The Love That Never Was: Marilyn And Bobby Kennedy
‘What I really want to say: that what the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers,
Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers.’
These words were spoken, not by a poet or preacher, but by Marilyn Monroe in her final magazine interview with
‘Life’ journalist Richard Meryman in July 1962. The sentiment may be simple, but at a time when parts of America
were still racially segregated, it was a courageous one.
Marilyn’s heartfelt plea for tolerance and equality has since been echoed by civil rights leader, Martin Luther King,
and a future presidential candidate, Bobby Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy was born in November 1925, six months before Marilyn Monroe, but their backgrounds could not
have been more different. While Marilyn was born illegitimate in the charity ward of Los Angeles Hospital, Bobby
was the seventh child of multi-millionaire Joe Kennedy.
Bobby was a hard-working, ambitious boy, determined to win the approval of his father and his elder brothers,
Joseph and John. He was also profoundly religious from an early age.
The Kennedy clan was touched by tragedy in 1946 when Joseph was killed in World War II. He was the first and
favourite son, and his father, now an ambassador to England, had dreamed that he would one day be President of the
United States. Now that hope was gone, and Joe turned his attentions to John.
Meanwhile, Bobby progressed through college and naval service, and trained as a lawyer. In 1950, he married Ethel
Skakel. Ethel, like Bobby, was a devout Roman Catholic. They would eventually have eleven children.
In 1952, Bobby worked under Senator Joe McCarthy at the Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations.
McCarthy spearheaded the infamous ‘red-baiting’ scare.
Playwright Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play based on the Salem witch-hunts and a thinly-veiled attack on
McCarthyism. In 1956, after Kennedy had left the Senate Committee, Miller was himself subject to an investigation.
That year he also married Marilyn Monroe, who stood by him until his acquittal. She later reflected, ‘Arthur Miller
taught me about the importance of political freedom in our society.’
Bobby Kennedy worked tirelessly for his brother John in the 1960 presidential campaign, and was rewarded with the
position of Attorney General in the new administration, which led to accusations of nepotism.
But John considered Bobby not just his closest sibling, but a potentially brilliant politician. He once remarked that, ‘If
I want something done and done immediately, I rely on the Attorney General. He is very much the doer in this
administration, and has an organizational gift I have rarely if ever seen surpassed.’
Bobby’s determination and persistence were never in doubt, but he lacked his brother’s relaxed manner. Some
colleagues considered Bobby an arrogant bully. He made dangerous enemies when he waged war on the Mafia,
straining Jack’s friendship with singer Frank Sinatra.
It is easy to understand what attracted Marilyn Monroe to John Kennedy, but harder initially to fathom her liking for
the tough, pragmatic Bobby. They first met at Peter Lawford’s home in 1961 (Lawford, a member of Sinatra’s Rat
Pack, was married to Bobby’s sister, Patricia Kennedy.)
Marilyn had too much to drink that night and was driven home by Bobby and an aide, Ed Guthman. Bobby must have
impressed Marilyn, though, because she accepted another dinner invitation in January 1962.
Danny Greenson, the teenage son of Marilyn’s psychoanalyst, Dr Ralph Greenson, remembered that Marilyn eagerly
anticipated meeting the Attorney General again. Danny related the incident to Anthony Summers for his book,
‘Goddess: The Secret Lives Of Marilyn Monroe.’
‘I want to have something serious to talk about,’ Marilyn told Danny, adding that she wanted to discuss politics with
Bobby Kennedy.
‘Back then I was worried about our support of the Diem regime in Vietnam,’ Danny Greenson has recalled, ‘and there
were questions about the House Un-American Activities Committee, and civil rights and so on.’
The evening was a success, as Marilyn proudly reported to Arthur Miller’s young son, Robert. ‘I had dinner last night
with the Attorney General,’ Marilyn wrote, ‘and I asked him what the department was going to do about Civil Rights
and some other issues. He is very intelligent and besides all that, he’s got a terrific sense of humor. I think you would
like him. I was mostly impressed with how serious he was about Civil Rights.’
What Bobby lacked in bedside manner, he made up for in sincerity. Fred Lawrence Guiles, who first alluded to an
affair between Marilyn and Bobby in his 1968 book, ‘Norma Jean: The Life and Death Of Marilyn Monroe’, thought
they were more compatible than might be imagined.
‘He took a personal interest in her, which the President did not. This was far more dangerous to Marilyn than a
strictly sexual attraction might have been.’
Marilyn and Bobby met again at the president’s birthday gala in New York in May. Arthur Schlesinger, then Special
Assistant at the White House, recalled that ‘Bobby and I engaged in mock competition for her; she was most
agreeable to him and pleasant to me – but then she receded into her own glittering mist.’
As gossip spread in Washington about Marilyn’s very public flirtation with President Kennedy, some began to
wonder about her friendship with Bobby. ‘The Enemy Within’, his book about organised crime, was being prepared
as a film at Marilyn’s home studio, Twentieth Century Fox.
After Marilyn’s death, a letter from Bobby’s sister, Jean Kennedy Smith, was found among Marilyn’s personal files.
‘Thank you for your sweet note to Daddy,’ Smith wrote, probably after Joe Kennedy’s near-fatal stroke the previous
winter. Then Smith added, mysteriously, ‘Understand you and Bobby are the new item! We all think you should come
with him when he comes back East!’
Smith’s tone seems casual, but this aside has often been cited as proof of a romance between Marilyn and Bobby.
After the gala, Jack seemed to distance himself from Marilyn. She stayed in touch with Bobby, however, calling him
several times at the White House. His secretary, Angie Novello, said that ‘He was such a sympathetic kind of person;
he never turned away from anyone who needed help, and I’m sure he was well aware of her problems. He was a good
listener and that, I think, was what she needed more than anything.’
‘What I really want to say: that what the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers,
Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers.’
These words were spoken, not by a poet or preacher, but by Marilyn Monroe in her final magazine interview with
‘Life’ journalist Richard Meryman in July 1962. The sentiment may be simple, but at a time when parts of America
were still racially segregated, it was a courageous one.
Marilyn’s heartfelt plea for tolerance and equality has since been echoed by civil rights leader, Martin Luther King,
and a future presidential candidate, Bobby Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy was born in November 1925, six months before Marilyn Monroe, but their backgrounds could not
have been more different. While Marilyn was born illegitimate in the charity ward of Los Angeles Hospital, Bobby
was the seventh child of multi-millionaire Joe Kennedy.
Bobby was a hard-working, ambitious boy, determined to win the approval of his father and his elder brothers,
Joseph and John. He was also profoundly religious from an early age.
The Kennedy clan was touched by tragedy in 1946 when Joseph was killed in World War II. He was the first and
favourite son, and his father, now an ambassador to England, had dreamed that he would one day be President of the
United States. Now that hope was gone, and Joe turned his attentions to John.
Meanwhile, Bobby progressed through college and naval service, and trained as a lawyer. In 1950, he married Ethel
Skakel. Ethel, like Bobby, was a devout Roman Catholic. They would eventually have eleven children.
In 1952, Bobby worked under Senator Joe McCarthy at the Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations.
McCarthy spearheaded the infamous ‘red-baiting’ scare.
Playwright Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play based on the Salem witch-hunts and a thinly-veiled attack on
McCarthyism. In 1956, after Kennedy had left the Senate Committee, Miller was himself subject to an investigation.
That year he also married Marilyn Monroe, who stood by him until his acquittal. She later reflected, ‘Arthur Miller
taught me about the importance of political freedom in our society.’
Bobby Kennedy worked tirelessly for his brother John in the 1960 presidential campaign, and was rewarded with the
position of Attorney General in the new administration, which led to accusations of nepotism.
But John considered Bobby not just his closest sibling, but a potentially brilliant politician. He once remarked that, ‘If
I want something done and done immediately, I rely on the Attorney General. He is very much the doer in this
administration, and has an organizational gift I have rarely if ever seen surpassed.’
Bobby’s determination and persistence were never in doubt, but he lacked his brother’s relaxed manner. Some
colleagues considered Bobby an arrogant bully. He made dangerous enemies when he waged war on the Mafia,
straining Jack’s friendship with singer Frank Sinatra.
It is easy to understand what attracted Marilyn Monroe to John Kennedy, but harder initially to fathom her liking for
the tough, pragmatic Bobby. They first met at Peter Lawford’s home in 1961 (Lawford, a member of Sinatra’s Rat
Pack, was married to Bobby’s sister, Patricia Kennedy.)
Marilyn had too much to drink that night and was driven home by Bobby and an aide, Ed Guthman. Bobby must have
impressed Marilyn, though, because she accepted another dinner invitation in January 1962.
Danny Greenson, the teenage son of Marilyn’s psychoanalyst, Dr Ralph Greenson, remembered that Marilyn eagerly
anticipated meeting the Attorney General again. Danny related the incident to Anthony Summers for his book,
‘Goddess: The Secret Lives Of Marilyn Monroe.’
‘I want to have something serious to talk about,’ Marilyn told Danny, adding that she wanted to discuss politics with
Bobby Kennedy.
‘Back then I was worried about our support of the Diem regime in Vietnam,’ Danny Greenson has recalled, ‘and there
were questions about the House Un-American Activities Committee, and civil rights and so on.’
The evening was a success, as Marilyn proudly reported to Arthur Miller’s young son, Robert. ‘I had dinner last night
with the Attorney General,’ Marilyn wrote, ‘and I asked him what the department was going to do about Civil Rights
and some other issues. He is very intelligent and besides all that, he’s got a terrific sense of humor. I think you would
like him. I was mostly impressed with how serious he was about Civil Rights.’
What Bobby lacked in bedside manner, he made up for in sincerity. Fred Lawrence Guiles, who first alluded to an
affair between Marilyn and Bobby in his 1968 book, ‘Norma Jean: The Life and Death Of Marilyn Monroe’, thought
they were more compatible than might be imagined.
‘He took a personal interest in her, which the President did not. This was far more dangerous to Marilyn than a
strictly sexual attraction might have been.’
Marilyn and Bobby met again at the president’s birthday gala in New York in May. Arthur Schlesinger, then Special
Assistant at the White House, recalled that ‘Bobby and I engaged in mock competition for her; she was most
agreeable to him and pleasant to me – but then she receded into her own glittering mist.’
As gossip spread in Washington about Marilyn’s very public flirtation with President Kennedy, some began to
wonder about her friendship with Bobby. ‘The Enemy Within’, his book about organised crime, was being prepared
as a film at Marilyn’s home studio, Twentieth Century Fox.
After Marilyn’s death, a letter from Bobby’s sister, Jean Kennedy Smith, was found among Marilyn’s personal files.
‘Thank you for your sweet note to Daddy,’ Smith wrote, probably after Joe Kennedy’s near-fatal stroke the previous
winter. Then Smith added, mysteriously, ‘Understand you and Bobby are the new item! We all think you should come
with him when he comes back East!’
Smith’s tone seems casual, but this aside has often been cited as proof of a romance between Marilyn and Bobby.
After the gala, Jack seemed to distance himself from Marilyn. She stayed in touch with Bobby, however, calling him
several times at the White House. His secretary, Angie Novello, said that ‘He was such a sympathetic kind of person;
he never turned away from anyone who needed help, and I’m sure he was well aware of her problems. He was a good
listener and that, I think, was what she needed more than anything.’
| By Tara Hanks |
 |
