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youngest President of the United States, Uta Hagen had just won a Tony Award for her performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? and Tennessee Williams’s Night of the Iguana continued its long run on Broadway; the Beatles’ “Love Me Do” was number one in England; and women in America who had taken Thalidomide were delivering deformed babies. The Vatican was talking about an ecumenical movement among all sects of Christianity; Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring , the controversial expose on the harmful effects of pesticides; and Lieut. Col. John Glenn’s triple orbit of the earth in Friendship 7 was beamed directly into 135 million American homes on television. A gallon of gas cost twenty-one cents and a loaf of bread was twenty-seven cents.
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    Marilyn Monroe had begun remodeling the cottage-size home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in late February 1962, with Mexican tiles she and her publicist, Pat Newcomb, had purchased a month earlier while on a Mexican holiday. Along with a few pieces of furniture, including a Mexican sofa covered with bright red fabric, a statuette of Carl Sandberg, a portable high-fidelity record player that constantly played Sinatra ballads, and a refrigerator filled with only champagne and caviar that the crooner had sent, Marilyn was eagerly building the only security she had ever known.
    The tiny bedroom was furnished only with a single bed and a small night stand. The bed was unmade, blanket askew, and the full-length mink coat, which second husband Joe DiMaggio had given her, was draped over the bed. Marilyn enjoyed the touch of the silky fur; it brought back so many memories.
    Marjorie, Marilyn’s dresser and the fiancee of makeup man Whitey Snyder, returned from Twentieth Century-Fox’s wardrobe department with the gown for the evening. Marjorie and Whitey were always trying to pick up the pieces each time Marilyn fell apart.
    Marilyn did not keep much of a wardrobe of her own and borrowed her evening wear from two of Fox’s in-house designers, Jean Louis or Bill Travilla. But tonight was unique. Marilyn was pregnant with a married man’s child, and the President’s brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, was the father. Marjorie’s immediate dilemma was how to disguise the telltale bulge in the actress’s belly. And as usual the actress was late getting ready for this evening’s outing; her chauffeur was kept waiting nearly three hours.
    Marjorie was concerned about Marilyn’s well-being, hating to think Marilyn would experience disappointment, as she had so many times before. All of her pregnancies had turned into devastating abortions or miscarriages; each painful miscarriage bringing back the guilt of a previous abortion. The miscarriages tore at her fragile uterus, and doubts of realizing her womanhood arose. The feeling that she might turn out to be an inadequate mother was similar to what her own mother had felt in desperation. Having to be the breadwinner and the bearer of a child would bring too much physical, emotional, and financial responsibility for Marilyn. And pregnancy reminded her of her own deprived childhood, which began on June 1, 1926.
    On that day, a very exhausted Gladys Pearl Monroe Baker Mortensen screamed for help as Dr. O. Casey kindly suggested she push harder in the stark delivery room of the Charity Ward of the Los Angeles General Hospital. At twenty-four years of age, Gladys had already borne two children by her first husband. This one was hers to keep, she thought, as she clutched the restraints that bound her wrists. As the painful contractions intensified, she looked for any sign of her repentant lover, hoping he had changed his mind at the last minute. But the handsome and debonair Stanley Gifford was nowhere to be found.
    Unbearable as the pain was, Gladys pushed and prayed as the clock ticked past 9 A.M. Dr. Casey was reassuring as the baby’s bald head emerged. “Push harder,”