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have brightened his day and prayed for him. He is making a speedy recovery, so your prayers clearly worked. How I wish I could believe like you do!
You will be vastly amused to learn that before Jack was discharged from the hospital, one of his prospective visitors, his old flame, Grace Kelly (I don’t know whether or not you have made her acquaintance), called me. * In the course of our conversation, I told her of your brilliant ruse of dressing up as a nurse and visiting Jack in that guise. She was so beguiled by what you did, and the effect: I told her it had onhim, that she promptly ordered a nurse’s uniform for her own visit! Jack, of course, was thrilled.
Now we are in Palm Beach, where he is convalescing. I spend much of my time walking on the beach, and wishing that his recovery will be permanent.
Warm regards and many thanks for your kindness and concern, J
__________________________
* Jack (perhaps to indicate to Jackie and his other conquests, that they were members of an elite group of women) was open—even boastful—regarding his premarital fling with Grace Kelly. (See Love, Jack, by Gunilla von Post [New York: Crown, 1977].)
Heymann cites how Grace dressed in a nurse’s uniform and was smuggled into the Hospital for Special Surgery by Jackie.
After Grace Kelly visited Jack in hospital, Jackie recorded in her diary, “Grace was excessively dewy-eyed over Jack and I suspect I made a bad move giving her access to him, even in this condition. For while I may play with the faint possibility that MM might be susceptible to Jack’s charms, I don’t take my musings at all seriously on that front. However, clearly Grace still carries a massive torch for him. But I’ll try not to dwell on it, especially now, when Jack is fighting for his life and all I want is for him to get strong and to survive.”
Grace continued to excite Jackie’s ire, even when Jackie was in the White House and Grace went there on an official visit. As Tish Baldrige recorded, Jack and Grace’s romance took place “before either of them was married; that, in my opinion, is why Jackie changed the White House meal in their honor from a four-hour black-tie dinner dance to a small eighty-minute-long seated luncheon—a bit of jealousy, perhaps. Princess Grace, we all noted, stood close to the president and gazed at him with adoring eyes. The photographs of the reunion made us shriek with laughter in the East Wing. She looked like a teenybopper up close to her favorite rock star.”
M ARILYN M ONROE
Cedars of Lebanon
Beverly Hills, California
Josephine Kendall
1954 north Ocean Boulevard
Plain Beach, florida
November 8, 1954
Dear Josephine,
It is past midnight, I can’t sleep, and my thoughts are jangling around in my head like an out-of-tune tamborine [ sic ]. I am still on heavy-duty painkillers, ones the hospital gave me, and some I bought along myself.
I have been very sick with endometriosis. They operated on me two days ago. Now I am terrified that I won’t ever be able to have a child. I want a child more than anything else in the world, at least, sometimes I think I do. Other times, I am afraid the child will turn out to be another Norma Jeane, unloved and unhappy like I was. Sometimes, I don’t know what will make me happy. When I first started making movies, I used to go up by the Hollywood sign, look down and think, “Someday I am going to own this town.” Tons of other girls, I know, say the same thing. Except, for me, it came true, which is part of the problem. The dream was far better than the reality.
Just now when I looked out the hospital window, there were no stars in the sky — but I know they will be shining up there another night and that gives me hope. I’ve got your last letters with me in the hospital; I just read them again, and they are so warm and friendly. In one, you asked me if Ifound a replacement for Joe. I didn’t answer that question then, but you are so kind and caring to
You will be vastly amused to learn that before Jack was discharged from the hospital, one of his prospective visitors, his old flame, Grace Kelly (I don’t know whether or not you have made her acquaintance), called me. * In the course of our conversation, I told her of your brilliant ruse of dressing up as a nurse and visiting Jack in that guise. She was so beguiled by what you did, and the effect: I told her it had onhim, that she promptly ordered a nurse’s uniform for her own visit! Jack, of course, was thrilled.
Now we are in Palm Beach, where he is convalescing. I spend much of my time walking on the beach, and wishing that his recovery will be permanent.
Warm regards and many thanks for your kindness and concern, J
__________________________
* Jack (perhaps to indicate to Jackie and his other conquests, that they were members of an elite group of women) was open—even boastful—regarding his premarital fling with Grace Kelly. (See Love, Jack, by Gunilla von Post [New York: Crown, 1977].)
Heymann cites how Grace dressed in a nurse’s uniform and was smuggled into the Hospital for Special Surgery by Jackie.
After Grace Kelly visited Jack in hospital, Jackie recorded in her diary, “Grace was excessively dewy-eyed over Jack and I suspect I made a bad move giving her access to him, even in this condition. For while I may play with the faint possibility that MM might be susceptible to Jack’s charms, I don’t take my musings at all seriously on that front. However, clearly Grace still carries a massive torch for him. But I’ll try not to dwell on it, especially now, when Jack is fighting for his life and all I want is for him to get strong and to survive.”
Grace continued to excite Jackie’s ire, even when Jackie was in the White House and Grace went there on an official visit. As Tish Baldrige recorded, Jack and Grace’s romance took place “before either of them was married; that, in my opinion, is why Jackie changed the White House meal in their honor from a four-hour black-tie dinner dance to a small eighty-minute-long seated luncheon—a bit of jealousy, perhaps. Princess Grace, we all noted, stood close to the president and gazed at him with adoring eyes. The photographs of the reunion made us shriek with laughter in the East Wing. She looked like a teenybopper up close to her favorite rock star.”
M ARILYN M ONROE
Cedars of Lebanon
Beverly Hills, California
Josephine Kendall
1954 north Ocean Boulevard
Plain Beach, florida
November 8, 1954
Dear Josephine,
It is past midnight, I can’t sleep, and my thoughts are jangling around in my head like an out-of-tune tamborine [ sic ]. I am still on heavy-duty painkillers, ones the hospital gave me, and some I bought along myself.
I have been very sick with endometriosis. They operated on me two days ago. Now I am terrified that I won’t ever be able to have a child. I want a child more than anything else in the world, at least, sometimes I think I do. Other times, I am afraid the child will turn out to be another Norma Jeane, unloved and unhappy like I was. Sometimes, I don’t know what will make me happy. When I first started making movies, I used to go up by the Hollywood sign, look down and think, “Someday I am going to own this town.” Tons of other girls, I know, say the same thing. Except, for me, it came true, which is part of the problem. The dream was far better than the reality.
Just now when I looked out the hospital window, there were no stars in the sky — but I know they will be shining up there another night and that gives me hope. I’ve got your last letters with me in the hospital; I just read them again, and they are so warm and friendly. In one, you asked me if Ifound a replacement for Joe. I didn’t answer that question then, but you are so kind and caring to
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