Frank Sinatra carried a belief about Marilyn Monroe’s death for 36 years, all the way to his own grave in 1998. He never spoke about it publicly, never gave a tell-all interview, and never named names on the record. But in private, according to the people closest to him, he told the same story over and over: Marilyn Monroe did not kill herself, and he believed he knew who was responsible. The weekend before Monroe was found dead in her Brentwood home, she had been staying at Sinatra’s Cal Neva Lodge on Lake Tahoe.
Witnesses described her as withdrawn and desperate. While she was there, she collapsed from an overdose. She left the lodge abruptly, sent away by the man who had wanted to protect her. Less than a week later, she was dead.
Sinatra and Monroe first became close in the early 1950s, when she was still climbing and his career was collapsing. His voice had failed, his record contract had been dropped, and his marriage to Ava Gardner was falling apart. Monroe understood that kind of darkness. She had grown up in foster homes, never known her father, and watched her mother struggle with mental illness.
According to those who knew them, they recognized something in each other immediately. Their relationship later turned romantic, though accounts differ on how serious it was. Sinatra’s valet, George Jacobs, said Sinatra treated Monroe differently than other women. He was protective of her, worried about her, and tried to shield her rather than control her.
There were gifts, private dinners, and late-night phone calls. Sinatra’s longtime manager, Tony Oppedisano, later wrote that Frank genuinely loved her. Some accounts claim Sinatra considered marrying Monroe in 1962. Entertainment journalist Charles Casillo has reported that Sinatra’s own attorney talked him out of it, allegedly warning that she would kill herself and that if she died while married to Sinatra, he would be blamed.
The conversation cannot be verified, but Sinatra reportedly carried guilt about her death for the rest of his life. In late July 1962, Monroe arrived at Cal Neva Lodge. The official reason was to celebrate a movie deal and see Dean Martin perform, but those close to her said the real reason was more desperate. She had been fired from the film “Something’s Got to Give,” her reputation was damaged, and her psychiatrist was seeing her almost daily.
She had also been involved with President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, and both relationships had ended abruptly. Oppedisano wrote that Monroe confided in Sinatra about the Kennedy affairs. She told him she did not understand why the brothers had shut her out completely.
The Cal Neva weekend was supposed to be an escape, but from the moment she arrived, something was wrong. Buddy Greco, the jazz pianist performing at the lodge that weekend, recalled seeing Monroe step out of a limousine in dark glasses and a scarf, dressed entirely in green. At first he did not recognize her. She seemed withdrawn, like someone who had already given up.
During the weekend, Monroe collapsed after mixing alcohol with barbiturates. Sinatra was furious. According to Jacobs, he said, “Get her out of here. Get her out of here now.
” A security guard told biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli that Monroe pulled syringes from her purse, casual about the sight of them. She left the lodge before the weekend was over. Monroe was found dead at her home on Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood during the early morning hours of August 5, 1962.
Her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, contacted her psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, who broke in through a window. Monroe was lying face down on her bed, nude, with a telephone in one hand. The coroner ruled her death a probable suicide from a self-administered overdose of barbiturates.
Sinatra never believed that ruling. According to Oppedisano, he was convinced from the beginning that Monroe had been murdered. The timing was too convenient: Monroe had been planning a press conference to announce a reconciliation with her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, and some feared she might also reveal details about the Kennedys. Within days of her death, Sinatra heard rumors from multiple sources.
His attorney, Milton Rudin, told him Monroe had been killed. Similar stories circulated among Sam Giancana’s men. According to Oppedisano, Sinatra heard the same story repeatedly: she had been murdered with a Nembutal suppository, and Robert Kennedy or the mob was involved. Years later, Eunice Murray changed her account.
In interviews conducted decades after the fact, she said Robert Kennedy had visited Monroe on August 4th. She described a terrible argument and said the situation became so sticky that Kennedy’s protectors had to step in. The timeline has fueled speculation for decades. Neighbors reported seeing an ambulance and police cars outside Monroe’s home hours before the official discovery of her body.
A mortician estimated that rigor mortis was advanced, suggesting she died much earlier than the official time. In 2012, the documentary “The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes” presented recordings in which the widow of Monroe’s press agent said her husband had been alerted that something was terribly wrong around 10:30 p. m. on August 4th, hours before the official story says her body was found.
Sinatra followed all of this from a distance. According to those who knew him, he never obtained concrete proof of murder, but he never wavered in his conviction that Monroe did not take her own life. Oppedisano wrote that Sinatra believed if the press conference had not been announced, Monroe would have lived longer. The press conference had put a target on her back.
The murder theory has never been proven. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office reviewed the case in 1982 and found no credible evidence of murder. But the questions have never fully gone away. Jacobs said Sinatra was in shock for weeks after Monroe died.
He could not accept that she was gone, that he had not saved her, or that the official explanation was true. In public, he rarely spoke about her. In private, he told the people he trusted most what he believed and what he had seen. Sinatra lived another 36 years.
He married twice more, first to Mia Farrow and then to Barbara Marx, who was with him when he died in 1998 at age 82. He never publicly pointed fingers at anyone he suspected. The secrets he carried went to the grave with him. One photograph from that final weekend at Cal Neva has become iconic.
It shows Sinatra and Monroe sitting close together at a table, their faces near each other. The intimacy between them is obvious. The photograph was taken less than a week before Monroe died. Those who look at it see different things.
Some see a woman who had decided to end her life. Others see a woman being pushed toward a cliff. Frank Sinatra, according to the people who knew him best, saw the second thing.
