A true icon, a sex symbol that spans the years, Marilyn Monroe continues to intrigue even 40 years after her death, whose sad anniversary is this Thursday, August 4, 2022. Marilyn is a panoply of cult films like Some like it hot, river of no return or Men prefer blondes. But also romantic relationships that unleashed passions, especially that with Yves Montand but especially that with John F Kennedy, then President of the United States. In the middle of this crazy story between an icon of the 7th art and the American president, the episode of a improbable call from the mistress to her wife Jackie.
A craziest anecdote, signed by Christopher Andersen, a journalist who worked for Time, the New York Times or Vanity Fair, revealed in his book These Few Precious Days: The Final Year of Jack with Jackie (Those Precious Last Days: Jack’s Final Year with Jackie). We therefore discover that Marilyn Monroe – who would have to her credit a sextape with the Kennedy brothers – would have phoned Jackie Kennedy to tell her about her romance with the man who was, until his assassination in 1963 at the age of 46, her husband. “It’s the kind of story that seems unbelievable, but really happened. Some of the things we find out now will go from ‘speculation’ to ‘fact’ over time.“, had commented the historian Doug Wead, interviewed by CBS, in 2013.
Jackie Kennedy’s unlikely response
If Jackie Kennedy knew nothing of her husband’s infidelities, she preferred that they remain secret and saw in Marilyn, an uncontrollable free spirit, a risk that her affair with the president would one day be made public. The author reports that at the time when she would have seen her career falter, Marilyn Monroe thought her lover was going to marry her. She would have called Jackie Kennedy to tell her that JFK had promised to put the ring on her finger. And it’s Jackie O’s answer that’s all the more surprising. “Marilyn, marry Jack, it’s wonderful... And settle in the White House, take on the responsibilities of first-lady. Me, I’m moving and you, collect all the problems“, she would have replied. A memorable story.