Page 59 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn and Pat Kennedy Lawford, eight months pregnant with a fourth child due in early July, spend the day having manicures, pedicures, and massages. Marilyn chooses the same black lace dress that she wore to meet Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev on the Fox lot.

She starts drinking champagne at noon. By the time Sinatra takes the stage, she is already drunk.

Marilyn steps into the Copa Room and takes her seat at a stage-side table alongside two famous couples.

As Elizabeth Taylor and her fourth husband, Eddie Fisher, as well as birthday boy Dean Martin and his second wife, Jeanne, enjoy the show, Marilyn edges closer and closer to the stage, hooking her arm over the edge and gazing up at Frank.

It’s only been three months since she was released from Columbia-Presbyterian.

“From a distance, it was wow, she’s a knockout. But close up it was … oh no, she’s knocked out. She didn’t look well, and she also acted very strangely. She seemed a little crazy to me,” says one of the photographers.

“Frank Sinatra, ‘The Voice,’ swung into the Sands hotel last night and the affair lasted until all hours and ended with the ‘Clan’—Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop—singing 44th birthday greetings to Dean Martin,” United Press International reports on June 8.

“The Maitre D’ said 2000 persons were turned away. ”

“Dearest Marilyn,” Clark Gable’s widow, Kay, writes. “How about our little ‘carbon copy lover boy’—I am certain you have seen his press pictures. Just exactly like Clark …”

Clark Gable’s son was born on March 20, 1961. In Encino, California, Marilyn is among the invited guests at the June 11 christening of ten-week-old John Clark Gable. She climbs the steps to St. Cyril’s Church dressed in a black suit, her hair covered by a sheer scarf patterned with black hearts.

Her attire might be more fitting for a funeral than a christening, but an air of tragedy lingers over today’s happy occasion.

I feel certain his dearest father is watching his every move from heaven.