Marilyn Monroe, Part 3: JFK, a Hollywood Comeback, and the Last Summer — The Fight, the Mystery, and the End of an Icon
6/9/20261 hr 27 min
This is Part 3 of our three-part series on Marilyn Monroe — marking her centennial on June 1, 2026, what would have been her 100th birthday.
By January 1961, Marilyn Monroe had lost almost everything. Her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller was over. Her latest film The Misfits had flopped. Clark Gable was dead. And somewhere in New York, behind drawn curtains, the most famous woman in the world was alone.
What came next was the last chapter. And the one that still has the world asking questions.
Part 3 traces the final eighteen months of Marilyn Monroe's life: the institutionalization she didn't see coming, the man who got her out, and the psychiatrist who moved into the center of everything. It follows her back to Los Angeles — to the first home she ever owned, to a new film, and to one more fight with Fox. It covers the photo sessions that became her most iconic images, the interview in which she finally said everything she'd always wanted to say, and the night at Madison Square Garden when she sang Happy Birthday to the President of the United States in a dress sewn onto her body.
It also follows what the public couldn't see. The ground giving way beneath the comeback. The doctors who were supposed to be keeping her safe. The last day — unremarkable for most of its hours — and what happened after.
And finally, the goodbye — and a woman gone too soon.
August 4, 1962. The questions that have never fully gone away. The autopsy. The timeline that didn't quite add up. The investigation that closed the case — and the reason the case has never quite felt closed.
This is the end of the story. And the reason it's never really ended.
WTWMI is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Rankin. Original artwork by Simone Beech and original music by Lionel Ziblat.
Parts 1 and 2 of our three-part series on Marilyn Monroe are available now.
New episodes of WTWMI drop every Tuesday. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsPatrick Rankin· Host0:01
A quick content warning before we begin. Parts of this episode touch on difficult subjects. Institutionalization, suicide, and mental health struggles, including substance dependence. We hold these moments with care and don't go into graphic detail, but they're part of Marilyn Monroe's story, and we wanted you to know before going in. Thank you. [instrumental music] New York City, May nineteenth, nineteen sixty-two. Madison Square Garden is already running behind schedule. Out front, fifteen thousand people fill the seats. Politicians, celebrities, the press. The show is going. Jack Benny is getting his laughs. Ella Fitzgerald has already come and gone. Peter Lawford keeps walking to the microphone, saying Marilyn Monroe's name, looking offstage, and finding no one. The crowd laughs. They think it's a bit. It's not entirely a bit. Backstage, in a dressing room that isn't quite big enough,