Pardon My Hearse: A Colorful Portrait of Where the Funeral and Entertainment Industries Met in Hollywood (13 page)

The news of Marilyn’s death spread like wildfire. Many of the reporters in Los Angeles had even showed up at the morgue to no avail, because it was off-limits to reporters. Only one very clever photographer formulated a plan to get some limited access to the morgue. It was more than thirty years later that this photographer shared his story with me at a book signing. Meanwhile, the coroner’s office, realizing the magnitude of her death, instructed their staff to give no interviews.

Marilyn Monroe body at the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Photo originally appeared in
Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe
by Anthony Summers
.

Westwood Village did not own any hearses or limos, so it rented from us for all services. Two brothers, James and Clarence Pierce, owned the Westwood Village operation and were also part owners of a downtown facility called Pierce-Hamrock. We had been assisting these two mortuaries for years. When Westwood Village finally got the call to go to the coroner’s office and pick up Marilyn’s remains, one of our employees, Leonard “Chris” Kreminski, assisted Clarence Pierce in making the removal.

Because of the tremendous implications of this case, it took much longer for Coroner Theodore Curphey to finally make some statements. His best and most dedicated pathologist, Thomas Noguchi, known to some as “The Knife,” spent about three times as much time as it usually took him to do a full postmortem. The deputies at the coroner’s office informed me that Dr. Noguchi had been extremely thorough with his examination of her body. He spent a great deal of time looking for hypodermic needle marks, which he did discover in her arm pit, but this area is often used by doctors when treating female movie stars. He continued
to search in unusual places like inside her nose, between her toes and fingers, under her tongue, and in her genitals, but was unable to discover any additional injection points.

Marilyn’s death caused Dr. Curphey to initiate a new procedure, a “psychological autopsy,” or an examination of a person’s mental state. Coroner’s inquests were not new, but this examination delved into areas that were not usually considered at a coroner’s inquest, which is very similar to a grand jury inquest. Grand juries are composed of people who do not know the person involved, but in this case, almost everyone questioned were people Marilyn knew.

The mortuary received numerous phone calls from everywhere. 20
^th
Century Fox Studios had even relayed a message to Westwood that they would help in any way possible with their many resources. It became apparent immediately that this was going to be the funeral of the century and was going to involve a great deal of contingency planning on their part. The following day, Clarence Pierce called and asked me to go to Westwood and assist on every aspect of the planning for her service. I called Kathy and told her about the order. She loved Marilyn and instructed me to watch and listen very carefully to everything that was said and done so that I could share all the details with her.

The cemetery grounds were crawling with photographers, journalists, and fans. Some of them were even checking the doors and windows of the building that housed the embalming room. There were three structures at this facility: an office, an A-frame chapel, and a utility building with the embalming room inside it.

It was clear that some precautions needed to be taken, or this was going to become a disaster. I informed Mrs. Hockett that a serious security problem was developing on the grounds. Her husband was at the coroner’s office taking care of the paperwork, so she asked me what should be done. I told her to contact a security company right away and get some guards. She said she didn’t have the authority to place such a call, and the two owners were directing a service at their downtown mortuary. I recommended she call the Los Angeles branch and talk to them to get their permission. She made the call, and Clarence told her that this was exactly why he had asked me to oversee everything and do whatever I suggested.

The only name in my mind that stood out was Pinkerton, which had been providing security services for over a hundred years. My rationale was that someone was needed to take control of the situation in the following few days, particularly to dissuade any opportunists from breaching the security of the utility building housing the prep room. Already a rumor was floating around that $30,000 was being offered for a picture of Marilyn in the prep room or in her casket. I immediately called them and requested six uniformed officers. When they asked if I wanted them to wear side arms, my answer was “Absolutely!” Half an hour later, a gray Chevy station wagon showed up with six uniformed guards. Simultaneously, the embalmer arrived from the Los Angeles branch, and we went to the embalming room.

The staff called the embalmer by his nickname, “Frenchie,” so no one at our office ever knew his real name, but he was French as champagne and had the accent to prove it. He unlocked the embalming room and we entered together. When we removed the sheet covering her, it was almost impossible to believe this was the body of Marilyn Monroe. She looked like a very average, aging woman who had not been taking very good care of herself. Obviously, the circumstances surrounding her death had greatly exacerbated her poor appearance and she was unrecognizable.

When someone dies, gravity causes the blood to settle to the lowest point of the body. This condition is called lividity, and considering that many people die lying on their backs, the discoloration that occurs is seldom visible. In Marilyn’s case, she died face down, so there were purple blotches on her face, and her neck was very swollen. They had bathed her at the coroner’s office, and her hair was frizzy and fairly short. You could tell she had not bleached it for some time, because the roots were darker and had grown out about half an inch. Her natural hair color was a light brown, not blonde. Her legs hadn’t been shaved for at least a week, and her lips were badly chapped. She was also in need of a manicure and pedicure.

We began discussing the terrible swelling in her neck, and Frenchie decided that a surgical procedure was needed. This was out of my area of expertise, so I deferred to his decision. Frenchie knew how to correct the problem, but it wasn’t going to be pretty. He instructed me to hold her on her side so he could make an incision in the back of her neck in the shape of a marquis diamond and remove about two square inches of skin. He then pulled the sides together and stitched it up. It wasn’t pleasant to watch, but it was quite effective in reducing the swelling.

In all the years we were involved with the coroner’s office, we saw hundreds of nude bodies. Whenever a body was released to a mortuary, it was always without any clothing. In Marilyn’s case, someone at the coroner’s office had very thoughtfully taken the extra effort to fashion a diaper of sorts for her by cutting up a white sheet. Marilyn’s executrix had just brought in her clothing, so Mrs. Hockett rang me to come up to the office and pick up the package. She also informed me that the lady said Marilyn didn’t wear panties, and she couldn’t find any among her clothing. I also noticed that among the items was a small pair of false breasts. I had seen falsies before, but these were much smaller than any I’d seen.

The dress was a beautiful chartreuse puce design with a Florence, Italy, label. If it weren’t for Kathy’s encouragement, some of these details would probably have slipped by me, but she wanted me to make a mental note of everything. Just as we finished dressing her, Mary Hamrock came into the embalming room. She had driven to Westwood from the downtown facility that she and the two Pierce brothers co-owned.

As she stood there for a few long moments, she finally voiced her opinion: “That doesn’t look like Marilyn Monroe.” Mrs. Hamrock was a seasoned businesswoman who didn’t pull any punches. Her next comment was “What happened to her boobs?” In his own defense, Frenchie told her that the cutting of the ribs during the autopsy had caused this condition. He further stated that he had even used the falsies that were brought in with her clothing, but they had been much too small to enhance her physique.

Mrs. Hamrock reached down and pulled at the neck of the dress, which was a very springy material. She reached in with her other hand to remove the falsies and threw them into the trash can. She then pulled some clumps of cotton off a roll and formed much larger breasts by stuffing her bra. At this point she stepped back and proudly exclaimed, “Now that looks like Marilyn Monroe!”

After she exited the prep room, I found myself with a dilemma: Should I retrieve the falsies for Kathy? If the embalmer saw me do that, it would have been very embarrassing, so while he was washing up, I kept my eyes on him while reaching into the trash can, retrieving them, and stuffing them into my suit coat pocket. Later, to my surprise, I discovered a lock of her hair sandwiched between them. This was some of the hair that was cut from her neck to access the area for the surgical procedure.

Frenchie didn’t feel qualified to prepare Marilyn’s makeup and hair, so Fox sent her hairdresser, Sydney Guilaroff, and her makeup man, Allan “Whitey” Snyder, to the mortuary to prepare her. Sydney brought with him a hatbox containing the wig that she wore during the filming of
Something’s Got to Give
, which was never completed because of her tardiness and lack of preparation.

It was fascinating watching as Whitey applied her makeup and Sydney combed and sprayed the wig. I got up enough nerve to ask Whitey about the falsies, and he told me that Marilyn was 36 and beginning to show the effects of gravity on her breasts. He said she would wear a bra for support and then place the falsies between her sweater and bra to make it appear that she was unsupported, which was more provocative. When these professionals finished, Marilyn had gone through a remarkable transformation and looked beautiful.

Kathy asked me to take her to Westwood the night before the funeral so she could see Marilyn herself. She had never made such a request in the past, even though there were other celebrities whose visitation would have been accessible to me. Marilyn’s visitation was scheduled to end at 9
P.M
. Her former husband, Joe DiMaggio, had arrived at the mortuary earlier in the afternoon, stepping up to the plate to take over final planning of her funeral. He had given Guy Hockett a list of about thirty-one people permitted to attend the funeral.

Marilyn Monroe with President John F. Kennedy (right) and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, at the occasion of President Kennedy’s 45
^th
birthday celebration on May 19, 1962, less than three months before her death.
Photo by Cecil Stoughton. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
.

Lee Strasberg, Marilyn’s acting coach from New York’s famous Actors Studio, was chosen to give the eulogy at her service. No other Hollywood personalities were allowed to attend the visitation or the funeral. Joe disliked the motion picture industry and hated the things she was asked to do in certain films. The famous scene of her standing over the subway ventilation grate, with the wind blowing her dress up to her waist, was particularly disturbing to him. Marilyn herself seemed to enjoy the attention. She didn’t seem the least bit bashful about the accentuation of her cleavage and curves through skin-tight dresses, such as the one she wore at President Kennedy’s birthday celebration on May 19, 1962.

Joe and his entourage were at the mortuary when we arrived at 8:45
P.M
. He would go up to Marilyn’s casket for a while, then leave the chapel and walk outside into the small cemetery to cry. He repeated this pattern until about 10:45, but the night manager, Pat Spinelli, was not about to tell Joe DiMaggio that the visitation was over. I informed Kathy that we would have to leave, because there was much for me to do in preparation for the service the next morning. Just as we started to drive away we saw Joe and his people leave, so we parked and went in.

Pat told us that she had placed a rollaway bed next to Marilyn’s casket and slept next to her the previous night to make sure no one could get in and photograph her. As soon as Kathy saw Marilyn, she started to cry. When she finally stopped, we both stood there in silence. After a long moment, Kathy made an interesting observation. Marilyn’s eyes were very wide. In retrospect, perhaps that’s why no other actress has ever really looked like Marilyn.