- Robert F. Slatzer, who claimed a long-term friendship
and a brief marriage to Marilyn Monroe, the Hollywood Love Goddess of the
1950s, told us that on the night of August 4, 1973 he had participated
in a ritual that had actually caused Marilyn's spirit form to materialize.
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- Slatzer, a correspondent for an eastern newspaper, had
arrived in Hollywood in the late 1940s. He met Norma Jeane Baker, a young
model, in the summer of 1946 while he was doing interviews with movie celebrities.
He had noticed Norma Jeane making the rounds of the studios, and one day
as they were each waiting to see prospective clients in the lobby of Twentieth
Century-Fox Studios, they struck up a conversation and made a date for
later that evening. Thus began a long relationship that led to what Slatzer
claimed was a marriage to Norma Jeane in Mexico in 1952.
-
- Norma Jeane landed only minor appearances in a couple
of films in 1947, but by the time audiences began to notice the actress
in two popular 1950 films, All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle, Fox had
decided to rename her Marilyn Monroe.
-
- According to Slatzer, when Darryl F. Zanuck, the czar
of Fox, learned of their marriage, he put pressure on his new sex symbol
to get a divorce. Zanuck was about to give her star billing in Niagara,
and he intended to spend a lot of publicity dollars transforming Norma
Jeane into Marilyn Monroe, the next Hollywood Love Goddess. Zanuck told
Norma Jeane that fans don't buy sexual fantasy figures if they find out
they are married to nobody writers.
-
- Slatzer resolved not to stand in Norma Jeane's path to
fame. The two returned to Mexico where he said they held a small ceremony
on a beach and burned their wedding certificate. Slatzer told us that Marilyn
remained his closest friend, and he felt that the two of them maintained
a special relationship until her death in 1962. He would later write The
Marilyn Files (1992) and The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe (1974).
He died on March 28, 2005.
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- When we spoke with Bob in 1989, he told us that at the
time of Marilyn's passing many strange things had manifested in his life.
He began to notice that particular odors would suddenly become apparent
in his home, seemingly out of nowhere.
-
- The first time he remembered this occurring, the pungent
smell of roses filled the air in the room. He looked all around, but saw
no flowers. He even opened his patio door, but no odor of roses drifted
in.
-
- Bob knew the smell of roses. He used to grow roses as
a hobby and had worked his way through college by working in a funeral
parlor, This particular rose smell was funereal, different from a floral
shop or a garden smell.
-
- The phenomenon began to occur periodically, sometimes
twice a week, sometimes once a month. This occurred about sixteen or seventeen
times from about 1963 until about 1981--then just as mysteriously as it
came, the funereal scent of roses went away.
-
- In 1971, Slatzer met Anton La Vey, the High Priest of
the Church of Satan, and his wife at the home of a movie studio publicity
man. During their conversation, he learned that La Vey was fascinated with
Marilyn Monroe.
-
- "We socialized for dinners and such over a period
of about two years," Slatzer said, "Then in August 1973, Anton
contacted me and told me that about every eleven years astrologically a
cycle would repeat itself and the 'dark of moon' would come back on Saturday,
August the 4th, just as in 1962 when Marilyn had died. La Vey needed someone
who knew Marilyn very well to help manifest her."
-
- Bob agreed to La Vey' s picking him up about 10:30 P.M.
La Vey had received permission from the then-current owner of Marilyn's
home to be there. Although she would be closing the gate, they were welcome
to sit in the cul-de-sac.
-
- The location of the house was such that if an interloper
were to intrude, there would be no place to run and hide without scaling
a six- to seven- foot fence on either side. Their car was positioned against
the gates, looking out, and there was no one else around.
-
- Bob Slatzer sat in the front seat on the passenger's
side with Anton; La Vey's wife was in the backseat. Anton had a tape recorder
with prerecorded songs from Marilyn's films. At about 11:45 P.M., he turned
on the recorder very softly. Anton had a penlight that he held down low
by the steering column, and he began reading something he had written.
Slatzer remembered that it was sort of like "tongues or a chant or
something" that he didn't recognize.
-
- About 12:15 A.M., the night was still. Not one single
blade of grass was moving. The leaves on the eucalyptus tree by the corner
of the house were still.
-
- All of a sudden, Slatzer recalled, a terrific wind came
up. The tree seemed to have an isolated wind blowing on it--yet nothing
else on either side of the road was moving. It seemed as though the wind
was blowing toward them.
-
- "Then from out of nowhere," Slatzer said, "this
woman appeared! It was just like somebody set her there. She had on white
slacks with a little black-and-white, splash-pattern top, little white
loafers, and I could see a shock of blond hair. She started walking toward
the car. I had goose bumps all over!
-
- "Then my journalist's mind wondered if this was
a setup by Anton. I knew he had been in town for a couple of days, but
I didn't think he'd do anything like that. He seemed too intense and serious
about his work, and he didn't seem to be that kind of person.
-
- "This figure began walking slowly toward the house--or
it seemed toward our car since we were sitting in the driveway in front
of the house. I asked Anton if he wanted to turn a light on. He sort of
tapped me on the knee to keep quiet! I noticed that Anton was sweating
profusely.
-
- "The figure came slowly toward us and stopped about
30 feet in front of the car. Anton had dimmed the music a little and finished
his chant when she was about halfway to us.
-
- "All of a sudden, she veered off to our left. There
used to be a big tree there, and she just stood there, almost as if she
were made of cardboard, with kind of a wooden look, but the figure was
highly. recognizable as Marilyn!
-
- "Then I really became a believer! She was so real!
Anton's wife exclaimed something. I looked around at her. She had practically
turned white and looked almost petrified! Anton's breath was taken, I can
tell you that!
-
- "Marilyn hesitated for a minute, her hands clasped.
It didn't appear that she was looking directly at our car, but she seemed
to be looking at an angle past us. It appeared to me as if she was looking
past the gates, as if she wanted to enter the gates and go in but didn't
want to pass the car.
-
- "Then she turned to her left and slowly started
to walk down the middle of the boulevard. She was about halfway when I
told Anton to turn the lights on. He said no, and appeared as if he was
frozen and stuck in a fixed position!
-
- "I had my door open to the point where if I pushed
it, it would open. Anton had the car doors and inside lights rigged so
that they would not interfere when the doors were opened. I had the door
ajar so in case I wanted to get out, the door would not make a disturbing
noise when opened.
-
- "By now, Marilyn was about three-fourths of the
way down the street. Without saying anything, I decided to get out. I was
going to walk after her.
-
- "I took off and walked as fast and as quietly as
I could. When I was about one hundred and fifty feet away from her, she
turned, and as she turned, she walked to the middle of the street--and
vanished into thin air!
-
- "I noticed a little ditch where water was coming
down from drainage ditches. The ditch on either side of the street was
about two and a half feet wide. When I had hurriedly walked through the
water, I noticed my footsteps left an imprint on the other side. The apparition
of Marilyn had been taking short, small, measured footsteps on the other
side of the road. There were no other footprints. If the 'being' had stepped
over or walked across the water, it would have made a very noticeably different
movement from the small steps it had been taking. I'm not saying that she
walked on water, but if even her heels had touched the water or walked
through it, there would have at least been a dripping of water.
-
- "Anton and his wife came up to me, and their flashlights
further proved that my original examination and observation was true. Anton
said that he was shaken by the whole experience. He begged off dinner,
saying that he was completely drained and that he had no appetite. All
he wanted was to go back to his hotel, take a shower, lie down, and go
to sleep."
-
- La Vey, author of such works as The Satanic Bible (1969)
and The Satanic Rituals (1972), died on the day before Halloween in 1997.
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- Bob Slatzer told us that he had told the story of the
materialization of Marilyn Monroe only to one person besides psychic-sensitive
Clarisa Bernhardt and that was to the author Norman Mailer, who told him,
"I do not disbelieve it. I do believe these things."
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