our lives are about having.

[George Severis]

A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust.

[Julia Claire]

So when it came to getting the.

[George Severis]

Best mortgage, we chose PennyMac.

[Julia Claire]

PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you.

[George Severis]

Learn more at pennymac.com pennymac loan services llc/housing lender nmls id 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.

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[Julia Claire]

And we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

[George Severis]

So, Julia, I do want you to tell us a little bit about Fred Otash, who is one of the main characters that I hadn't heard of that was talked about in the documentary.

[Julia Claire]

Fred Otash was a former Los Angeles police officer, a private investigator, and also kind of a Hollywood fixer. He was this really storied PI and by his own telling, he had worked on both sides of the Mafia. He had worked for and against the Mafia. He had worked for and against the federal government. He had worked for and against the Hollywood studios. He was just kind of a gun for hire who would work with anyone who paid him except no commies for fred. The famous 1974 film Chinatown. The Jack Nicholson character was in part based on Fred Otash, which is really cool. He wrote a memoir about his life called Investigation Hollywood Memoirs of Hollywood's Top Private Detective. So the way that the documentary sets this up is that Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department had a real fixation with Jimmy Hoffman, the famed head of the Teamsters Union. Notoriously corrupt Bobby really had a personal vendetta against Jenny Hoffa and went after him with the full force of the Justice Department. So the documentary alleges, and it seems, at least in part confirmed by a release of JFK assassination records, is that Fred Otash was hired to investigate Peter Lawford and JFK and Bob on behalf of Jimmy Hoffa in order to drum up dirt on the Kennedy family to discredit them.

[George Severis]

Well, as part of that, he, among other things, bugged Marilyn Monroe's home. Right. So her home was bugged. There are calls in the documentary that describe how there were like four bugs and one was under the rug and one was in the chandelier and allegedly.

[Julia Claire]

Bugged Peter Lawford's house as well. My question with that, that I had lingering from the documentary was like, where are those tapes?

[George Severis]

Well, a big thing that both our research and the documentary make clear is that a lot of stuff was allegedly destroyed, whether by the FBI, CIA, the Kennedy administration, whoever, after Marilyn Monroe's death. I mean, even the fact that there's only one surviving photograph of them seems fishy to me. But for all the Talk of the 650 unheard tapes, we don't get any footage from the bugs that were placed in her home, which is from the.

[Julia Claire]

Bugs which would have been sick.

[George Severis]

Part of the confusion was how and when she died, which would have been all in a room that was bugged.

[Julia Claire]

Right. And the thing is, is that there is a plausible version of events in which the FBI did end up subpoenaing those tapes and destroying them. But even saying that, I'm like, well, now I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's not completely out of the realm of possibility, I guess. If the FBI wanted to subpoena those tapes and bring them into their possession, what would them from destroying it if they. I mean, the FBI has done worse, sure, certainly.

[George Severis]

But it should be said, Otash alleges that he has footage of her.

[Julia Claire]

Yes. Yeah. That there is like, audio recording of that. And again, I do think that that would have been released.

[George Severis]

Right.

[Julia Claire]

If he had had it, and. Or I think he would have made copies of it, knowing that it may be confiscated at some point.

[George Severis]

So basically, in terms of new evidence that was in the documentary, the two main things are the account of Marilyn's psychiatrist family, who are pretty sure that there sort of affair happening, and the unreleased and unconfirmed tapes that Otash had that he alleges show audio footage of her literally having sexual relations with jfk. And so all of this builds to this idea that in the midst of all of this and in the midst of Marilyn Monroe having conversations with the President about politics and nuclear war and communism and things like that. She became a target.

[Julia Claire]

Right? And I have to say that over the course of the documentary, I did become a bit more convinced that it was likelier that she was having an actual affair with Bobby than Jack. Larry Tighe, the biographer of Bobby Kennedy, who wrote the book, Bobby kind of doesn't really go there. He doesn't even really opine. He's just like, it's possible, but he always went back to Ethel. And there was also an allegation in the documentary that Bobby had, in the time before Marilyn's death, kind of given her an order that she could no longer contact either he or his brother. And there was a tape recording that Anthony summers got from JFK's personal secretary and said that she would, you know, Marilyn would call, she would talk to her. It's all possible. But I think even where the documentary indulges certain conspiracy theories, it does not indulge the main one, which is that she was murdered completely.

[George Severis]

And it does say, and no one, certain terms. Anthony Summers, the guy that has amassed all these interviews, says, ultimately, I do not believe she was murdered. I just think the official account of the minute by minute, hour by hour narrative around how she died that night has been fudged in some way. And to be honest, it's barely worth getting into. It's about how, like, whether or not she was placed in an ambulance and then died on the ambulance rather than in the hospital, and whether or not the ambulance turned back and they put her dead body back in the bed to be discovered instead of driving all the way to the hospital. It's these things that certainly sound suspicious, suspicious, but there just wasn't enough evidence to actually say that there was some larger conspiracy. I want to shout out one interviewee, which is Dean Martin's wife, Jean Martin.

[Julia Claire]

Oh, my God, I almost forgot to bring her up.

[George Severis]

Yeah, I'm so glad I remembered, because I was gonna forget as well. She really was one of the more entertaining, very colorful, yes, very colorful recordings that we hear. And she's very bitchy. And she's one of these people that you can tell has wanted to speak for so long on Wikipedia, her name isn't even blue. Like, I don't think did much public facing stuff when she was alive, but she was also. And maybe this has more to do with my proclivity towards believing kooky, fabulous women more than anything else, but I was like, okay, well, I believe you, because she had this account of how the Kennedys both Bobby and Jack were just so shameless in their pursuit of women, just in mixed company while their wives were in the adjoining room in.

[Julia Claire]

The next room in the home of their sister and brother in law completely.

[George Severis]

And then like hitting on a woman that their brother had literally just hit on in front of everyone else. I mean, she just describes this environment where she would be at the home of Pat and Peter Lawford and first Jack would be like clearly flirting with Marilyn while his wife was in the other room, then he would leave and then Bobby would clearly be flirting with Marilyn. Which is also interesting because so many other accounts of Bobby, as we know, paint him as the complete opposite. He's the devout Catholic of the family. He's the one that would never drink too much or cheat on his wife.

[Julia Claire]

Right. But also we know so much about the Kennedy myth making that we're like, how, how much can we trust any of this information? And it should be noted that Jeannie, I think her name was Jeanie Martin, kind of looks like a little bit of a Marilyn mixed with a Jackie.

[George Severis]

Oh, yes, she does. Wow.

[Julia Claire]

Really interest. She looks like a blonde Jackie almost. The way that she talked about Marilyn was I think, seething with jealousy.

[George Severis]

Oh, completely. And then, I mean, in terms of other kind of important, notable interviews, there is Eunice Murray, who is Marilyn Monroe's housekeeper. There are people that are affiliated with her longtime publicist.

[Julia Claire]

We should say that Eunice Murray, her account is kind of what has endured throughout the decades as the quote unquote reliable account, which is that she was Marilyn's housekeeper, woke up in the middle of the night at 3am, saw that Marilyn's light was on. She went to go to the door, the door was locked. She called Marilyn's psychiatrist who came over broken through the window, saw that she was face down in the bed, motionless. And that has been the account that has endured. Again, as George mentioned, it's not worth going into the parts of that account that have been disputed.

[George Severis]

Well, and also the thing with Eunice Murray, for a long time time, the common knowledge was if you want to know the truth, call Eunice Murray, because she was there. But then in 1985, in a BBC documentary, she completely reversed her narrative and said that RFK was there and that Marilyn was alive when the doctors first arrived.

[Julia Claire]

There were also conflicting accounts about whether Bobby was at her house the day or night that she died or whether he had just called and her phone was off the hook when she died. And then there was also all of this about getting Bobby out of the area following her death, which allegedly involved getting him on a helicopter from LA to San Francisco and then getting out of there. Which I know it all sounds quite fantastical.

[George Severis]

Yeah. The thing is ultimately to bring it full circle to the Kennedys. I think what the documentary lands on is she did die of an overdose that was either accidental or self inflicted. However, there was also a cover up and the COVID up was due to her connection, whether real or alleged, with the Kennedys. I mean, even if everyone involved was completely innocent, they'd never met, ever. Just the fact that there were rumors about it were enough for the Kennedy team to be activated and to be like, we have to make sure any investigation is quickly completed and there is no possibility that it could ever be connected to the Kennedys.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah. I think it's like fairly plausible that she had affairs of varying lengths with either or both of them. But I think that she was obviously like a very troubled person and her death kind of got just like swept up in the existing conspiracy theories that surround the Kennedys completely.

[George Severis]

Yeah. I think gun to my head, if I were to say what I believe, I think it sounds like the one night stand with JFK probably happened and it was no more more than that. Although, you know, whether or not there was a mutual obsession, even if it was not consummated again, is. Is a whole other story. I'm sure she liked the idea of the American President and I'm sure he liked the idea of like the most beautiful and famous actress in the world with the RFK stuff. I don't know. That one really is confusing to me.

[Julia Claire]

It is confusing. I have to say, from what I know about her and what I know about him, it makes a little bit of sense. I think she. She liked an intellectual guy.

[George Severis]

Yeah.

[Julia Claire]

And she liked a guy who was a little ugly. That's true. And I could see her being fixated on him and I could absolutely, of course, see the opposite. Him being fixated on her, especially because I think obviously he always felt like second banana to Jack.

[George Severis]

I mean, it is the ultimate cooler, more popular brother to be like, well, I'm sleeping with literally, merrily. Yeah.

[Julia Claire]

Everything else is like. I mean, it's all speculation, it's all hearsay, but it is kind of. I think the reason why it's endured to the degree that it has is because so much of it is very plausible.

[George Severis]

Yeah. And again, it doesn't help that all these people are constantly destroying documents and destroying evidence. Like you're inviting way more speculation.

[Julia Claire]

I know.

[George Severis]

Than if you just like, didn't do anything.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah.

[George Severis]

I have to say this is not a Marilyn Monroe podcast, but I want to end with just saying, go watch a Marilyn Monroe movie. She was so much more than the Andy Warhol painting that we all know. Like, she was genuinely such a talented person and such a great on screen presence.

[Julia Claire]

Like, if you've only ever seen pictures of her or seen like paparazzi footage of her, it's. You're doing yourself a real disservice. Because I. I mean, I saw some Like It Hot when I was a kid and I recently in the last few years, saw Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

[George Severis]

Me too.

[Julia Claire]

She is just completely electric on screen. You can't take your eyes off her. And she's funny. She's really funny.

[George Severis]

No, completely great comedic timing.

[Julia Claire]

Great actress. Like, just ex exactly who you want as an entertainer. So I recommend watching her work, which is what she would want you to do, I think. Yes.

[George Severis]

No, I also, I also watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes embarrassingly, for the first time in my 30s, in my adulthood. And I was like, they just don't make them like that anymore.

[Julia Claire]

They really don't. And Jane Russell's incredible too.

[George Severis]

Jane Russell's incredible. Everything from the costumes to the set design to the songs, to the pace and the comedy of it all.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, the jokes are really funny.

[George Severis]

Yeah. So obviously we are talking about her through the lens of the Kennedy. So for our purposes, we're gonna define her based on her relationship with men. But you know, you don't have to. You can.

[Julia Claire]

You don't have to. She was more than watch her work.

[George Severis]

She was more than that. It's true. Whether or not you had any affairs or any one night stands, I will say her lasting legacy could be proven to be much more positive than that of any of the Kennedys.

[Julia Claire]

Yeah, absolutely. So that's it for this one.

[George Severis]

Subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for all things Kennedy every week.

[Julia Claire]

United States of Kennedy is hosted by me, Julia, Claire and George Severis.

[George Severis]

Original music by Joshua Topolsky.

[Julia Claire]

Editing by Graham Gibson.

[George Severis]

Mixing and mastering by Doug Boehm.

[Julia Claire]

Research by Dave Bruce and Austin Thompson.

[George Severis]

Our producer is Carmen Laurent.

[Julia Claire]

Our executive producer is Jenna Cagle.

[George Severis]

Created by Lyra Smith.

[Julia Claire]

United States of Kennedy is a production of iHeart podcast.

[George Severis]

Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We host the podcast Mind the Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.

[Julia Claire]

We're back for season four to talk to some incredible small business owners.

[George Severis]

The big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing. Everyone's a rookie, that's how fast the industry is changing. So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change. So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Julia Claire]

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[George Severis]

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[George Severis]

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[Julia Claire]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.