Mimosa: Memories of Marilyn & the Making of "The Misfits"

By Ralph L Roberts, Chris Jacobs and Harold K Roberts

Ralph Roberts, actor, masseur, and former Pentagon liaison, could frequently be found in the kitchen of Lee Strasberg's NYC apartment on Central Park West. One pleasant spring morning he by chance met Marilyn. Not the turned-on public persona of Marilyn Monroe he had crossed paths with in the past, but the honest, casual Marilyn who existed outs

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roadhouse Books
• Release date: Nov 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798985164015

Ralph L Roberts

Ralph was born in Salisbury, NC, August 16, 1916. He was educated at Catawba College and the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). Ralph studied for the stage with Herbert Berghof's Acting Class. He also studied at Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio in New York in the early 1950's. Ralph appeared on tour with "Big People" in 1947 and made his Broadway debut in the 1948 revival of "Angel Street." Ralph's screen debut was in MGM's "Phone 1119" in 1951.

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Mimosa:

Memories of Marilyn

& the Making of The Misfits

By: Ralph L. Roberts

with Chris Jacobs & Hap Roberts

Copyright © 2021 Harold K Roberts, Jr.

First Printing, November 2021

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

Published by Roadhouse Books, LLC

Salisbury, North Carolina

ISBN: 979-8-9851640-1-5

Cover Photo: © Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos

USA. NEVADA. 1960. Marilyn Monroe on the set of the Misfits.

Cover and book design by Sarah Michalec

About Ralph L. Roberts

Ralph was born August 16, 1916 in Salisbury, North Carolina. He was educated at Catawba College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1941 he volunteered for the draft to get his year out of the way, however, Pearl Harbor stretched this to five years. He served in Burma as General Joseph Stilwell’s Personnel Officer and came out of the Army as a Major. In 1946 he went to New York to study his passion, acting. Ralph studied for the stage with Herbert Berghof’s Acting Class, and in 1949 studied massage at the Swedish Institute of Massage and Physio-therapy. He then studied acting at Lee Strasberg’s Actors’ Studio in New York in the early 1950’s. It was through his friendship with the Strasbergs that he came to know Marilyn Monroe.

Ralph appeared on tour with Big People in 1947, and made his Broadway debut in the 1948 revival of Angel Street. Ralph’s screen debut was in MGM’s Phone 1119 in 1951. While it is uncertain how many acting roles Ralph had in his life, we know of eleven movies, at least five Broadway plays, a handful of television shows and a wide range of other performances. A list is maintained and can be found through MimosaBook.com.

In the early 1980’s Ralph finally decided he should write down his memories of Marilyn. Ralph was proud and protective of his many friendships. The people he chose to surround himself with are a reflection of his personality, and while he was fairly secretive about with who he spent his time, he did write the following:

In the intervening years since graduation from the Swedish Institute, I have had the good fortune to have had the following as clients. Some became friends as well as clients. Many became close friends. Some became family. I think it gives more of an indication of the essential me than any picture I could paint. Some, probably the closest, I may have forgotten. Others who had only one or two massages I do not include. I feel it takes a series of such to have a mutual rapport and understanding.

They are, in addition to Marilyn: Carol and Walter Matthau. Natalie Wood. Ruth and Milton Berle. Jennifer Jones. Mary and Arthur Schwartz. Jayne Mansfield (I also choreographed the massage for Jule Styne in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter). Nancy Malone. Paul Burke. Shirley Jones. Marcy and William Shatner. Fran and Perry Lafferty. France Nuyen. Norma Crane. Maggie McNamara. Paula and Lee Strasberg. Anna Strasberg. Julie Harris. Geraldine Brooks. Maureen Stapleton. Jan Miner. Judy Holliday. Betty Comden and Steve Kyle. Phyllis Newman and Adolph Green. Allyn McLerie. Joan Lorring. George Gaynes. Robert Lewis. Margaret Leighton. Joan Plowright; Milton Goldman. Arnold Weissberger. Felicia and Lenny Bernstein. Lauren Bacall. Zoe Caldwell and Robert Whitehead. Burr Tillstrom. Alan Shayne. Sono Osato. Arthur Laurents. Eva Le Gallienne. Ellen Burstyn. Imogene Coca. Arturo Toscanini. Gloria and James Jones. Betty Field. Gloria Vanderbilt. Herbert Berghof. Montgomery Clift. William Redfield. Gloria Safier. Helen Hayes. Richard Burton. Jo Sullivan Loesser. Sally Ann Howes. Richard Adler. Marc Blitzstein. Paul Davis. Nancy Berg. Martin Ritt. Evelyn and Richard Avedon. Leigh Taylor-Young. Joan and George Axelrod. Shirley Clurman. Nancy Cardoza. Philip Anglim. Diane Ladd. Dolly Fox. Kay Norton. David Merrick. Susan Strasberg.

Photo by Guy Gillette. 1968.

Foreword

By: Hap Roberts

My uncle Ralph was the uncle that everybody wanted to have. I first introduced him to you in my 2019 book, Everybody Was Happy — the boy from Merritt Avenue, the rise of Food Town, and the myth of Marilyn Monroe.

After I completed my book, I wanted to turn my full attention to uncle Ralph Roberts. After all, we had 14 different versions of a memoir he began about his three years with Marilyn Monroe, one of the world’s most famous movie stars.

Chris Jacobs works in IT with Statewide Title. He’s also special projects manager, which includes answering inquiries from all over the world about Marilyn Monroe. He’s done a yeoman’s job of merging all those manuscripts together into the completed piece you hold in your hands today. Susan Shinn Turner, my editor for Everybody Was Happy, has served in the same role for this project. They both have my thanks and gratitude.

Before we dive into Ralph’s manuscript, I’d like to share a few thoughts about him from my own memoir.

My uncle Ralph was a lot of fun. He would come to Salisbury three or four times a year from New York. He was on television shows during the 1950s such as Your Show of Shows. He wanted to be an actor. He studied under several prominent acting coaches. He met Marilyn Monroe in Lee Strasberg’s kitchen at the Dakota Apartments. I couldn’t wait for him to come to Salisbury for visits. He was fascinating, and he liked me. He liked to think of me as his younger brother. As I got older, we’d talk on the phone about more adult things. I never asked him questions about Marilyn. I would just sit there with a beer and see if he talked. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t, but I never pushed that.

He was a pack rat, sort of like I am. I was the beneficiary of his estate and settled everything.

In order to supplement his income, Uncle Ralph decided to become a masseur. He was fully licensed in Swedish massage. He kept a list of clients, and he never agreed to massage anyone unless he felt he could develop a relationship and rapport with them. His client list was a veritable Who’s Who of Hollywood stars of the 1950s and early ’60s.

He traded acting lessons with Lee Strasberg for massages. They all had their own cereal bowls to have breakfast there on Sunday mornings — an open invitation to be there for breakfast. James Dean was there in the earlier years. Marlon Brando and Julie Harris were there, too. One Sunday morning in 1957, Ralph said to someone, Who is that good-looking woman over there? They said, Are you serious? That’s Marilyn Monroe.

Marilyn had a high IQ. Ralph had the second-highest IQ of anyone tested at Fort Jackson, S.C., when he was drafted. So they hit it off. They just became kindred spirits — extremely smart kindred spirits.

Ralph thought Marilyn died of an accidental overdose of prescription medicine and champagne. She’d built up a high tolerance. She’d called him several times before when she thought she’d crossed that line. He’d break into her apartment and get her up and walk her around. The day she died, she and Ralph were going to have dinner together. She’d just bought a bungalow in Brentwood and was proud of it. She’d always rented.

Their favorite thing to do when they grilled out was fix mimosas, and Ralph would have vodka and tonic. They would charcoal steaks, toss a salad, and have baked potatoes. They’d sit around and talk about books they’d read. Ralph would give her a massage and then slip on home.

The day of her death, Aug. 5, 1962, they were to do that exact schedule. Ralph called several times during the day and couldn’t get Marilyn to the phone. Ralph viewed it suspiciously but didn’t push the matter, so he went ahead and made other plans — regrettably.

Regrettably because he got the last call Marilyn ever made. His answering service received a call from a groggy woman asking for Ralph.

When Ralph got the news she had died, he just went out and started walking. I said, Why were you walking? He said, I went out walking and walking and walking. It saved my life.

He walked for hours until he couldn’t walk anymore. Roberts family members don’t cry, but he cried and he cried and he cried.

A young girl who stuttered and a young boy who was tongue tied now were separated. Gorgeous people. And now Marilyn dead. Even as a 10-year-old boy, I could not believe it. The world could not believe it. Marilyn Monroe was dead at 36.

Having the connection to Marilyn is part exciting, part curse, part happiness, part sadness. The end, of course, was a tragedy.

Uncle Ralph’s life was never the same after Marilyn died. To this day, the world remains fascinated with her. That’s why I finally wanted to share my uncle’s story with the world. There was more to Marilyn than just her starring roles, her husbands, her unfortunate demise. I hope Ralph’s story about their friendship will give you fresh insight on this woman the world only thought it knew.

Introduction — Compiling an unfinished manuscript

By: Chris Jacobs

When Hap first told me his uncle Ralph Roberts was Marilyn Monroe’s masseur, I honestly thought it was the start of a joke. As it turned out, Ralph was real, as was the relationship, and he had written a manuscript about their time together. In fact, Ralph was far more than Marilyn’s masseur. He was her true friend in an environment where these can be in short supply. He was her silent confidant in a sea of loose lips and malicious gossip. Ralph was Marilyn’s support in an industry that loves to tear people down and a quiet companion among those who love spectacle. He was also a big man, not the worst thing to have around when you have one of the most recognizable faces in the world.

Before reading Ralph’s recollections, I had little interest in Marilyn Monroe. My knowledge of her came only from popular culture and a movie or two, and while I of course knew she was an attractive movie star I knew very little else. Her movies were not usually my taste. I was surprised to learn later they were frequently not Marilyn’s taste, either. The scopes of her intellect and interests were so much greater than her popular image conveys. I went from only knowing her as a pretty face to wondering how it would feel to be in a book club with Marilyn. I believe Ralph could give a pretty good idea of that if he were still with us.

I realize Marilyn has been presented here through the filtered lens only a close friend can provide. I am not sure a story presented distantly, as most are, would have pulled me in like this one. This is the Marilyn that Ralph loved, through his eyes in his first-person account. A rarity in that daily life is presented, by a primary source, without sprawling into a decades long overview of the subject’s comings and goings. What was a normal day for Ralph would make dinner party discussion for most people but be purged for space by most authors. Sometimes mundane things done with extraordinary people are made relevant due to time and circumstance. Though Marilyn’s life has been under a microscope for decades, Ralph provides insight unavailable to others. Most importantly, he humanizes events in such a way as to put the reader in them so one sees a day in the life of Marilyn the person.

My goal with this book has been to preserve history for Marilyn fans and scholars. The jumbled remnants of Ralph’s manuscript came to me in boxes. Versions were scrambled together in a mix of originals and photocopies, some pages coffee-stained or otherwise damaged, but all interesting. I tried building matching sets but quickly found that some originals were missing or duplicated, and many versions had been photocopied but were not complete. Pages were numbered rarely, and then a mix of typed and handwritten. Nevertheless, I looked through pages watching for patterns and ended up with a floor full of various stacks of sequential pages. Nothing seemed complete, but it was getting better. After technology caught up a bit, I scanned everything and used optical character recognition to create a batch of searchable documents. From here I was able to put the rest of the pieces together. I compiled multiple iterations, outlines, and handwritten drafts into one master document of Ralph’s words. The intent was always to make sure nothing relevant slipped through the cracks. From there I removed duplications and unfinished thoughts and positioned everything as chronologically as possible. I kept the most polished writing unless details were omitted. In those places I combined versions as neatly as possible. I built the most complete telling of Ralph’s time with Marilyn that I could, using only his words, before turning this over to Susan Shinn Turner so she could edit things into a more enjoyable and coherent read. Special thanks to Larry Jordan (author of The Real Marilyn Monroe published by PageTurner Books International) for answering many of my timeline and publishing questions.

Ralph does not sensationalize. He does not solve the mystery of how Marilyn died. He does not dish gossip on her inner circle. This book gives the reader an intimate view of Marilyn as she was with her friend Ralph. Ralph wrote about Marilyn as he saw her, a first-hand account unmarred by gossip and hearsay, unspoiled by greed. Moments spent with a friend loved dearly. I have been told that Ralph was a quiet man, but when he spoke you listened. Ralph spent his life largely silent about his friends and those he worked with. It took years of frustration with their portrayal for him to open up and write this book. I hope now that he has spoken, you will listen.

Introduction — The Marilyn I knew

By: Ralph Roberts

So many truths, half-truths, speculations, out and out fabrications, and, especially, phantasmagoricals have been written through the years about Marilyn Monroe, that I think the time has come for me to change my set rule of silence, and to finally put down on paper the Marilyn I got to know, love and respect during the three and half richest years of my life.

I have been able to read very little of the many books, articles, and exposés published about Marilyn since August 5, 1962. Enough has filtered through from excerpts to make me realize that most have very little in common with the person I knew. In fact, I would not have spent ten minutes with the one so portrayed, much less the hours, days, weeks, months and years that I did.

I told my decision to write about Marilyn to Lee Strasberg.

Wonderful, Ralph, wonderful!, he said. You’re the one who could furnish an overall portrait of her. She told me quite often that you were the one person in the world she felt she could tell anything to, that you were the brother she always wanted. It’ll be difficult to relive much of these years, but I’m delighted that you will try to set the record straight on the rare and beautiful person that she was.

I have spoken to hundreds of people through the years since August 5, 1962. Each has his idea of Marilyn, good or bad, but never indifferent. Everything in the world has been written and said about her. Even outside of the world — where Marilyn really was. She was everything special to everybody. She was one of the true originals. A UFO.

When I finally decided that I should write my memories of Marilyn Monroe, I took two drinks

Reviews for Mimosa

[Marilyn E Wojtkiewicz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have read many books about Marilyn, but none more moving than this. This one made her come alive in a way that no other had.