An insight into Marilyn Monroe’s enigmatic life and death

Marilyn Monroe was a world famous heartthrob, but was also an enigma, her life and death shrouded in secrecy. But 47 years after her death, some secrets have been revealed.

Daniel and Joan Greenson, children of Dr Ralph Greenson, threw light on the star’s troubled life.

After being diagnosed with ‘paranoia’ and ‘extreme exhaustion’ in 1960 and divorcing from then husband Arthur Miller in 1961, she was committed by Kris to the Payne Whitney psychiatric clinic.

A desperate Greenson was suggested by colleague Milton Wexler that she spend as much time as possible at Greenson’s home so as to create the environment that she’d lacked as a child.

‘I felt it would alleviate her separation anxiety if she knew she had a place to return to,’ Wexler later explained.

Gradually Monroe seemed to heal as she spent more time with the family, including Joan, his daughter. But there were times, when she was at her worst – heavily drugged, incoherent and distraught.

‘She talked about being a waif, that she was ugly, that people were only nice to her for what they could get from her,’ Daniel recalls.

‘She said life wasn’t worth living any more.’

On the day of her death, at 3am, Murray, her live in companion had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong and went to check on Marilyn – she found the bedroom door locked, light on and the telephone cord under the door, all of which were highly unusual (after the psychiatric clinic, she couldn’t abide being locked in). She called Greenson, who rushed over and broke into a side window.

Marilyn had been dead for some time; he had to prise the telephone from her hand.

While Greenson always felt that Monroe had died accidentally, Daniel suspects Marilyn deliberately committed suicide. After her death, many accused Greenson of killing her.

‘Rich and famous people need the therapist 24 hours a day and they are insatiable,’ he wrote in an essay, which was the only time he mentioned her.

‘These patients are seductive.”