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Show HOLLYWOOD. Aug. 5, 1962, 11 years ago, screen star Marilyn Monroe died. She died in the bedroom of her house at 12305 Fifth Helena Dr. in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. She was 0n 36. In by Lloyd Shearer the course of a few hours she swallowed 25 tablets of sodium pentobarbital trademarked Nembutal. At what rate and at what times and for what reasons she ingested the overdose of sleeping pills no one will ever know. That she died of them, however, there should be no doubt. Coroner's case 81128 with the complete autopsy report makes that clear and lists the cause of her death as "probable suicide." Many of Marilyn's friends, despite her previous records of suicide attempts, still refuse to believe that she died willfully by her own hand. They comfort themselves with the conjecture that her death was accidental. They say she took a few pills for her insomma. When those few didn't put her to sleep, she gradually increased the dosage until she was so groggy she had no idea of how many she had previously swallowed. An improbable theory Comes now Norman Mailer in a biography entitled Marilyn (incredibly, Club the August outlandthe for sells which selection), ish price of $19.95. In Marilyn, Mailer suggests the possibility that Marilyn Monroe was murdered by secret agents of the CIA, the FBI or the Mafia, because she "was reputed to be having an affair" with the late Robert Kennedy. "By the end," Mailer writes, in what rehashed potboiler, is a shameful, "political stakes were riding on her life, and even more on her death. "If she could be murdered in such a way as to appear a suicide in despair at the turn of her love, what a point of pressure could be maintained afterward against the Kennedys. So one may be entitled to speak of a motive for murder. Of course, it is another matter to find that evidence exists." No evidence of murder exists. Norman Mailer never met Marilyn Monroe. He never knew her. His friends did, especially Norman Rosten, author of still book on another the screen star, Marilyn: An Untold Story and it is highly doubtful if a single person who knew Marilyn Monroe well places a scintilla of credence in Mailer's ridiculous suspicion that she could have been murdered. ed Expanding a preface Mailer was hired by Lawrence Schiller, a Hollywood promoter and photographer, to write a preface to a book of photographs of Marilyn. After reading Norma jean, a factual biography of the screen star high-pressu- re 4 PARADE AUGUST 5. W |