Gentlemen prefer ghosts

ALAN MURDIE finds Marilyn Monroe continues to haunt Hollywood locations from beyond the grave

Nearly 60 years since the end of her earthly life on 5 August

1962, screen icon and Western fertility symbol Marilyn Monroe is back haunting her former Hollywood mansion. At least that’s the latest claim regarding the tragic model and actress whose posthumous cult shows little signs of decline.

Marilyn’s first spectral return was recounted soon after her death in 1962 by an Englishman whom Dennis Bardens (1911

2004) interviewed for his book

Ghosts and Hauntings (1965), though Bardens acknowledged the percipient might well have been mentally ill.

Now the most recent manifestations credited to her ghost are “weird voices” and footsteps “every single night” echoing through her old home. Guests feel an unseen presence ‘hugging them’. These accounts from the property arise from Jasmine Chiswell, 25, renowned as a successful Monroe “lookalike” and known as “the Marilyn Monroe of TikTok” who, with her husband, now resides in the spacious house. The first hints of these experiences were mentioned in the Scottish Daily Record in April last year (Ms Chiswell is from originally from Lanarkshire) and more detail emerged with her interview for ITV’s morning Today programme on 3 February 2021. She told presenters Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, “There’s been so many weird things… My husband and I have tried to debunk the things we hear, but so many people have experienced things we just can’t explain.”

A curious and implausible feature is the regularity of auditory manifestations occurring “every night”. No experienced ghost hunter would normally expect manifestations to be so regular and predictable. Phenomena that seemingly keep to a timetable are often suggestive of an unidentified natural cause, a point picked up by presenter Philip Schofield, who asked if the couple had looked for a reasonable explanation. It appears they had checked cars, investigating if noises from the road were responsible, or if there was an infestation by animals. So far these checks have drawn a blank. At the same time, merely because a naturalistic explanation is possible, it does not necessarily follow one exists, mechanistic explanations being just one framework for examining such reports. All approaches depend upon their conceptual starting points, naturalism being just one of them.

On the attribution of the phenomena to Marilyn Monroe, as Holly Willoughby asked: “How do you know it’s her?” Jasmine responded by admitting uncertainty over this, stating: “We’ve had a psychic over and she believes that it is her and possibly another ghost that likes to play tricks, but we don’t know.” This reflects the assumption of phenomena in haunted houses being essentially personal in nature, originating with a onceliving human. Yet the actual grounds for drawing such a conclusion are often slight or non-existent. (See: This Morning ITV 3 Feb 2021; Daily Record 27 Apr 2020.)

Reports about the house have surfaced before. Thirty years ago, a story appeared in the Herald Sun newspaper for 12 March 1991 that Marilyn’s spirit was “often seen floating around her old house”. There is certainly plenty of space for her to wander around a house that includes four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a ‘tower room’ adapted into an office, a wooden-beamed living room, a pool and a spa. It retains many of the original features from when it was occupied by Monroe. Jasmine now bathes in the same tiled bathtub and she has discovered relics from the past, including old magazines and a signature scrawled on a wooden beam.

The house is just one of the sites Marilyn Monroe frequented in life and to which her ghost supposedly returns.

An oft-repeated story alleges she materialises in a long mirror at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Los Angeles, where she completed her first modelling assignment posing for a suntan oil commercial. In later years, she often returned to stay in suite 246 by the pool. Stories date to September 1990 when the Los Angeles Times alleged her image was appearing in the full-length mirror in the room acquired from a film studio. Tales are told of a chambermaid cleaning the mirror, who said she clearly saw the reflection of a young blonde woman, seeming to be standing just behind her. When she turned, no one was there.

So popular did these rumours become that nine years later the paper reported check-in clerks were nonchalantly telling guests that Marilyn Monroe was prone to appear, “as matter-of-factly as if assuring one that there was a blow-dryer in the bathroom”. ( LA Times, 4 Sept 1990; 17 Jan 1999). This led to the History Channel descending on the hotel as part of its grand tour of paranormal hotspots covered in the broadcast Haunted History: Haunted Hollywood (26 August 2000), which also placed her ghost in the Ladies’ Room.

By the time the mirror was moved into the lower-level lobby in 2010, the

apparition had been reputedly “spotted by dozens of guests”. Lisa Williams, a Californian medium, told of seeing a figure walking down the stairs into the bar. She recalled, “She looked at me and smiled. I said: ‘Oh my God, I’ve just seen Marilyn!’ She was wearing a pink outfit and looked very sexy.”

Returning later to touching the mirror, she said: “I… could feel her presence. She’s trapped between two worlds and hasn’t passed into the light. She can’t leave Hollywood: she still wants to be a part of it all.” Duly communicating with the spirit in a mediumistic fashion, Miss Williams received the message: ‘I just want to be loved’. Ms Williams felt Marilyn’s shade to be “craving the love of a good man”. ( Daily Express, 21 Feb 2010).

For good measure, the ghost of actor Montgomery Clift, who died in 1966, is said to walk the ninth floor of the hotel where he once rented Room 928 when filming From Here to Eternity. Unfortunately, Ms Williams failed to enquire as to why Clift would not match Marilyn’s requirements.

A third site of Marilyn’s return is the Memorial Cemetery located at 1218 Glendon Avenue, Westwood.

Her burial was arranged by her first husband, baseball champion Joe DiMaggio. His hopes she would rest in a tomb that fulfilled poet Andrew Marvel’s requirement of being “a fine and private place” were thwarted by it becoming a shrine and pilgrimage

“She hasn’t passed into the light. She can’t leave Hollywood and still wants be a part of it all”

site for fans of dead celebrities (many other once-famous figures and celebrities also rest nearby). Reputedly, DiMaggio asked Monroe to marry him for the second time on 1 August 1962, just four days before her death. For more than 20 years afterwards, he poignantly arranged a thrice-weekly delivery of a bouquet of red roses to her crypt. Though his dying words were allegedly: “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn,” he lies hundreds of miles away in San Francisco. Eerily she manifests “floating above her tomb”, but some locals aver the ‘sightings’ are “just this strange pink ectoplasm – maybe it isn’t her at all” adding: “Perhaps these formless blobs are the restless spirits of others there, who like Marilyn died under mysterious circumstances.” These merely sound like photographic glitches and artefacts produced by digital cameras, dosed with wishful thinking.

(see: https:patch.com/california/ centurycity/does-marilyn-monroesghost-haunt-westwood, 12 Feb 2011).

Further afield, the Cal Neva Resort, Spa and Casino at Crystal Bay on Lake Tahoe has also been listed as possibly being haunted by Marilyn (see FT330:18-19). In 2015, when walking across the stage, a former food and beverage manager felt a sudden chill and an inexplicable desire to take a photograph on his cell phone. However, the resultant strange image captured was

interpreted as a native American shaman in robes and beads.

Claims of Marilyn Monroe making contact through mediums have circulated for years. Leslie Flint (1903-1994), a voice medium in Britain, channelled her along with Archimedes, Arthur Conan Doyle, Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi in a career that spanned many decades. Recordings of many Flint séances survive in the form of 2,030 audiotapes made by engineer James Ellis from 1971 onwards, deposited at the University of Manitoba in 2003. ( The Times Union (Albany, NY) 5 Oct 2003).

In 1994 Flint was succeeded in Britain by Stephen O’Brien, “The new Doris Stokes” as he was dubbed by The Observer. The paper’s championing of liberal tolerance and diversity wavered when O’Brien claimed Monroe spoke with him to announce she considered “dying was the best thing that ever happened to her”. Journalist Andrew Billen called O’Brien “runtish”, “a fabulist” and a “misfit child who started making up stories about the world as he would wish it to be and found he could not stop.” ( Observer, 23 Jan 1994).

Two months later, Al Martinez of the

LA Times, when interviewing psychic Kenny Kingston, proved more accepting. Kingston claimed to be a conduit for a variety of deceased personalities, Martinez recording: “At one point in our conversation he said hello to Marilyn Monroe so naturally that I turned, expecting to see her standing behind” – merely saying, “Is that weird or what?”

Others have tried to contact her themselves in the afterlife. Nicky Haslam, a socialite photographer and interior designer in Anglo-American high society circles of whom it was written, “There can’t be a man alive who has been to more parties”, tells a story that Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala invited him to a séance to raise the ghost of Marilyn Monroe ( D.Mail, 24 Oct 2009).

In August 1991, the Brotherhood Synagogue in Montreal banned a literary group called ‘Beaux Arts’ from holding a séance on their premises to conjure up her ghost. She converted to Judaism during her second marriage to playwright Arthur Miller. Declaring this contrary to Jewish beliefs, director Philip Brockman said: “We don’t do séances. It’s irrelevant who they wish to contact. But I must say I have great respect for Marilyn Monroe.” ( The Gazette (Montreal) 27 Aug 1991).

Three years later, singer Britney Spears was trying the same. (See ‘Britney’s secret séance: Spears tries to contact Marilyn Monroe’, Daily Star, 30 Oct 2004.)

However, all such efforts might be stillborn if claims of Marilyn Monroe returning to Earth through reincarnation were established. One who asserted the possibility was Sylvia Brown, who alleged that in a past life Marilyn was sold to a travelling band of gypsies but was rescued by her uncle who became her husband in her next life (see ‘Sylvia Browne takes the case!’ in Skeptic, 22 June 2013).

One early reincarnation claimant was Madonna, who stated in 1992 how the “reincarnated spirit of Marilyn Monroe within me convinced me I’d be a star” ( Hindu Times, 31 Jan 1992), followed by a Hungarian model named Zsuzsanna in 1999. The next candidate was Sherrie Lea Laird, a Canadian rock singer with the band Pandemonium. In 2006 Ms Laird announced: “This has been a long time coming. It’s not a novelty thing.” Her realisation emerged when, aged 12, she heard her aunt singing ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’. She added: “I’m not crazy, and anybody who knows me will tell you that”. The singer denied it was publicity for her band, averring: “If that was true, I would have done it 10 or 20 years ago. This could ruin my career.” A few days after her declaration she visited Monroe’s crypt

to mark the 44th anniversary of the star’s (or her own) earlier death.

Her claims received backing from Dr Adrian Finkelstein, a psychiatrist and pioneer in past life regression, who spent six and half years regressing the singer into her past life as Marilyn. He maintained significant similarities existed in facial bone structure, handwriting, voice patterns and personality traits between the two women, further speculating more evidence might emerge from DNA analysis and comparison of iris patterns. Finkelstein promoted a 2006 book Marilyn Monroe Returns, The Healing of a Soul (see The Star Phoenix (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan). 3 Aug 2006 and many others).

Then Chris Vicens arrived, a 26-year-old shop assistant from Islington, London. Asian News International summarised his story thus: “Chris Vicens looks like any other man, but what you don’t know is that he once lived as the blonde bombshell herself, Marilyn Monroe”. This awareness arose from sessions with regression therapist Fiona Childs. Being regressed, he learned what he considered the truth about the death of Monroe stating: “She was murdered in her pool house, then dragged to the bedroom and stripped. Five people were involved in her death… each time I regress, I learn a little more. I like to think I am a sane and rational person. I am definitely not making this up. Why would I open myself up to ridicule?” he added. ( ANI, 3 Dec 2010; D.Mail, 30 Nov 2010.)

Unfortunately, exhibitionism and column inches do not guarantee either authenticity or veracity. Nor is it easy to evaluate material obtained from mediumship and past life regressions. Assessing their validity and significance, if any, demands wholly different methods of analysis conducted upon a number of different levels, together with delicacy, skill and at least some verifiable information.

Currently, in evidential terms, there is little proof of any post-mortem return by Marilyn Monroe. The reports of hauntings blamed upon her vexed ghost provide an example of what one may term the “Mrs Fitzherbert problem” at the Brighton Pavilion. Mrs Maria Fitzherbert (1756-1837) was a Catholic gentlewoman who caught the eye of George IV in his Regency years. Forbidden from marrying her, he took her as mistress and went through a secret marriage ceremony with her. For generations, her ghost has been said to haunt the Brighton Pavilion built by the portly monarch. But other than a sighting of a ‘female figure’ in the building, there is nothing to positively identify her as the ghost. However, the irresistible combination of romance, royalty and mystery ensures that any strange experiences reported on the premises are ascribed to her presence.

Regrettably, people do make up stories, especially about celebrities past and present, and tie them to ghost stories. Such obsessions can be seen with Louis Mayerling (real name George Carter) an eccentric fantasist who wrote the spurious

We Faked the Ghosts of Borley Rectory

(2000) and claimed (along with much else) that he served as a dressmaker to Monroe. He alleged they shared a psychic experience in Great Hadham churchyard, Hertfordshire, when brushing hands together, whereupon they were immersed in a mystical golden light (see FT81:34-36,

June 1995, which includes a summary of his far-fetched autobiography). No credibility can be attached to any of his tales, though he successfully duped several journalists keen on rubbishing the Borley story. ( East Anglian Daily Times, 22 Oct 2000; Guardian,

30 Dec 2000 and repeated 31 Oct 2005; see the exposure in The Borley Companion

(2009) by Peter Underwood, Paul Adams and Eddie Brazil, citing a revealing and incriminating interview with Mayerling by author Stewart Evans.

Thus, Holly Willoughby’s question is a valid one about the origin of ghostly experiences at the star’s old home. “It’s Marilyn” provides an easy, catch-all label applicable to any nebulous or anonymous manifestations. Because Marilyn’s image is so familiar, she can become a convenient spectral presence to be blamed for odd events.

For example, when Cathy Miller, the owner of the hairdressing salon Scandalous Hair Design in Portland, Oregon, began hearing footsteps, voices and finding her radio inexplicably cutting out for entire songs, she dubbed the odd events ‘Marilyn’ after a photograph of Marilyn Monroe inexplicably rattled. An attempt to quash this theory arose when a ghost hunter called to get his haircut and told Ms Miller “it’s not Marilyn”. Nonetheless, the nickname remains attached “because she likes that we call her that”. (‘When Spooky sells in St Helens’ The Oregonian (Portland OR), 20 Oct 2012).

Whatever the case, it seems such tales meet a deep-felt popular need. A survey in the USA in 2013 of more than 1,000 men and women over 18 found most (79%) declared some belief in ghosts. Asked which ghost they would like to encounter, one-quarter (27%) of white participants wanted most to be haunted by Abraham Lincoln, followed by Marilyn Monroe at 23% (African Americans preferred Martin Luther King, at 44%, followed by Michael Jackson, at 25%). (Source: PR Newswire, 23 Oct 2013.)

So, in death, as in her life, tragic Marilyn still remains the target for projected fantasies, hopes, dreams and emotions.

“She was murdered in her pool house, then dragged to the bedroom and stripped...”

LEFT: Marilyn Monroe at LaGuardia Airport in 1959.

BELOW: The Hotel Roosevelt also claims its own spectral Marilyn.

ABOVE RIGHT: The house on Helena Drive was Monroe’s final address; she was found dead there six months after moving in.

ABOVE LEFT: Marilyn lookalike Jasmine Chiswell, at home in Monroe’s old Hollywood house, which she says is haunted.

ABOVE: Singer Sherrie Lee Laird (right) was convinced she was the reincarnation of Marilyn, a claim backed up by past life regression pioneer Dr Adrian Finkelstein (left), who wrote a book about the case.

ABOVE: The Cal Neva Resort (it straddles the state line) has been named as another Monroe haunting site, as well as receiving post-mortem visits from none oher than Frank Sinatra.

LEFT: Marilyn Monroe’s final resting place at Westwood Village Memorial Cemetery, where she has supposedly manifested as an ectoplasmic blob. Hugh Hefner bought the adjacent tomb in 1992 so that he could spend eternity beside her.