Page 71 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

It’s Marilyn, of course, though Greco doesn’t immediately recognize her.

She’s dressed head-to-toe in green: a lime-green long-sleeved silk jersey Pucci blouse with a boat neck, green shoes, green trousers, and a green headscarf.

“Before I realized who it was, I thought: ‘My God, what a beautiful woman. No taste in clothes, but what a beautiful woman!’” Greco laughs.

Both Sinatra and the Lawfords, aware of what’s been going on with the Kennedys, hope that getting Marilyn out of Los Angeles will distract her.

Over the last few weeks, Marilyn has become deeply depressed and withdrawn. She’s seen few people except Mrs. Murray and her doctors—Dr. Greenson, whom she’s seen twenty-eight times in the last thirty-five days—and Dr. Engelberg, whom she’s seen thirteen times.

After she and Dean Martin finish Something’s Got to Give, Sinatra might co-star with Marilyn on her next film, What a Way to Go!, which has been written specifically for her. So why not celebrate in advance?

But it’s far from the “magical weekend” that Greco describes having.

Shortly after the pianist walks off stage Saturday night to join Sinatra at his red velveteen booth in the lounge, Greco spots an unsteady Marilyn standing in the doorway, “still in the same green outfit she’d worn all day.”

But the “smart, funny, intelligent, fragile” woman he’d spent time with earlier in the day has disappeared.

In her place is a clearly intoxicated, defiant, and angry woman.

“Who the fuck are they all staring at?” Greco hears her say.

This is not the star we’re used to seeing, he thinks.

Sinatra is quick to react. He calls over his bodyguard, former USC football star Ed Pucci, to escort Marilyn out. Pucci takes no chances, scooping up the tiny blonde and carrying her away.

Greco’s upset. He doesn’t know Marilyn well, but he’s heard stories about her previous issues, and he’s worried enough to follow her outside to make sure she’s all right.

He finds Marilyn sitting alone by the pool in the moonlight, looking pale and out of it, so he escorts her back to her bungalow.

Marilyn doesn’t want to be alone. She calls the front desk and keeps the line open all night. The operator can hear her breathing.

Marilyn passes the next hours suspended in a fog. She may have nearly OD’d. She may have fallen out of bed. She may have been unknowingly assaulted.

Whatever it was, maybe it’s best if she just blocks it out.

“I have the most wonderful memory for forgetting things,” Marilyn once told Hollywood journalist Sidney Skolsky.

That talent is convenient now.

What’s certain is that the “relaxing” weekend in the Sierras is cut short. By Sunday afternoon, Marilyn is flown back to Los Angeles with Peter Lawford on Frank Sinatra’s private plane.

She stumbles off the plane, barefoot and bedraggled, and walks straight to a limo waiting to take her home.

Lawford is driven home by the pilot, Frank Lieto. En route, Lawford insists that they stop while he makes a twenty-minute phone call from a pay phone.

Marilyn’s a loose cannon, and there are people he has to warn.