portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Sunday, September 06, 2020

 MARILYN and MENTAL HEALTH



In early 1961, Marilyn Monroe confided thoughts of suicide to her psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris. As per her suggestion, Marilyn checked into Payne-Whitney psychiatric hospital under the name ‘Faye Miller.’ She was unexpectedly taken to the floor, and placed in a cell-like room, for the most disturbed patients. She spent four days in utter terror, in a worse depression than she was when she checked in. When she finally was given phone privileges, she called Joe DiMaggio who flew in that night from Tampa, Florida. He told the nurses he would break the hospital apart “brick by brick” unless they release Marilyn. She was released thirty minutes later. After her release, Marilyn fired Dr. Kris, and Joe helped her settle into the Polyclinic hospital in New York for better mental health treatment. She rested for about a month with Joe by her side every day. Here she is arriving home after a month’s rest. 


When Marilyn died Joe placed flowers on her grave twice a week until he too passed away. He never married again. Poor Joe was something of a unreconsituted old fashioned sexist who believed that a woman when she married stayed in the home and preformed her duties. Still old fashioned sexists fall in love too and of that there was no doubt. 


He said about facing his own mortality “Well I finally get to see Marilyn again”



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