Probably the most famous actress of her day, definitely one of the best-paid, and still a sex symbol to the present time, Marilyn Monroe’s death on August 4, 1962, shocked the United States like no other event in the recent history of the time had done, and like no other would do, until the magnicide of President John F. Kennedy around a year later.
Widely loved and recognized by the American public for her role in classic movies such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), The Seven Year Itch (1955), and Some Like It Hot (1959), the official ruling of her death as a “probable suicide” according to the coroner’s autopsy didn’t felt right to many.
Some set out to discover what had indeed happened to the “blonde bombshell” of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Here, we explore ten of some of the most interesting, revealing, and thought-provoking facts, opinions, and theories about the death of Marilyn Monroe.
Hop on, and let’s find out more about what happened back then, on that tragic night of 1962.
10 /10 The Red Diary That Went Missing
The Italian-American detective Milo Speriglio, who spent nearly two decades investigating the death of Marilyn Monroe, claimed until he died in 2000 that the vital evidence to the case was a red diary that she supposedly kept, and where she annotated everything that went on in her private life ― including her love affairs with the Kennedys.
This little diary, whose existence was also supported by Lionel Grandison (later, Samir Muqaddin), the deputy coroner that signed Marilyn Monroe’s death certificate, is said to have disappeared mysteriously the morning after her death.
Both Speriglio and Grandison made a conjunct press conference in 1982 where they communicated their opinions on this diary’s existence and contents.
However, despite their efforts, the journal itself or an undeniable reference to its existence have never been found.
9 /10 There Was No Water In Her Room
A fact that has kept most of those interested in the case awake at night, it was widely reported at the time that inside her room, there was no water (either in a glass or in the bathroom, which hadn’t had running water installed yet) with which she could have taken the pills that, according to the coroner’s report, caused her death.
Some have claimed that water was unnecessary because she took the barbiturates that killed her (according to the autopsy, the cause of death was “acute barbiturate poisoning”) in the form of an enema.
Among these are her prominent biographer, Donald Spoto, and one of the coroners at the autopsy, Thomas Noguchi.