(9 of 11)
With Marilyn's death Mailer most dutifully obeys Oscar Wilde's dictum not to fall into "careless habits of accuracy." Did Marilyn take her own life? Possibly, says the biographer. But there is a pornucopia of other possibilities. Suppose, he offers, the FBI or the CIA or the Mafia found it of interest "that the brother of the President was reputed to be having an affair with a movie star who had once been married to a playwright denied a passport for 'supporting Communist movements' ... By the end political stakes were riding on her life, and even more on her death."
A sometime conspiracy theorist, Mailer offers a sheaf of contradictory gossip, much of it palpably false. Marilyn's psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, describes Mailer's final chapter as "all wrong, filled with fallacious statements that give rise to pure fantasy." Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the Los Angeles County coroner who performed Monroe's autopsy, has given the lie to more Mailerisms. Contrary to rumor, no stomach pump was used on Marilyn. Moreover, examination showed she had had no sexual intercourse on that final day, ending any speculation that she was in the arms of a lover on the night of her demise. The level of Nembutal in her bloodstream was 4.5 mg. per 100, equivalent to 40 or 50 capsules. It was not a case, says Noguchi, of "automatism"−that gray area in which a person used to taking pills becomes groggy, takes a few too many, and slips over the edge of death.
More persevering research might have given Mailer's conclusions a less shadowy quality. But haste, not pinpoint accuracy, was his rule with Marilyn. "I'm probably one of the better fast writers in the world now," he confesses, "but you never feel good writing a book that fast. I was driving under such march orders that I forgot to dedicate the book."
The next edition might make room for a small inscription to the star herself. For Marilyn is, in spite of its ambiguities and flaws, a tribute to her. Mailer's valedictory, however sentimental, is written with genuine affection: "And if there's a wish, pay your visit to Mr. Dickens. For he, like many another literary man, is bound to adore you, fatherless child." In truth, Mailer's uneven prose is a complement to the accompanying photographs. Many of the shots are evocative and glamorous, but insights are hard to find. In some pictures she resembles Doris Day; in others, one of her imitators, Jayne Mansfield. Schiller's work, rather surprisingly, is the most indulgent. Bert Stern's, full of crow's feet and harsh floodlit planes, suggests the outlines of a harridan.
In a brief critique of one of Marilyn's better films, Mailer writes, "By The Misfits, she is not so much a woman as a presence, not an actor but an essence−the language is hyperbole, yet her effects are not. She will appear in these final films as a visual existence different from other actors and so will leave her legend where it belongs, which is on the screen."