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If you’re the voyeuristic type, yeah, she probably slept with him. His brother RFK too. She was single. The men were married. Don’t blame her. The guys were the cheaters. Anyway, Marilyn Monroe’s singing of Happy Birthday to JFK was an iconic event that became a cultural touchstone in American history.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 19, 1962--
The rumors of them rubbing slippery bits began a couple of months earlier. Prior to that, things had not been going well for Marilyn. Modern critics consider her final film, The Misfits, to be brilliant, but at the time it was referred to as a “box office disaster.” She was also recently divorced for the third time and was in a fragile state after a stay in a New York psychiatric hospital.
But in the spring of 1962 things were improving. She’d been offered a new leading role in a remake of My Favorite Wife, and was invited to perform at a major Democrat fundraiser in Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962, in front of a crowd of 15,000, many of them celebrities. I know everyone hates that fucking birthday song. We hate singing it, and we hate having it sung to us. But, well, fuck me. If Marilyn sang it to me the way she did to President Kennedy, I might change my mind about it. Because holy shit. If you’ve never seen it, get googling.
Kennedy’s actual birthday, his 45th and his second-last one ever, wasn’t for another ten days, but who fucking cares? It’s reported that Monroe was terribly anxious over her upcoming performance and rehearsed carefully for two days leading up to the event. Prior to taking the stage, she didn’t merely get dressed but rather was sewn into a curve-hugging, flesh-colored gown bearing 2,500 rhinestones.
The audience loved her sultry performance, and so did JFK. He was probably thinking I’ve seen her naked. Speaking of his philandering ways, his wife Jackie was not present at the event. The first lady told her sister, “Life’s too short to worry about Marilyn Monroe.” But she was reportedly furious the next day—not at her husband—but at his brother Robert, who “orchestrated the whole goddamn thing.”
It’s worth noting that Marilyn had a well-known reputation for tardiness, and the evening’s MC, the actor Peter Lawford who was also brother-in-law to JFK, continuously poked fun at this by introducing her repeatedly during the evening’s events. Then he would look back at an empty stage, then introduce the next actually intended guest to much laughter. When Lawford finally introduced Monroe for real, he referred to her as “the late Marilyn Monroe.” Considering she died of a barbiturate overdose 11 weeks later, he may have come to regret that joke.
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