THE MARILYN TRANSCRIPT - released August 5, 2005

by Michael Tripoli 

John Miner, the former prosecutor present at Marilyn Monroe's autopsy
purporting to have made a transcript of Marilyn Monroe's tape recorded free
association ramblings for her therapist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, does not appear
to be not a reliable source.  This is not the first time Miner has come
forward making claims about Monroe.  He is quoted extensively in a Discovery
Channel program about Marilyn's death called " Unsolved History: Death of
Marilyn Monroe".  The program does an excellent job with its forensic
analysis of Marilyn's final hours.  It considers Miner's theories, and those
of others, and gives compelling that evidence leads viewers to conclude that
Marilyn's death was probably suicide.  It is available for sale ($21.95) on
the Discovery Channel website store:
http://shopping.discovery.com/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?endecaSID=10592B7F5DAD&langId=-1&storeId=10000&productId=53618&catalogId=10000

The recently revealed transcript is not corroborated anywhere outside of Mr.
Miner's claims and contains factual errors incongruent with Marilyn's known
biography.

Marilyn would never have referred to her former father-in-law, Isadore
Miller, a man she adored (by all accounts) by saying, "You know I think his
[Arthur Miller's] little Jewish father had more genuine affection for me
than Arthur did."   It's too unfamiliar.  Moreover, it's in the past tense,
as though Marilyn's relationship with Isadore Miller had ended.  However, it
had not.  Marilyn visit Isadore when she went to Florida, and he was her
escort to the JFK birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden.  In fact,
Isadore Miller called to speak with Marilyn on August 4, 1962, but was
prevented from doing so by her housekeeper.

Miner also has Marilyn saying the following:

"I stood naked in front of my full length mirrors for a long time yesterday.
I was all made up with my hair done. What did I see? My breasts are
beginning to sag a bit. ... My waist isn't bad. My ass is what it should be,
the best there is.  Legs, knees and ankles still shapely. And my feet are
not too big. OK, Marilyn, you have it all there. It is decision time."

I have read Marilyn didn't like her hands or her feet.  I have to admit that
her feet are kind of an unflattering feature (especially in some of the
Milton Greene shots and that B&W where she's sitting Indian style putting on
lipstick). I find it odd that Marilyn neglected to mention her
dissatisfaction with her hands and feet in this rambling free association. 
I would expect someone as narcissistic as the person who supposedly said
what is quoted above would have also fixated on her flaws.

It's a small thing, I know.

Another problem is that the John Miner transcript claims Monroe said: "Mae
West told me she is given an enema every day and she has at least one orgasm
a day... Mae says her enemas and orgasms will keep her young until she is
100. I hope she makes it. A nice lady even though she turned down making a
picture with me. That just shows how smart she is."

Reality:  Marilyn Monroe never met Mae West.

We have not only the word of George Barris in his book, "Marilyn, Her Life
In Her Own Words", where he says Mae West watched Marilyn on the Santa
Monica Beach having her picture taken and reflected to George later she
wished she had met Marilyn then.  Mae West's longtime companion and executor
of her estate also reported that one of Mae's biggest regrets was never
having met Marilyn!

Then the transcript purports that Monroe said of Johnny Hyde:

"There was a lot of talk that he did all this to get me to marry him. And I
probably would have if he wanted me to. But the truth is he thought marriage
would hurt my career. He said if I did what he told me, he'd make me a big
star..."

Every Monroe biography, without exception, says Johnny Hyde begged Marilyn
repeatedly to marry him, but she refused because she didn't love him that
way and did not want to be the type of woman to marry for money.  Here the
transcript has Marilyn saying he didn't want her to marry him.

The transcript also quotes Monroe as saying:

"Another problem that is bothering me. A...named Slatzer is running around
saying awful lies about being my husband and what I am like in bed. I asked
Frank Sinatra what I could do. He said, Marilyn baby, ignore it. If you take
on one of these ... you make him bigger and yourself smaller."

The Robert Slatzer quotes are definitely improbable. It is highly doubtful
Robert Slatzer was even on Marilyn Monroe's radar screen in 1962. There was
an article in Confidential Magazine dated 1957 where Slatzer gave an
interview to the magazine talking about the intimate details of his sexual
affair with MM. There is some fairly rude stuff in it and he claims that he
slept with MM between calls and/or dates she had with Joe DiMaggio (no
mention of marriage).  Although Robert Slatzer's story has been discredited,
it isn't likely that Marilyn would have mentioned it.  Slatzer did not claim
to have briefly married Marilyn (before she married DiMaggio) until as many
as ten years after her death.  Even if she was aware of the then five year
old Confidential article, it is not likely that Marilyn was aware of any
claims by Slatzer that they had been married, as he hadn't made up the story
yet.

Then it has her saying this:

"I'll take a year of day and night study of Shakespeare with Lee Strasberg. 
I'll pay him to work only with me. He said I could do Shakespeare. I'll make
him prove it. That will give me the basics Olivier wanted. Then I'll go to
Olivier for the help he promised. And I'll pay whatever he wants."

Every Marilyn Monroe biography chronicles the friction and frustration on
the set of "The Prince & The Showgirl" (the film Monroe made with Olivier). 
Olivier was exasperated with Marilyn's method acting, her constant delays,
and no-shows on the set.  By all reports Olivier came to loathe Marilyn
before the movie was finished.  Marilyn herself said she felt Olivier was
acting as though he was slumming to be in a motion picture with her, and
took to sarcastically referring to Olivier as "Mr. Sir".  Olivier admitted
in his biography that Marilyn was superb in the film, "the best of all", but
says it with an air of genuine surprise. It would have been a cold day in
hell before Marilyn Monroe would have asked Sir Laurence Olivier for acting
lessons after all of that.

Moreover, Marilyn was a method actor.  Olivier hated the method.  I don't
think Marilyn would have been all that enamored with Olivier's acting
methods based on her allegiance to Strasberg alone.  Moreover, Strasberg was
nervous about her working with Olivier the first time around.  The fact that
is was almost a total disaster only makes the likelihood of Monroe working
with Olivier again all the more unlikely.

Also troubling is the fact that the transcript mentions little or nothing of
her troubles with 20th Century Fox (which would have been Marilyn &
Greenson's primary concern at the time) and instead has Marilyn going on and
on about things that had happened many years before (if they happened at
all) as though they were of singular importance.  Read her final interview
for Life Magazine with Richard Meryman again.  She has a great deal to say
about her past, but all in the context of why she is the way she is and what
she is going through at the time with Fox.  I would say she devotes a good
deal of time in that interview talking about how she has been mistreated,
but none of that comes across in Miner's transcript of a tape supposedly
recorded around the same time period.

When did miner transpose these tapes? As far as we know it could have been
20 years or 40 years after the fact.  John Miner has not answered this
question. This "transcript" is John Miner's memory of a recording supposedly
made by Marilyn.  It isn't a transcript of the tape.  It is from memory. If
there ever really was such a tape, which is doubtful, he heard the tape only
once in August of 1962 and then wrote down what he remembered almost thirty
years later.

Did Dr. Greenson really ever have these tapes?  No one knows for certain. We
have only Miner's word on this.  News reports indicate that even Mrs.
Greenson does not know for certain.

Why did he keep this information for so long when he could have had the da
subpoena it and bring the "truth" to light much sooner!  He never mentioned
the tapes to police when they were investigating Marilyn's death in the
early 1980's.  That is troubling.

All this talk of tapes, transcripts, and murder only came about after Mr.
Miner began having financial difficulties many years after Marilyn Monroe's
death (about twenty years or so after).

It is especially troubling that Mr. Miner came forward with this information
now that people who knew better like Dr. Ralph Greenson, Eunice Murray, Joe
DiMaggio, and Arthur Miller (and even frauds like Robert Slatzer) are dead
and can't challenge him.

Miner's argument that his transcript proves that Marilyn was "anything but
suicidal" is also a bit specious. The transcript records the ramblings of an
unstable, neurotic person who comes across as being deluded about some
things, whose mood could change dramatically at any moment.

It is one thing to try to show us Marilyn isn't worthy of the stigma of
suicide, but Miner did more than say he heard a tape saying Marilyn was
happy and had plans.  He added the stigma of sexual deviancy to Marilyn's
name by claiming she had a threesome with Joan Crawford and Natasha Lytess
and was casual about sexual affairs with JFK & RFK, both of whom were
married, with children. Marilyn comes off as conceited and cold in that
transcript.  There is an uncharacteristic bitchery sprinkled through her
alleged comments, as though she feels she is above Johnny Hyde, Joan
Crawford, and even RFK that doesn't sound at all like the MM I have read
about in so many biographies and testimonials from others who worked with
Marilyn.

Read what Miner claims MM said about the married Attorney General without
any hint of concern for his wife Ethel or his children (his eleventh child,
his daughter Rory, was born after his death in 1968):

"I think what's happened to Bobby is that he has stopped having good sex
with his wife for some time. ... Well when he starts having sex with the
body all men want, his Catholic morality has to find a way to justify
cheating on his wife. So love becomes his excuse. And if you love enough,
you can't help it and you can't be blamed. All right, Doctor, that's Marilyn
Monroe's analysis of Bobby's love for me. And now I understand it for what
it is, I'm not going to have any problem handling it myself."

I would think Monroe fans would find that statement upsetting.

Frankly, if that is what Marilyn was really like, I am less inclined to feel
sorry for her troubles.  In fact, I would find it hard to like her at all.

I am very sad to see that Mr. Miner's transcript got such wide press.  Now
his claims will become "fact" in the minds of many, when the reality of the
matter is that the source for these Monroe revelations is specious, at best.

Is that what Monroe fans want for her legacy?

I think the celebrity gossip was meant to get media attention and
conveniently recycled old rumors about Marilyn (with Joan Crawford &
Natasha, the Kennedys, etc.).  The same goes for the endless talk about
orgasms.  It's just salacious stuff the public loves to hear about MM
(especially those who aren't loyal fans).  I'm surprised it didn't repeat
the 13 abortions myth.  [According to Adam Victor's "The Marilyn
Encyclopedia", Marilyn's gynecologist, Dr. Leon "Red" Krohn said, "She never
had even one.  Later there were two miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy
requiring emergency termination, but no abortion." (Found in "The Marilyn
Encyclopedia" under the entry for doctors with the subheading of
gynecologists.)]

I think the stuff about enemas is meant to bolster Miner's theories.  The
Mae West touch was a fatal mistake.

I think the stuff about Slatzer is meant to discredit him (and now that he's
dead, he can't even defend his lies) and put Miner forward as Marilyn &
Greenson's champion & defender.