Review of Bombshell: The Night Bobby Kennedy Killed Marilyn Monroe Part 2

Part 1

Part 3

Part 4

Ah another section read. Again, we’re just going to list out the claims and work from there. I do want to note that the book has repeated snippets throughout it with things like, “MARILYN WROTE IN HER DIARY THAT JFK WANTED HER TO SUCK HIS DICK ALL THE TIME,” but I am focusing these first three entries on the biography of her:

Claim: Marilyn left 20th Century Fox in 1947 and signed with Columbia Pictures a year later thanks to “friendships,” i.e. men she was fucking.

Fact: Marilyn signed with Columbia on March 9, 1948, less than six months after getting dropped by Fox. Her last appearance on the Fox lot was actually that same month, when she appeared in the Fox talent show, “Strictly for Kicks.” Rothmiller’s claim of “friendships” would be one friend, Joseph Schenck. Joe and Marilyn both claimed until their deaths that they were strictly friends, with Joe even telling one interviewer that even though he probably should claim they dated, there was nothing romantic between them. While biographers have theorized Columbia’s Harry Cohn signed Marilyn as a favor for Joe, this seems unlikely. Joe had enough power at his own studio to keep her on if he really wanted to.

Claim: The plastic surgery Johnny Hyde paid for, a nose job and chin implant, were on full display during the Tom Kelley nude photo session.

Fact: Marilyn’s plastic surgery was completed in November 1950; a full year and a half after posing nude for Kelley.

Claim: Marilyn helped Ella Fitzgerald book the Mocambo in 1950, taking a front room table every night.

Fact: I have discussed this in great detail here, but in short, Ella played at the Mocambo in March 1955 while Marilyn was in New York City. Needless to say, Marilyn did not attend. However, she did attend two of of Ella’s performances in November of 1954 at The Tiffany Club.

Claim: Marilyn and Peter Lawford met in 1951 at his agent’s office.

Fact: Marilyn and Peter met in 1950 on the set of Hometown Story.

Claims: Rothmiller continuously claims Marilyn had deep friendships with Pat DiCicco and Johnny Rosselli.

Fact: There is no evidence of these friendships. Rothmiller can pull all the claims he wants out of his ass, but at the end of they day, there would have been some proof of Marilyn being bffs with these men.

Claim: Niagara was Fox’s biggest success in years.

Fact: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Okay, that aside, Niagara did well at the box office, but it was in no way Fox’s biggest success in years. Fox’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro was the number two film in 1952, grossing double what Niagara had.

Claim: Marilyn wasn’t allowed to choose her roles, and Fox was a big meanie for not allowing her to do so.

Fact: While this is technically true, it’s how the studio system worked. Every star went through this system. That’s just what it is. The studios weren’t there to nurture artistic wants; they were a business who wanted to make money.

Claim: Playboy outed her nude photos in December 1953.

Fact: The photos were outed a year and a half earlier in March of 1952, even running in Life magazine. While the first issue of Playboy did sell well, they were old hat by the time Hefner ran them.

Claim: Peter Lawford introduced Marilyn and JFK at a party in 1954. Her husband, Joe, attended with her.

Fact: There’s no evidence of Marilyn attending this party. July of ’54 was a busy time for her as she worked on There’s No Business Like Show Business, and Joe did not go to parties like this with her.

Claim: Marilyn thought Peter Lawford was going to poison her in the mid-50s, and she couldn’t amore him like she admires Jack.

Fact: This one is some creative editing. I’m going to point out that Marilyn did write this in a passage; however, as Fraser Penney points out, the subject of this was most likely Peter Leonardi, a hairdresser. This makes much more sense being the rest of the (edited out) passage says Marilyn fear’s Peter because he’s gay and wants to be her, unlike her gay friend Jack (meaning Jack Cole).

Claim: The SYI dress faded from white to ecru.

Fact: The dress was always ecru. You couldn’t film pure white items with Technicolor cameras. This is film 101.

Claims: Marilyn and JFK had a decade long affair. She was even seeing Jack during her marriage to Arthur Miller.

Fact: Oh look, Marilyn is painted as a whore again. Woo! Needless to say, there is no evidence Marilyn and Jack even knew one another in the 50s, let alone slept with each other.

Claim: Marilyn and JFK were spotted in restaurants around NYC, where he would flagrantly reach under her skirt and grab her ass.

Fact: Nothing to support these claims. Someone would have printed it somewhere, even if in code.

Claim: Marilyn, being the idiot she was, spoke about her relationship with JFK in front of everyone, including reporters.

Fact: Look, Kennedy dalliances were well hidden within the White House. That’s just a fact. However, the whole world wouldn’t cover for JFK, especially in the 1950s before he became president, and they certainly wouldn’t have covered for Marilyn. In fact, a snippet alluding to Marilyn and Bobby having a dalliance was printed in before her death in 1962–a time you would think would have had maximum press control.

Claim: July 13, 1960 – Marilyn wakes up with JFK, they shower and have breakfast at Peter Lawford’s.

Fact: Marilyn was in New York City. She wouldn’t return to Los Angeles until July 17th. On July 14th, she sent Ralph Greenson a telegram saying she would return to Los Angeles on Sunday night.