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Ralph Roberts:
Marilyn's personal masseur, Ralph Roberts, has been described as a
gentle giant and a Southern gentleman. They first met in 1955 at Lee Strasberg's home. Like Marilyn, Roberts was a student of The Method who
had become a friend of the family, and masseur to Susan Strasberg. He took
up massage to make ends meet between acting jobs, and quickly built up an
appreciative clientele including Milton Berle, Ellen Burstyn, Judy Holliday, and
Walter Matthau. Roberts also provided the inspiration (and behind the
scenes training) for the masseur character in the Broadway hit Will Success
Spoil Rock Hunter?
Biographer Donald Spoto says that after Marilyn
hired him to help her through filming of Let's Make Love (1960), "he
quickly became her closest friend and most intimate confidant for the rest of
her life."
Roberts played a minor part as an ambulance driver
in The Misfits (1961), as well as massaging the tired and aching limbs of
actors in the production. He was in the thick of the battles between
Marilyn and Arthur Miller in the final months of their married life and he
helped Marilyn through the loneliness she felt after the split. Roberts
drove her home after her horrific experience in the psychiatric ward of the
Payne Whitney Hospital; later in 1961 he took Marilyn and her half sister
Berniece Miracle to what had been Miller's and Marilyn's country home in Roxbury
to pick up some of Marilyn's things.
When Marilyn moved back to Los Angeles in August
1961, Roberts flew West with her. Marilyn rented a room for him at the
Chateau Marmont hotel, ten minutes from her Doheny Drive apartment. Marilyn felt so
close to him she nicknamed him "the Brother." However, some time in late
November, Marilyn told Roberts that her psychoanalyst Dr. Ralph Greenson thought
it would be better if Ralph went back to New York. He obeyed her wishes,
but they stayed in touch, and Ralph was back in Los Angeles in March 1962 to
help Marilyn with the many errands she had after moving into her new home in
Brentwood. He stayed on, continuing to spend time with her and relieve her
tensions with his massage skills.
On the day Marilyn died, Roberts called her home
before 6 P.M. to double check what food to buy for the barbecue they had planned
for the following evening. Dr. Greenson picked up the phone and told
Roberts that Marilyn was not home. It has been said that later that
evening a very groggy Marilyn left an incomprehensible message on Roberts'
answering machine.
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Marilyn's
trunk and her personal belongings are prominently featured on page 188 of
.
