Page 54 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

FRANK SINATRA IS HOSTING a private screening of his soon-to-be-released movie Ocean’s Eleven when some unexpected guests show up at his Los Angeles home.

To open the convention, the “Committee for the Arts”—Nat King Cole, Tony Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Shirley MacLaine, Vincent Price, Edward G.

Robinson, and Frank Sinatra—file onto the stage at Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, known informally as the Coliseum, and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” to a starstruck crowd of politicians.

These days, Marilyn is a frequent guest of Lawford’s too—and with Arthur Miller away working on The Misfits script, she’s alone in LA and her evenings are free.

Jack Kennedy is also without his wife on this trip. Following the advice of her doctors, a pregnant Jackie Kennedy remains at home in Massachusetts, answering campaign mail and writing a syndicated column called “Campaign Wife.”

On July 12, Marilyn joins Kennedy and Peter Lawford for dinner at Puccini.

Frank Sinatra and Lawford co-own the Beverly Hills restaurant, where menus and matchbooks are illustrated with their famous faces.

Kennedy’s is soon blushing with embarrassment.

He’s run his hand so far up Marilyn’s leg that he’s made a discovery.

There’s truth in the rumor that she prefers to go without underclothes.

On July 13, the Kennedy campaign surges forward, steamrolling the competition, among them Texas senator Lyndon B. Johnson and Adlai Stevenson, the party’s losing candidate in 1952 and 1956.

His triumph assured, Kennedy addresses the delegates.

“With our devotion to this country, we wish to keep it strong, and we wish to keep it free. It requires at this critical time the best of all of us. And I can assure all of you who have confidence in me that I will be worthy of your trust, that we will carry the fight to the people in the fall, and we shall win!”

Like every director who chose Marilyn for a role, Kennedy has a momentous casting decision to make as he selects his vice-presidential running mate. JOHNSON IS NOMINATED FOR VICE PRESIDENT; KENNEDY PICKS HIM TO PLACATE THE SOUTH the New York Times reports of Kennedy’s selection on July 14.

The Coliseum holds one hundred thousand people, and the space is filled to capacity on July 15 as Kennedy and Johnson accept their nomination at the top of the ticket. “The New Frontier is here whether we seek it or not,” the new party leader intones in a speech that electrifies the audience.

The energy carries late into the night at a private celebration at the beach house on 625 Palisades Road.

Marilyn is among the attendees, escorted by Kennedy pal Sammy Davis Jr. Tonight, the man of the hour treats Marilyn like the star she is.

They drink and dance and retire to the pool house in the pink light of dawn.