Page 18 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

Feldman is the kind of self-invented man celebrated in Hollywood. Orphaned as an infant, he moved with his adoptive family to Los Angeles, later working as a postman to pay his way through University of Southern California law school. On the basis of his charisma and personal connections, Feldman founded Famous Artists Corporation and built it into a top motion picture agency.

Now he lives at 2000 Coldwater Canyon Drive, a Spanish-style home in Beverly Hills, where an army of caretakers spritzes the lawn to keep it green and white-gloved waiters serve hors d’oeuvres artfully arranged on silver trays.

It’s 9 p.m. when Slatzer and Marilyn step into the opulent home that celebrity decorator Billy Haines has designed inchinoisstyle to accentuate Feldman’s famous art collection.

Marilyn’s hair and makeup are perfectly done, just as Whitey Snyder has taught her. But her nails are bitten to the quick, and her inexpensive dress, mended stockings, and scuffed pair of heels betray her humble origins.

“I swear I feel as frightened as if I’m breaking into a bank!” she whispers.

“Food’s in the other room,” says Slatzer. He’ll never pass up an opportunity for free canapés. “Come on!”

Within seconds, he’s disappeared. Marilyn stands on her own, staring at the throng. And what a glamorous throng it is. Dinner jackets, diamonds, long gowns, white evening gloves, circling trays of champagne, sparkling crystal glasses, vast arrangements of white roses. It is another world, filled with stars from 20th Century-Fox.

In one corner there’s Gene Tierney, with her dark hair and her pale blue eyes. The star of Otto Preminger’s 1944 murder mysteryLaurais wearing a low-backed dress possibly created by her husband, the designer Oleg Cassini.

Sitting on a couch is Jennifer Jones. Marilyn can’t take her eyes off the slim brunette. Jones is the real deal. She’s been nominated for Oscars every year since first winning the Best Actress Academy Award for her title role as a pious young woman in 1943’sThe Song of Bernadette.Her latest movie,Duel in the Sunwith Gregory Peck, could not be more different; it just came out last month and folks are already calling it “Lust in the Dust,” but Marilyn prefers the much sexier part Jones plays in that one.

And who’s that sipping a glass of champagne? Oh, gosh, it’s Olivia de Havilland, the actress Oscar-nominated for MGM’s 1939 epicGone with the Wind!

Marilyn is about to approach the waiter carrying a silver platter of flutes when she spots a party guest holding a highball. Party host Charles Feldman is reputed to look remarkably like Clark Gable. Is it him? Or could itactuallybe Clark Gable? She can’t breathe at the prospect of a real-life encounter with the star that so reminds her of her daddy. Her father, with the rakish mustache and a glint in his eye.

He looks so familiar it makes me dizzy.

Clark Gable—or his double—raises his cocktail and smiles at Marilyn as he walks past.

Another handsome man approaches, this one wearing a sharp suit and holding out a glass of champagne. “Would you like a drink?” he asks Marilyn, his blue eyes twinkling.

“Who, me?”

“I brought it for Gene, but it appears that somebody beat me to it.” He gestures over to where Gene Tierney stands, the actress already holding a flute.

“Why thank you,” replies Marilyn, accepting the slender glass with all the elegance she can muster. “Thank you, Mr….?”

“Kennedy,” he smiles again, revealing perfect white teeth. “Jack Kennedy.”

I could never be attracted to a man who had perfect teeth,Marilyn thinks.I don’t know what it is but it has something to do with the kind of men I have known who had perfect teeth. They weren’t so perfect elsewhere.

The newly elected Massachusetts congressman’s Hollywood ties date back to his financier father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., who famously made millions in the late 1920s by consolidating movie studios—and wooing stars like Gloria Swanson.

“Charlie throws a great party,” Kennedy says, clinking her flute with his own, then returning to stand by Gene, who smiles up at him as he runs a finger down her naked back.

Marilyn stands on her own, uncertain where to turn.

“My dear young lady,” comes a plummy English accent. “Do come and sit by my side.”

Perched on the stairs, a large glass of bourbon in his hand,is a distinguished-looking gentleman. “Pardon me if I don’t rise. My name is George Sanders,” he says.

“How do you do.” Delighted to be spoken to, she takes the seat he’s offered her, next to him on the staircase.

“I presume you also have a name?”

“I’m Marilyn Monroe,” she says.

“May I have the honor of asking you to marry me?” the man asks. “The name, in case you have forgotten, is Sanders.”

Crossing her legs to cover the runs in her thrice-darned stockings, Marilyn takes a sip of her champagne and prepares a diplomatic response to the man’s proposal. Before she can say a word, Sanders continues.

“You are naturally a little reluctant to marry one who is not only a stranger, but an actor,” he says, gesturing with his bourbon. It’s clearly not his first of the evening. “I can understand your hesitancy—particularly on the second ground. An actor is not quite a human being—but then, who is?”

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