James Ellroy made it the genesis of his new novel

On August 5, 1962, in her Los Angeles home, Marilyn Monroe was discovered unconscious, naked in her bed, at the age of 36. More than sixty-two years later, the mysteries surrounding the death of the Hollywood glamor icon remain. Suicide, assassination… everyone has their own theory. The teams of “8:30 p.m. Saturday(New window)“(X(New window)) have retraced, with supporting documents, the last night of America’s blond angel.

That evening on the phone, around 9:30 p.m., Marilyn confided in her hairdresser Sydney Guilaroff about the connections she had with the Kennedy, John and his brother Robert. While John has refused to communicate with her for some time, she says that Robert Kennedy came to her house in anger, and that he also ended their relationship. Marilyn says she wants to make the whole story public and call a press conference. She then hangs up the phone without saying goodbye.

In the middle of the night, it was her psychiatrist, Doctor Ralph Greenson, who, alerted by the star’s housekeeper, discovered Marilyn lifeless, one hand clutching the telephone receiver. The police are notified but long before their arrival, a troubled character has already searched the scene of the tragedy, a private detective named Fred Otash.

Before he was a private investigator, he was a Los Angeles cop who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. For several months, he has been spying on Marilyn Monroe on the orders of mobster Jimmy Hoffa, who hopes to recover information to put pressure on the Kennedys.

The king of American crime fiction James Ellroy knew Fred Otash well. He has once again made him the hero of his latest novel. The Enchanters (ed. Rivages) in which he makes him recount a documented scene. That famous night, Fred Otash was not sent to spy, but to clean Marilyn’s house. The phone rings: “I answered after two rings. A man with a British accent jabbered in my ear, I recognized the voice. Peter Lawford, he was half drunk and totally freaked out. (…) It was a job to be done in the dark. I took out my penlight and stuck it between my teeth.”

Peter Lawford is the brother-in-law of the President of the United States, so it was at the request of the Kennedys that the famous Otash went to Marilyn’s house. In her house, the police will find no trace of her relationship with John and Robert, not even the little black notebook in which she used to take notes.

Was there a desire to eliminate the actress? The best expert on the matter, journalist Anthony Summers, who investigated Marilyn’s death for three years, no longer believes this thesis at all: “After all this work, I found myself back where I started. I came to the same conclusion as the forensic doctor who wrote the autopsy: ‘Probable suicide’…”

Excerpt from “Marilyn’s Last Night”, broadcast in “8:30 p.m. on Saturday” the 28th september 2024.

> Replays of France Télévisions news magazines are available on the Franceinfo website and its mobile application (iOS(New window) & Android(New window)), “Magazines” section.