Second Best Thing: Marilyn, JFK, and a Night to Remember
Author: Swanson, James L.
Date: 2020-02-11

Text copyright © 2020 by James L. Swanson

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

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eISBN: 9781542017244

Cover design by Zoe Norvell

Introduction

The advance announcements for the auction had somehow escaped my attention. Traveling on a book tour, I had missed the news coverage and didn’t even have time to order the sale catalog (as I sometimes do for research purposes in writing my books). Instead, two days before the auction, a small newspaper ad alerted me to the sale. The name of the auction was deceptively bland: Bonhams “Fine Books and Manuscripts,” to be held on Thursday, December 9, 2010.

The auction included several priceless artifacts: a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy from 1481, a second quarto edition of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar from 1691, and a first edition of Ian Fleming’s James Bond thriller The Spy Who Loved Me. Certainly these were all choice items, and the bibliophile in me longed to possess these treasures, but they were not the items that caught my eye, that would put me on an early train leaving for New York City the next morning. Rather, it was a collection that Bonhams advertised unceremoniously as “John F. Kennedy: The Photographic Archive of Cecil W. Stoughton.”

I knew—even sight unseen—that this was no ordinary scrapbook collection of scratchy Polaroids and faded albums. No, this might be the treasure trove of one of Camelot’s court photographers, a man who had visually documented some of the most important events in the presidency of John F. Kennedy, including a secret party in New York City attended by the president and the most glamorous movie star of the time: Marilyn Monroe.

Captain Cecil Stoughton had a history of covering Kennedy events. He had started with JFK’s inauguration on January 20, 1961, working for the US Army Public Information Office. Major General Chester Clifton, head of the office, had gotten Stoughton early access. Stoughton’s photos of the inauguration impressed the president so greatly that he was brought on full-time as an in-house photographer, the first official White House photographer. There, Stoughton, a well-built man with thick dark hair, photographed John and Jacqueline Kennedy more frequently than any lensman alive.

Stoughton had been present from the first to the last of the “thousand days”—JFK’s unfinished presidency of two years, ten months, and two days. He was in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, the final day, where he took one of the most memorable photographs of the twentieth century, a shocking image that symbolized the traumatic end of Camelot: the swearing in of the new president, Lyndon Johnson, at Love Field aboard Air Force One as a distraught and bloodstained Jacqueline Kennedy stood in shock beside him.

After his role in the Kennedy White House, Stoughton served as White House photographer for two years under LBJ and then became head stills photographer for the National Park Service, a position he held until his retirement in 1973. Later, people noted the chip on his shoulder. He complained often that he got no credit for his work. A Kennedy collector, who spoke to Stoughton often, said it was a recurring theme: “He was resentful, bitter, and felt he had never gotten the recognition or reward that he deserved.”

Stoughton had once shown off a handful of his treasures on an episode of PBS’s Antiques Roadshow, and over the years he had even sold off a few choice pieces. But no one knew the full extent of his hoard. Stoughton died in 2008 at age eighty-eight, and two years later, his estate had consigned his archive to the auction block, just as relatives clear out a cluttered attic after a death.

For the next two days, I haunted Bonhams’s Madison Avenue gallery. Stoughton’s collection turned out to be enormous—far too many items to sell one at a time. The catalog had divided the collection into fifty lots, some containing a single piece, others up to a few thousand.

Strangely, few people attended the preview. For fifteen hours over two consecutive days, I had the collection almost to myself. I spotted the obvious treasures first: the iconic image of John Jr. and Caroline playing in the Oval Office, inscribed by JFK to Stoughton; a photo signed by Jackie and JFK; one of the president’s neckties; letters and notes from Jackie; and the holy grail of modern presidential photos—LBJ taking the oath of office aboard Air Force One, inscribed by him to Stoughton.

The official photographer of the Kennedy White House, Cecil W. Stoughton, was responsible for one of the most memorable photographs of the twentieth century—and countless others.

Only then did I see the rest: the thousands of photographs, some in binders, others in plastic bags, and some stacked in loose piles. For example, there were:

- 430 photos in lot 6200;
- 585 in lot 6218;
- 1,026 in lot 6219;
- 1,080 in lot 6220;
- 2,110 in lot 6222;
- 2,140 in lot 6223.

To view these photographs methodically, one by one, would have taken days. Instead, I grabbed them in bunches, flipping through them as fast as I could. It was a rapid-fire slideshow tour of Camelot that felt like an Andy Warhol art project. More than twelve thousand images of John and Jacqueline Kennedy burned into my memory cells. It was an almost hallucinogenic séance.

But the more I saw, the more disappointed I became. I had expected to find images of the Kennedys with warm, personalized inscriptions in gratitude to the man who had taken them. I wanted to construct how the myth of Camelot had been made, from the man who had been part of its visual making. I had hoped to see Camelot through another lens—in this case, literally through a camera lens.

Many of the photos were small, measuring four-by-five inches instead of the usual eight-by-ten or eleven-by-fourteen. Many were group shots of events taken from a distance, and the human figures, even Jack and Jackie, were tiny without any revealing close-ups. To my disappointment, many of the color photos had faded, and most of them were later prints, not the vintage ones bearing the imprint of the White House photo lab, with an ink-stamped date (1961 to 1963) and code number on the reverse.

After two days, it was obvious: Cecil Stoughton was not a great photographer. His composition was awkward, unoriginal, and workmanlike. Stoughton did not possess the skills of Jacques Lowe or Mark Shaw, who also photographed the Kennedys. Stoughton had enjoyed privileged and practically unique access to historic moments, but, with a few exceptions, he had captured little of their human drama or significance. This wasn’t art—it was a kind of data entry. (In fact, Stoughton’s fame isn’t even based on any single image he took of JFK but rather of Lyndon Johnson.)

The collection was so disappointing that, by the end of my viewing, I had actually decided not to bid on any of the lots. But before leaving Bonhams, I flipped through the catalog one last time. Overwhelmed and distracted by the sheer volume of what I had seen, I had overlooked one lot, number 6191. My heart stopped when I read its catalog description: “Marilyn Monroe at JFK Party.”

If this was what I hoped it was, it was not only the best thing in the auction; it was also a discovery of historic importance. This lot might contain the legendary “lost” photographs from one of the most fabled and glamorous nights of JFK’s presidency—May 19, 1962, his forty-fifth birthday party in New York City. It was known that photographs had been taken that night, but at that point, no one knew how many had been taken or who might be in them. What might they show?

I asked for lot 6191. The slim paper folder contained a short stack of a few dozen black-and-white gelatin silver prints. High-quality prints on thick paper stock tumbled out, awash with rich tones and dark shadows.

I expected them to document Marilyn Monroe’s public performance. But a quick glance revealed that Stoughton had not taken them at JFK’s public birthday gala at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962, the night that Marilyn had immortalized by singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.” Many pictures had been taken at the Garden, and the discovery of a few more would not be newsworthy, but these were not from the public gala. Instead they were from another event: JFK’s private, invitation-only after-party held at a Manhattan millionaire’s town house later that night, an event that has been shrouded in secrecy for half a century. Few of the guests have ever discussed the party publicly, and no images (other than Stoughton’s) or recordings were ostensibly ever made.

The folder also contained a small envelope marked in Stoughton’s hand: “Sensitive material, Do not file, Protect Trash, no extra prints please.” I turned the envelope upside down, and original film negatives poured out. Most of them were shot on black-and-white Kodak 120-roll film, but there were three that had been taken on black-and-white thirty-five-millimeter film.

I held each of the twenty-nine negatives up to the light and compared it side by side with its matching print. There were only twenty-three photographs because Stoughton had not printed six of the least interesting negatives, including distanced crowd shots and, bizarrely, JFK inspecting buffet tables. I shuffled hurriedly through the prints, searching for the one I wanted to find more than any other, the one I knew had to be there.

And there it was.

After decades of rumor and myth about the sexual relationship between the president and the movie star, I held in my hands a print of the only known surviving photograph of John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe together. I searched for the corresponding negative, but it was missing. Had someone stolen it during the pre-auction preview at Bonhams? No, the staff explained, it had never been consigned. They had no idea where it was or what had happened to it. The only thing left was this single photographic print.

In lot 6191 of Bonhams auction house, the author discovers one of the rare surviving prints of the single photograph from the 1962 party that shows President Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe together. The negative is missing.

These images were not in the public record: they existed nowhere but in the tiny dark film negatives and the paper prints in my hands. Possession of the unique from-the-camera negatives would give their owner exclusive access and control over them. When Stoughton left government service, he had removed the original negatives from the White House. No copy negatives had ever been made. Even the Kennedy Library did not have copies. I was determined to buy them and bring them to light. They were a visual portal to another time. The twenty-nine images, in total, and not the thousands of other photos in Stoughton’s archives, might be the beginnings of a history-changing book about a single night that had, in many ways, defined the glamorous designation of Kennedy’s presidency as Camelot. I wanted to be the author of that book.

The auction was scheduled to start the next day at 1:00 p.m. I arrived an hour early, but before I could sit down, a Bonhams staffer approached me with a worried look on her face and said she needed to tell me something: the negatives in lot 6191 had been withdrawn from the auction.

What? Why?

“Did Stoughton’s estate reclaim them in an act of seller’s remorse?” I asked.

“No,” she answered. “The National Archives showed up and seized them, claiming them as the property of the United States.”

All the pre-auction butterflies had been suddenly crushed, and I was left confused and crestfallen. The Archives must have learned about the auction. Perhaps someone had seen the catalog and made the connection—like I had—that there was something here. Perhaps they had also come to New York and ascertained something I hadn’t fully realized, that what was being offered was actually the property of the US government.

Later, the archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, explained over lunch back in Washington what had happened. The film negatives were the property of the United States because Stoughton, as a White House photographer, was a federal employee, and his cameras—and any film he shot—belonged to the government.

Stoughton may have taken some of the most important photos in American history. But he did not own their negatives or their intellectual property. As a federal employee, he did not own the copyright to his work. That’s because, under Section 105 of the Copyright Act, no copyright exists in works of the US government. Not even the government owned the rights. Stoughton’s images were in the public domain. Just as a president cannot copyright his or her speeches, official photographers and the government could not copyright these photos. The film had been US property from the moment Stoughton loaded it into his camera, and it remained so when he removed the negatives from the camera.

But the Archives did not claim the prints, because there was no proof that Stoughton had made them while he worked at the White House. The photos did not bear the telltale White House markings on their reverse, and evidence suggested that Stoughton had printed them after 1963 at his own expense. And so, even though they were printed from negatives he never owned, the physical specimens of the prints were his property. Those paper prints went up for auction, although six of the images, having never been printed, were not among them.

Ferriero said that all the negatives would be transferred to the Kennedy Library, where he promised that I—and anyone else interested—would eventually have full access to them.

Almost half a century later, the American public was about to see Camelot’s secrets.

1.

How do you celebrate a president’s birthday?

For John F. Kennedy, the festivities for his forty-fifth birthday were meant to be both practical and sentimental. The idea to combine JFK’s birthday with a huge fundraising gala was shaped by the president’s previous birthday fundraiser in 1961, as well as the success of the pre-inaugural gala that Frank Sinatra had organized at the Washington, DC, National Guard Armory on the night of January 19, 1961. This old-fashioned Hollywood variety show featured a cavalcade of stars, and the event enriched Democratic coffers by $1.4 million. It was one of the most successful events in the history of political fundraising.

Now, sixteen months later, party officials decided to try again, this time a little farther north in Manhattan, the capital of American finance, a Democratic stronghold with a target-rich environment of wealthy, sympathetic donors. They needed to raise $1 million to pay off the Democratic National Committee debt from the 1960 presidential campaign.

Billed as New York’s “birthday salute” to President Kennedy, the evening was set for May 19, ten days before his real birthday, and would consist of two parts. The first would be an exclusive dinner with JFK. The second would be an entertainment extravaganza at the old Madison Square Garden—at Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, between Forty-Ninth and Fiftieth Streets, where skater Sonje Henie appeared in ice reviews, where Gene Autry lassoed for cheers in a rodeo in 1940, and where Sugar Ray Robinson defeated Jake LaMotta in 1942 in one of the great fights of the century.

Tickets to the birthday salute were priced at $10, $25, $100, and $500, while a $1,000 ticket included admission to both the show and the pre-gala presidential dinner. (Today’s equivalents are $84.80, $212, $848, $4,240, and $8,480.)

Richard Adler, the celebrated Broadway composer and lyricist (he cowrote the music and lyrics for The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees) signed on to produce the show. Attracting the talent was easy. Who didn’t want to celebrate the dashing Mr. Kennedy? After all, in the spring of 1962, JFK had a whopping 79 percent approval rating, according to Gallup. Leading stage and screen celebrities flocked to perform for free. But Adler still needed a huge star, and he got one—through the irresistible lobbying of the president himself.

In late March 1962, JFK personally asked Marilyn Monroe to appear at his birthday gala. Both were attending an event—and were overnight guests—at singer and actor Bing Crosby’s home at 70375 Calico Road, near Palm Springs, California, in the appropriately named Rancho Mirage area. According to rumor (no one knows for sure), the president and the movie star ensconced themselves in the two-bedroom attached casita, complete with its own fireplace, kitchen, and—importantly—private entrance.

Marilyn eagerly accepted his invitation and even offered to leave the Hollywood set of her latest film, Something’s Got to Give, and make a special cross-country journey just to please the president. Though shooting for the film had begun on April 23, Marilyn had only worked for one day, collapsing on the second and having to be sent home. She was looking for a distraction from her Hollywood woes, and she found it across the country in a glitzy birthday celebration for the president.

Details of the gala went to the press on April 10, and the next day, the White House mailed a thank-you letter addressed to Fifth Helena Drive in Los Angeles, acknowledging Marilyn’s contribution:

Dear Miss Monroe.

Many, many thanks for your acceptance of the invitation to appear at the President’s Birthday Party in Madison Square Garden on May 19. Your appearance will guarantee a tremendous success for the affair and a fitting tribute to President Kennedy.

Marilyn Monroe’s participation was the coup that ensured the gala’s success. She had won a Golden Globe for her acclaimed role in the Billy Wilder comedy Some Like It Hot. Following this success, Truman Capote lobbied for her to play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, although the role ultimately went to Audrey Hepburn. In March 1962 Rock Hudson presented Marilyn with a special award—World Film Favorite—at the Nineteenth Golden Globes.

Although she had suffered from various health issues due to addiction and sinusitis, she was still the movie star’s movie star. Her name guaranteed the sale of some fifteen thousand tickets. The organizers proceeded to mail VIPs special invitations printed on eggshell-blue paper: “You are cordially invited to be with President Kennedy at New York’s Birthday Salute to the President—a gala party with outstanding celebrities of the stage, screen and television . . .”

Organizers wanted a big turnout, so to get it they needed to cater to more than rich patrons. They needed to sell a lot of ten-dollar tickets too. Display posters promoted the event to an excited public: “Most Exciting Program Ever Staged!” “Come See and Hear President Kennedy and This Spectacular Array of the World’s Greatest Talent.” Newspaper ads hawked the show all over town.

No one could have guessed just how spectacular this one-night-only show would be.

On the evening of May 19, JFK’s limousine—a sleek midnight-blue Lincoln Continental convertible with a plastic bubble top—pulled up at 7:22 p.m. outside the Four Seasons Restaurant, in the Seagram Building at Park Avenue and Fifty-Second Street. The president was late. Earlier in the day he had presided over a dedication ceremony for the Penn Station South Urban Renewal Project with Governor Rockefeller, and then, later on, he’d visited his father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., at a rehabilitation facility where he was recovering from a serious stroke he had suffered the previous December.

JFK believed that he owed his presidency to his father. After the death of his older brother, Joe Jr., his father’s attention focused on making young John the next star politician. He transformed him from a shy, halting figure to a charismatic public success. He had propelled Jack into politics with support, advice, and most importantly, money. His father used every connection and means at his disposal to achieve the presidency for his son.

That afternoon, Jack was thrilled to tell him what he had in store for that night. He had overcome the missteps of his early presidency, including the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Now he had drawn together all of New York as he started working toward reelection in 1964. He wanted to share his successes with the man who had made them possible.

At the Four Seasons, 375 impatient guests who had purchased $1,000 tickets for the presidential dinner waited in the three rooms on the restaurant’s main floor. Each attendee received a special gilt-edged souvenir menu card printed on extra-thick cream-colored stock, decorated with a gold presidential seal. Titled “The President’s Birthday Dinner,” this was no low-end fundraising dinner typical of the usual “rubber chicken circuit.” Guests enjoyed “crabmeat baked in seashell, chicken broth with spring wheat, medallions of beef glazed in madeira, herbed carrots, and woodland mushrooms.” Dessert was described as simply “the presidential birthday cake.”

(At least one person skipped the expensively delicious meal, saving her appearance for later in the evening. Marilyn Monroe longed to dine with John Kennedy, but she had to devote every possible minute all afternoon and evening to scrupulously getting ready for the gala with hair, makeup, and dressing.)

Outside, pandemonium reigned. A reporter described the scene:

A thousand persons lined the south side of Fifty-Second Street to shout their greetings . . . Mr. Kennedy smiled and waved as his limousine slowed to a halt. Instead of entering the restaurant immediately, he crossed the street to shake hands and talk briefly to a youth behind the police barrier . . . As the crowd cheered, the President recrossed the street and entered the restaurant.

Members of the host committee in charge of the celebration, including Arthur Krim, a prominent entertainment lawyer and the head of United Artists movie studio (which had released The Magnificent Seven, Exodus, and West Side Story) and later founder of Orion Pictures, then officially greeted the president. Beyond show business, Krim was an active adviser to JFK, as well as to the two Democratic presidents who would follow him, LBJ and Jimmy Carter.

The dinner lasted an hour and a half, but JFK never sat down to eat. From 7:22 to about 8:15 p.m., he swanned from table to table, shaking hands and mingling with all the important donors, hoping to charm them into loosening their heavy pockets for more cash.

After the guests had departed for the gala, JFK stayed behind to eat in the now-empty restaurant. It was nearly impossible for him to eat at a busy fundraiser while guests clamored for his attention. By 8:45 p.m., the Secret Service shepherded him to his car and on to his next engagement at Madison Square Garden and the much-feted public celebration of his birthday.

The marquee outside the Garden broadcast the evening’s stars in huge letters: BEST THING TODAY . . . JOHN F. KENNEDY / 2ND BEST THING . . . MARILYN MONROE.

However, the two stars of the night, “the best thing” and the “second best thing,” were both late. It had been the hottest May day in the history of New York City—ninety-nine degrees—but by the time JFK arrived at 8:54 p.m., the long-waiting crowd inside the Garden gave him a roaring ovation as he walked in. A raised stage with multiple microphones for performers had been set up in the middle of the Garden’s floor, flanked by an orchestra. Massive illuminated cloth banners printed with the presidential seal hung from the four-sided scoreboard, along with hundreds of red, white, and blue balloons of varying sizes throughout the hall. The presidential box was smack-dab in the front row of the celebration, with a direct view over the orchestra to the stage. The president’s seal hung on the box’s railing, alongside bunches of patriotic bunting.

Attendees paid for ten-dollar tickets to see: “BEST THING TODAY . . . JOHN F. KENNEDY / 2ND BEST THING . . . MARILYN MONROE.”

JFK was the center of attention as he smiled and waved his way to the presidential box. Once there, the president settled into an upholstered chair and propped his feet up to smoke a cigar. For a president at the height of his popularity, confident in his glittering and expansive future, what better way to spend a night, as the center of attention, cheered on by thousands of adoring fans? In a space with seating for about fifty people, Kennedy surrounded himself with family and friends, including his mother, Rose Kennedy; his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy; his sister-in-law Ethel; his sisters Jean Kennedy Smith, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Patricia Kennedy Lawford; and his cousin Ann Gargan. Also present for the evening’s festivities were Vice President Lyndon Johnson; ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson; JFK’s best pal, Kirk LeMoyne “Lem” Billings; and Arthur and Mathilde Krim. Mathilde was far more than a trophy wife; she was an intellectual, a geneticist, and would later be a pioneering AIDS researcher. In 1962 she would transfer from Cornell Medical College to the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, where she would eventually lead their interferon department.

Thousands of people had shown up for JFK’s birthday party (the exact number has been lost to history, and reliable estimates range from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand), but one person was conspicuous by her absence from the presidential booth: his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy.

The Independent Press-Telegram reported that Jackie was competing in a two-day equestrian event, the Loudoun Hunt Horse Show, in Virginia’s horse country. That was not in itself unusual. Jackie was well known for her equestrian passions and routinely spent time away from the White House—much of it in rural Virginia at Glen Ora, her four-hundred-acre weekend retreat in Upperville.

But it was unusual for her to skip an event as important as her husband’s forty-fifth birthday party, especially as it was both a political fundraiser and an impromptu family reunion. Moreover, Jackie loved New York City and rarely passed up an opportunity to visit the cosmopolitan city and shopping mecca.

So why didn’t she attend? Rumors about JFK and Marilyn had yet to go public, but Jackie had suspected her husband of having a fling with the actress a few months earlier, at Bing Crosby’s house. She was certainly aware that JFK was having sex romps with other women, some of whom were her friends, when she wasn’t home at the White House. Her husband’s conquests included her own press secretary, Pamela Turnure; a nineteen-year-old White House intern, Mimi Alford; and numerous starlets and call girls.

What Jackie would have also known, well in advance of May 19, was that this was designed to be another woman’s night, not hers. How humiliating and embarrassing would it be to sit next to the president and have one of his trysts serenade him from on high, in full view of the public, with film crews recording and cameras snapping from every angle? Jackie’s studiously arranged nonchalance to these rumors was extraordinary, but this was a step too far. And so she avoided the gala like it was an outbreak of plague. Jackie was a star, too, and she refused to be upstaged by a dyed-blonde sex kitten.

The show got underway at 9:30 p.m., when co-emcee and comedian Jack Benny, famous for his sarcasm and ironic wit, took the stage. What followed was a classic variety show at the height of the genre’s popularity, an American art form that no longer exists. The program packed what the New York Times called “a glittering array of show people” into what journalist Mary McGrory described as “a monster vaudeville show.”

The cast included opera stars Robert Merrill (who sang “The Star-Spangled Banner”) and Maria Callas (who sang arias from Carmen). Singers Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Bobby Darin, and Diahann Carroll all performed, while comedians Mike Nichols and Elaine May cracked sidesplitting jokes. Entertainers Jimmy Durante and Eddie Jackson appeared, along with actors Henry Fonda and Elliott Reid. (Reid had costarred with Monroe in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.)

Opera singer Maria Callas, as well as singers Ella Fitzgerald and Harry Belafonte, performed, as did members of Jerome Robbins’s Ballet: U.S.A. dance company.

Two last-minute additions not listed in the program also joined the cast: actress Shirley MacLaine and, filling in for an ailing Danny Kaye, singer Harry Belafonte. During the latter’s performance of “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore,” JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Adlai Stevenson all clapped in time to the music, clearly enjoying the program.

But the best was yet to come.

Given the sweltering heat, people fanned themselves with the souvenir programs to cool off. The Los Angeles Times said that “heat waves still rose in the Garden” when co-emcee Peter Lawford, the suave British Rat Pack member and husband of JFK’s younger sister Pat Kennedy, appeared onstage as the gala reached the two-hour mark at 11:30 p.m.

“Mr. President, on this occasion of your birthday,” Lawford began, “this lovely lady is not only pulchritudinous but punctual.” (To current readers the word “pulchritudinous” may sound vulgar, but it means breathtaking, of heartbreaking beauty.)

Lawford gestured grandly to an empty spot onstage: “Mr. President, Marilyn Monroe.”

Spotlight, drumroll—but no Marilyn. The audience roared in anticipation and then went silent.

Lawford laughed nervously and gamely continued, “A woman about whom”—boisterous laughter from the waiting crowd—“it truly may be said, she needs no introduction.” A deep breath of anticipation. “Let me just say, here she is.”

Spotlight, drumroll. Still no Marilyn.

Lawford feigned surprise. “But I’ll give her an introduction anyway, Mr. President, because in the history of show business, perhaps there has been no one female, who meant so much, who has done more . . .”

In the middle of the lavish compliments, suddenly the woman in question materialized from stage left and scampered into the spotlight where she belonged. She had been standing just offstage all along, in the shadows and invisible to the audience, but now she joined Lawford at the podium.

“Mr. President,” Lawford crowed in triumph, “the late Marilyn Monroe.”

The amusing skit had been part of a running gag that played on Monroe’s notorious reputation for tardiness. Her lateness was legendary, whether for appointments, acting classes, or, worse, when she was supposed to be on set. She and Lawford had concocted the scheme during rehearsals, and it had worked like a charm. Certainly the comedy routine helped alleviate her nervousness—for she was, indeed, very nervous. She had been practicing for three weeks straight, rehearsing the four-line birthday song in the bathtub, recording it over and over on a tape recorder so she could hear her own voice. She sang on the airplane to New York, and she continued when she reached her apartment.

Now was her moment of truth. She allowed Lawford to take off her hip-length wrap of white ermine fur. He unwrapped her like the birthday present she was, removing the coat and revealing what was beneath it. And what was not.

The audience gasped in shock—and then faded to a stunned silence. A single drumroll accentuated the moment, as if the drummer himself was too entranced to offer more.

A sheer concoction of flesh-colored marquisette fabric (basically lightweight mesh or net) studded with twenty-five hundred hand-sewn crystals and six thousand glittering rhinestones clung to every curve of her svelte body. The original sketch had been mocked up by a young Bob Mackie, the now-legendary designer who became known as “the rajah of rhinestones” and who crafted, among other exotic creations, Carol Burnett’s Gone with the Wind parody dress and the black-sequined showgirl ensemble and feathered headdress worn by Cher at the 1986 Academy Awards.

But the garment itself had been made by Jean Louis, who had dressed the Duchess of Windsor and concocted the iconic strapless black satin sheath dress Rita Hayworth wore for the striptease act in Gilda. In fact, Marilyn’s dress was so formfitting that Marilyn had to be hooked and sewn into it by Hazel Washington, her studio maid. Of course, to ensure a seamless fit and silhouette, she wore absolutely nothing beneath it.

In the hush that followed, Adlai Stevenson was probably representative of the crowd at large when he remarked that Monroe was all “skin and beads,” adding, “I didn’t see the beads!” No film exists of the president’s reaction, but one can imagine his response, even if he had already seen her naked.

Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy, May 19, 1962.

In the spotlight, Marilyn twinkled like the shining star she was.

Today, the surviving black-and-white still photos taken at the Garden only hint at her brilliance, but a silent home movie taken in color while she crossed the stage reveals how much she glittered. She was mesmeric.

In the spotlight, she stood motionless, relishing the crowd’s reaction. Then, suddenly, in the rapt hush, she panicked and flicked the microphone to make sure it was working. “Oh my gosh,” she thought. “What if no sound came out?”

She grabbed at the microphone like a lifeline, steadying herself. She shielded her eyes from the bright lights by cupping both hands above her eyebrows as she vampishly pretended to look for the president’s box (which was right in front of her). A long pause followed. The audience did not know what to expect. The program had printed only her name, but its front cover, which read “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” foreshadowed what was coming.

Marilyn breathed deeply into the microphone, and the sound carried throughout the venue. Then, accompanied by jazz pianist Hank Jones, she began to sing in a sultry, breathy voice. There was no doubt she could carry a tune—she had proven that before in her tour-de-force musical number “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”—but she was not a professional singer and was nervous about her performance. But rehearsing the song so many times over the last several days had supplied the confidence she needed. “By God,” she told herself that night, “I’ll sing this song if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

She sang in a slow, languid style, pausing between each phrase and drawing out the words, as though she and JFK were the only two people in the room.

Happy . . . birthday . . . to you

Happy birthday . . . to you

Happy birthday . . . Mr. President

Happy birthday . . . to you . . .

Her coquettish smile of triumph at the end said it all. Who could have failed to have a happy birthday with Monroe’s steamy incantation? One journalist later wrote that she seemed “to be making love to the president in direct view of forty million Americans.”

Then, almost immediately, she forged ahead into her next song, the lyrics (by Richard Adler) adapted from to the tune of “Thanks for the Memory,” comedian Bob Hope’s signature ballad of love and loss:

Thanks, Mr. President

For all the things you’ve done

The battles that you’ve won

The way you deal with US Steel

And our problems by the ton

We thank you so much.

The mention of US Steel, obscure today, referred to JFK’s scorching criticism of the industry for trying to raise prices when he thought they had promised not to. But the thanks she referenced were those of the entire nation, those seated in the Garden that night and those who would read about it in the newspapers the next day. JFK was their leader, their golden president, and this night reflected his glittering stature.

A breath after her last line, Marilyn jumped up with outstretched arms and shouted to the audience: “Everybody, ‘Happy Birthday’!”

“I can now retire from politics, after having ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to me in such a sweet and wholesome way,” the president said to the crowd after Monroe’s infamous performance.

At her bidding, the orchestra sallied into another round of the ballad, with Marilyn gesturing as impromptu conductor. From behind her, two chefs suddenly appeared with a five-foot-tall birthday cake, decorated with presidential seals, with large icing letters that read “Happy Birthday Mr. President,” and sparkling with forty-five blue candles actually burning with little flames (a fire hazard that would not be tolerated today). They carried it around the arena, balancing it on two long poles that stretched across their shoulders as the audience cheered. Onstage, Marilyn waved her arms wildly as the orchestra played the encore. She hopped up and down in excitement, a gravity-defying amount of movement in heels and a skintight dress, in giddy relief at having performed so well after so much worry.

At the introduction, “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States,” JFK exited his box, ascended the stage, and stood at the podium where Marilyn had sung only moments before—she had been whisked from the stage so a stagehand could hang the presidential seal on the podium before Kennedy spoke. In the spotlight, JFK basked in the resounding cheers from the crowd, circling to acknowledge every side of the auditorium.

How did someone react after such a spectacle? No words could express what he—and some twelve to fifteen thousand others in the auditorium—felt about the practically indecent display he had just witnessed. He, and the audience, had been shell-shocked by a living bombshell. The most desired movie star of their generation had appeared practically nude (this in an age where hemlines were always below the knee for respectable women, and girdles, garters, and gloves were required for any public appearance) and serenaded him in a way that made her desire for him obvious, if not outright unseemly. It was unmistakable, it was public, and likely JFK was already thinking about the huge PR disaster it would be, having worked so hard to tamp down previous rumors of their “affair.”

But, like the consummate professional he was, the president regained his composure and moved on. He thanked his father, then the mayor and organizers, and finally the performers, one by one. At last he got to the most important—“And to Miss Monroe, who left a picture to come all the way east, and I can now retire from politics, after having ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to me in such a sweet and wholesome way.”

The audience’s cheers and guffaws drowned out the end of his line. After all, who wouldn’t want Marilyn Monroe to sing to them like that? After the rest of his remarks, the president left the Garden at 11:45 p.m. Outside he found some ten thousand well-wishers lining the streets to cheer him on. The president drove off, and the crowds went home. But the president did not. His limousine was not heading for the Carlyle Hotel, where he owned an apartment. His night was not over. His car exited the Garden from the Fiftieth Street side, drove across town to Park Avenue, and then headed north. He had another destination in mind.

The president of the United States was going to another party, this one behind carefully closed doors.

2.

JFK’s destination was 33 East Sixty-Ninth Street, the ten-thousand-plus-square-foot town house of Arthur and Mathilde Krim, for a private and intimate soiree. Together, the Krims were one of the foremost power-player couples in New York, perfect hosts for the president to have some downtime and really enjoy himself for his birthday.

It was impossible to buy entrance at any price. Approximately seventy guests and some—but not all—of the evening’s performers attended. They included Kennedy siblings and in-laws; JFK’s vice president, Lyndon Johnson; White House officials; New York VIPs from politics and the arts; business bigwigs; a few Kennedy friends; and a skeleton crew of US Secret Service agents.

The event was off the record, and no photographers were allowed but one: President Kennedy’s own personal photographer, Cecil Stoughton. No records exist indicating why he was present, but he certainly wouldn’t have been there, snapping away, without the president’s express approval and invitation. It was common that the White House photographer went along to document all social events attended by the president, sometimes even very private ones.

Any photos Stoughton took that night would be under White House control and not released to the press for publication. There were no members of the press in attendance except for Merriman Smith, the White House correspondent for United Press International. He was a fan of JFK and could be relied upon not to leak anything that might embarrass the president.

JFK’s limousine pulled up to the curb at 11:53 p.m. The party began at five minutes to midnight and lasted until 2:20 a.m. During this time, Stoughton was free to roam the house and take exclusive pictures at one of the most glamorous and star-spangled events in the history of John Kennedy’s Camelot.

Stoughton’s images are almost certainly the sole surviving ones from that night. The group shots that Stoughton took do not reveal the presence of anyone else in the room holding another camera. In an age before instant cameras and iPhones, there was no other way to document or film the happenings.

Stoughton couldn’t have known it that night (or perhaps he did), but the party would later attain legendary status thanks to a single photo that he took. It was an image that would be suppressed from the world at large, one that Jackie was likely never permitted to see.

The entertainers and other special guests arrived by limousine, private car, or taxi and were escorted into the elegant town house. The staff plied them with cocktails, and the guests conversed in idle small talk. The Krims treated them to a sumptuous buffet supper, including all the best of 1960s party fare, such as garnished dip with black and green olives, plates of sliced salami and cold cuts, deviled eggs and tomatoes, and precisely cut toast points.

As they ate and drank, there was really only one question on everyone’s mind: Would she show up?

As Peter Lawford had joked earlier that night onstage, tardiness was one of her trademarks. But the star of the night did not disappoint.

Marilyn Monroe and the president’s brother-in-law Steve Smith at the after-party hosted by Arthur B. Krim and Dr. Mathilde Krim.

When Marilyn Monroe walked in, jaws dropped. Time froze, hearts stopped, not only for the men but for the women too. She hadn’t changed and was still encased in the skintight sequined dress.

Marilyn Monroe wanted to make a statement, and she did. In fact, it may have been the signature statement of her career. Walking in stark naked couldn’t have been more shocking. Pulses raced as she moved in the filmy material. For certainly it was one thing to see her in that dress at a distance, while she stood onstage in front of thousands of people, but it was something else altogether to see her in it up close. The dress made it seem like her nude body had simply been painted with a thin veneer of flesh-toned watercolor and dusted with thousands of tiny stars. She sparkled at every step. It was devastating; it was drop-dead dazzling.

Other guests, even the stars, could only gape. Compared to the dashing president and beautiful actress, they were, in astronomical jargon, dwarf stars beside these twin supernovas.

And tonight, there was about to be a massive celestial explosion.

As if drawn like moths to her light, Cecil Stoughton found JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the Harvard historian and Kennedy staffer, chatting with Marilyn Monroe in the library in front of a bookcase. At some point in the evening (the timeline of party events is blurry, as all good parties tend to be), JFK and Marilyn had joined up. It shouldn’t have been unusual for two party guests to indulge in small talk, but when those two guests were a married president and this movie star, who had long been rumored to have secret trysts, all bets were off.

It was the photo op of a lifetime. Stoughton raised his camera. But he was too slow—the president spotted him, and before the shutter snapped, JFK moved. He turned his body away from Marilyn. A split second too late, Stoughton’s camera flashed and froze an entirely different moment than the one he had just witnessed.

The resulting photo almost says more about the instant than the one Stoughton hoped to catch. JFK’s back is to the viewer—the figure could be almost anyone. Meanwhile, a serious-looking Marilyn turns her head toward him, her lips pursed anxiously. Bobby’s shoulder protrudes at the left, his face in shadow, while on the right edge of the frame, Schlesinger grins and holds a drink. In the background, singer Harry Belafonte smiles in conversation.

The photo, as it exists, raises so many questions. Was the president simply done speaking to Marilyn? Was he moving on to get a drink, to speak to a donor, to head to the bathroom? Or was there a guilty conscience at work? Did he not want to add more fuel to an already-raging PR fire? Was he worried about returning home and facing Jackie’s silent wrath? Or did he hope for more that night? Did he hope to take Marilyn (back) to bed? Or did he simply want to sleep alone, or with some other less complicated woman? There’s no way we can know, but any answers are intriguing.

The president greeted guests Harry and Julie Robinson Belafonte and Shirley MacLaine, and enjoyed performances by Diahann Carroll and Jimmy Durante.

Marilyn made plenty of conquests of her own that night, and she captured many other willing male hearts. Arthur Schlesinger, smiling happily in the photo, was one. “I will never forget meeting her at the Arthur Krim party,” Schlesinger later reminisced. “The image of this exquisite, beguiling, and desperate girl will always stay with me. I do not think I have seen anyone so beautiful.”

Still, if he missed the shot of the century, at least Stoughton took other photos that night—twenty-eight safely repose in the JFK archive documenting the excitement of the Krims’ party. Many of the entertainers at the gala wanted the show to go on, and guests gathered on the second-floor stairwell and spacious landing where they sat in chairs, on the stairs, or stood during impromptu performances by Diahann Carroll, Jimmy Durante, and others. Stoughton captured Jimmy Durante as he sat at a piano with a few of the musicians standing by and then hammed it up and strode across the landing, treating it as center stage while John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Arthur Krim, Shirley MacLaine, and other guests laughed.

Harry Belafonte was everywhere—mingling, dancing with his wife, Julie Robinson, and chatting with JFK. He was an old hand at this, having performed at Kennedy’s 1961 pre-inaugural gala, as had Jimmy Durante and Ella Fitzgerald.

Most of the entertainers at the Krims’ party were Hollywood royalty, but Shirley MacLaine was just starting a brilliant career. Stoughton captured the moment that Arthur Krim introduced her to the president, and then took a lovely image of her and JFK in conversation.

Stoughton photographed JFK and many of the other guests while they enjoyed the performers. He took a series of photos of JFK conversing with Maria Callas, Diahann Carroll, Mike Nichols, and Elaine May. During Carroll’s number, Marilyn Monroe melted into the crowd. She sat on a chair by a balcony railing and rested her chin on one of her hands. Beside her was her chaperone for the night, her former father-in-law, Isidore Miller, whose son Arthur, the legendary playwright, she had married in 1956 and divorced in 1961.

Kennedy left the party at 1:58 a.m., and he went straight home to his apartment at the Carlyle Hotel at Madison Avenue and Seventy-Sixth Street. He had bought the place before his presidency and had always stayed there when visiting New York City.

Marilyn departed the party by limousine at around 2:00 a.m. Her driver took her to Brooklyn, where she dropped off Isidore Miller. Then she went home alone to her thirteenth-floor apartment at 444 East Fifty-Seventh Street, arriving about 4:00 a.m. There she met her confidante and hangout pal, James Haspiel, and got a relaxing massage from Ralph Roberts, her regular masseur and also part of her inner circle. They have acted as witnesses for her whereabouts in the early morning of May 20, and her car service receipt also confirms these facts.

It has been rumored for half a century that JFK brought Marilyn Monroe back to his apartment at the Carlyle for a tryst in the early-morning hours of May 20. Whatever relationship existed between JFK and Marilyn—did they really have an affair or is it just a myth?—there is no evidence that they had a private rendezvous after this party.

On May 20, after a series of public appearances in Manhattan, including a second speech at Madison Square Garden on the President’s Program for Medical Care for the Aged (what we know today as Medicare), John Kennedy flew back to Washington. Upon arrival, he did not return to the White House. Instead, he boarded a helicopter and flew straight to Glen Ora in rural Virginia, where Jackie was waiting for him.

There is no record of what husband and wife discussed.

The same day, Marilyn Monroe flew back to Los Angeles to continue filming. She would never see John F. Kennedy again.

Tragically, Monroe had less than three months to live. Only a few weeks after the birthday salute, after her repeated absences from the movie she was filming—Something’s Got to Give, also starring Dean Martin—20th Century Fox announced on June 8 that she had been “removed” from the film, and they sued her for damages. Although she had worked for several days following her return from New York, including a skinny-dipping scene where she appeared nude in a swimming pool, the first week of June saw an incredible downward spiral in the movie star’s life, especially after her thirty-sixth birthday on June 1. Her calls to the White House were rebuffed, and she agonized about being ugly, unloved, and barren. She resorted to painkillers and sedatives that left her virtually comatose.

The twenty-six-year-old future TV icon Diahann Carroll sang a number for a packed crowd that included the vice president, the mayor of New York, the president’s Secret Service detail, and Marilyn Monroe (leaning on the banister).

In these circumstances, and losing almost $10,000 a day on a film that couldn’t progress without its lead star, 20th Century Fox had to fire her. It was the final straw in what had been a rapidly deteriorating relationship, exacerbated by her abrupt insistence to travel across country to perform for the president.

That August, seventy-eight days after her electrifying performance in New York, she would be found dead at her home in Brentwood, California. The birthday salute at Madison Square Garden was her last major public appearance. Peter Lawford’s introduction of her as “the late Marilyn Monroe” had been tragically prescient.

As he celebrated his birthday in May 1962, JFK couldn’t know (of course) that it was the midpoint of his presidency. He had been in office for sixteen months. Ahead of him, that fall, lay the Cuban Missile Crisis, the showdown with the Soviet Union that nearly brought the world to its apocalyptic end. The next June he would declare, “Ich bin ein Berliner”—“I am a Berliner”—in front of an ecstatic West German audience. In August 1963 his infant son Patrick was born and died, leaving both parents scarred and saddened. Later that month, the March on Washington culminated in Martin Luther King Jr.’s famed “I Have a Dream” speech, after which JFK invited him to the White House. By the summer of 1963, civil unrest was simmering across America, but the president achieved, in what he considered the high point of his presidency, the limited nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, a step toward ending the Cold War.

Then, in November, he traveled to Dallas in preparation to launch his reelection campaign. He was assassinated there on November 22, 1963.

John F. Kennedy would celebrate only one more birthday, his forty-sixth. After May 19, 1962, he had only eighteen months to live, a little more than a year longer than Marilyn Monroe.

Five of the people present at the Krim party on May 19 would be with JFK on his last day. Lyndon Johnson, who would raise his right hand and swear the oath in that photo, had been present at the festivities. Merriman Smith, the only journalist at the party, would be in the Dallas motorcade, where he heard the shots, and would be the first reporter to transmit news of the assassination. Aboard Air Force One, he witnessed the swearing in. JFK aides Kenneth O’Donnell and Dave Powers were riding in the car behind the president in Dallas and saw him slump over when hit by gunfire. And Cecil Stoughton, the photographer who had preserved that magical night in Manhattan, would be with the president in Dallas and take the photograph that symbolized the crushing end of Camelot.

3.

Today, if you go to 33 East Sixty-Ninth Street, the site of the private JFK birthday party still stands, its elegant limestone facade nearly identical to how the president saw it that night. It is not hard to imagine the presidential limousine pulling to the curb at five minutes to midnight and a jaunty John Kennedy stepping out, still exhilarated in the afterglow of Marilyn Monroe’s performance. Nor is it hard to imagine a cavalcade of some of the greatest stars of the era parading through the doorway to enjoy a party that would become a legend. In 1998, the historic town house was sold for almost $42 million.

Artifacts and ephemera from the events of May 19, 1962, survive in decent numbers. Advertising posters, invitations, tickets, dinner menu cards, and gala programs occasionally turn up for sale, often online at inflated prices. Most of these souvenirs are not rare—more than fifteen thousand tickets and programs were printed—and can be acquired at a reasonable cost.

Marilyn Monroe’s dress is another matter. In 1999 Christie’s sold it for over $1.26 million, and when it hit the block again in 2016, it was bought for a whopping $4.8 million. In 1962 it had cost Marilyn Monroe less than $1,500. Edward Meyer, vice president of Exhibits and Archives for Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum, which purchased the dress and currently displays it, said: “This is the most famous item of clothing in twentieth-century culture.” It’s also the most expensive dress ever sold at auction, according to Guinness World Records, hundreds of thousands of dollars above the second most expensive dress, the billowing ivory concoction worn by Marilyn in The Seven Year Itch.

So many questions remain about this one night. Who attended the party? An original, complete guest list has never been found or compiled. Of the approximately seventy guests, I have identified thirty-eight of them. But not every person captured in Stoughton’s pictures has been identified, and not every guest was photographed. If you were there, or know someone who was, I would like to hear from you in an effort to reconstruct the guest list.

What about the film of the public gala? The show was broadcast to the room of JFK’s father, Joe Kennedy. Excerpts exist on the internet, including the famous number by Marilyn Monroe, but there appears to be no extant full record of the entire event. It must have existed, but where has it gone?

And finally, what about the negative for Stoughton’s missing masterpiece? Cecil Stoughton’s photographs of JFK’s after-party have now been recovered. The twenty-nine images are available via the JFK Library collections, and the National Archives, but the film negative of his most celebrated photo from that night—of Marilyn Monroe and John Kennedy—is still missing. An unnamed Kennedy collector, who knew Stoughton, explained the mystery, at least in part. Stoughton complained to him that he had loaned the negative to someone, and that the negative had never been returned.

Someone out there may still have it, and guess what? The National Archives wants it back.

Movie executive Arthur Krim and American actress Marilyn Monroe stand between Robert Kennedy (left) and John F. Kennedy at the Krim residence after-party, New York, New York, May 19, 1962.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I hope that you enjoyed reading this essay as much as I enjoyed writing it. For me, this is not the end of the story—the quest continues, and I hope you can help.

There are so many questions that still remain about the night of May 19, 1962, and the early morning of May 20. Can you provide clues to answer them?

Did you attend the dinner for President Kennedy at the Four Seasons? Were tickets to that event ever printed? Do you have any advertising posters that promoted the Madison Square Garden gala or any souvenirs from the Madison Square Garden celebration? Do you possess any hitherto unknown photos of Marilyn Monroe or other stars taken backstage that night?

Did you, or anyone you know, attend the private after-party at the Krim home? I am still compiling a complete guest list. I have identified about half of the attendees, but who were the rest of the lucky invitees? More important, are you aware of any other photos taken that night? Could there be additional images of Marilyn and JFK?

Another tantalizingly missing piece from May 19, 1962, remains the complete film of the presidential gala. What happened to it? Has a single copy survived? The Richard Adler collection at the Library of Congress does not contain one. Even the JFK Library does not have one—do you?

If you have any information about this extraordinary night, I would like to hear from you: jamesswansonauthor@gmail.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © Lisa Nipp

James L. Swanson is the author of the New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award winner Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer and its sequel, Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln’s Corpse. His historic crime dramas include the bestselling classic Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, an adaptation of Manhunt for young readers, with more than one million copies in print. He wrote about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in “The President Has Been Shot!”: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the adult version, End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. His most recent book, Chasing King’s Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Assassin, received the 2019 Jefferson Cup Award for young adult readers and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. He serves on the advisory councils of the Ford’s Theatre Society and the Gettysburg Foundation and on the board of the Abraham Lincoln Association.

Image Credits

Introduction

Marilyn Monroe performs at a Democratic Party fundraising dinner and birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York, May 19, 1962: Photo by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Standing beside former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office aboard Air Force One at Love Field in Dallas, Texas, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 (also pictured: Malcolm Kilduff; Jack Valenti; Judge Sarah T. Hughes; Rep. Albert Thomas; Marie Fehmer; First Lady Lady Bird Johnson; Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry; Evelyn Lincoln; Rep. Homer Thornberry; Roy Kellerman; Thomas Johns; Pamela Turnure; Rep. Jack Brooks; Bill Moyers; Admiral Dr. George G. Burkley); President John F. Kennedy with his children, Caroline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr., in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, DC: (both) Photos by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Marilyn Monroe stands between Robert Kennedy (left) and President John F. Kennedy at the home of movie executive Arthur Krim in New York, New York, May 19, 1962: Cecil Stoughton/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images.

1

View of Madison Square Garden during a Democratic Party fundraising dinner and birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy. New York City, New York, May 19, 1962: Photo by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Ticket to the birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, May 19, 1962: Courtesy Heritage Auctions.

Opera singer Maria Callas; singer Ella Fitzgerald; members of Jerome Robbins’s Ballet: U.S.A. dance company; and Harry Belafonte; all performing at the birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, May 19, 1962: (all) Photos by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Marilyn Monroe performs at a Democratic Party fundraising dinner and birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York, May 19, 1962: Photo by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

President John F. Kennedy speaks and receives his cake at a fundraising dinner and birthday salute in his honor at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York, May 19, 1962: (both) Photos by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

2

President John F. Kennedy during an evening reception at the residence of Arthur B. Krim and Dr. Mathilde Krim in New York City, New York, May 19, 1962: Photo by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Steve Smith (brother-in-law of President John F. Kennedy) visits with Marilyn Monroe during an evening reception at the residence of Arthur B. Krim and Dr. Mathilde Krim in New York City, New York, May 19, 1962: Photo by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

President John F. Kennedy visits with Harry Belafonte and Julie Robinson Belafonte; Diahann Carroll performs; Shirley MacLaine attends; Jimmy Durante performs, during an evening reception at the residence of Arthur B. Krim and Dr. Mathilde Krim in New York City, New York, May 19, 1962: (all) Photos by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Diahann Carroll performs at the residence of Arthur B. Krim and Dr. Mathilde Krim in New York City, New York, May 19, 1962 (also pictured: Jack Benny; Ethel Skakel Kennedy; Patricia Kennedy Lawford; Jean Kennedy Smith; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson; Steve Smith; Larry O’Brien; Kenneth P. O’Donnell; mayor of New York City Robert F. Wagner Jr.; Susan Wagner; Marilyn Monroe; Peter Lawford; Jimmy Durante; Floyd Boring; Bob Lilley): Photo by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

3

President John F. Kennedy arrives by presidential limousine outside the residence of Arthur B. Krim and Dr. Mathilde Krim in New York City, New York, May 19, 1962 (also pictured: Kenneth P. O’Donnell; Mr. and Dr. Krim; Lubert de Freese; Gerald A. Behn): Photo by Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Marilyn Monroe stands between Robert Kennedy (left) and John F. Kennedy, New York, New York, May 19, 1962: Cecil Stoughton/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images.