“Her neck was swollen purple.”
Allan Abbott and Ron Hast picked up Marilyn Monroe’s remains and were shocked at her physical appearance in death:
Morgue Photo
“When we removed the sheet covering her, it was almost impossible to believe this was the body of Marilyn Monroe. She looked like a very average, aging woman who had not been taking very good care of herself. Obviously, the circumstances surrounding her death had greatly exacerbated her poor appearance and she was unrecognizable.”
Monroe dead in her bed.
“In Marilyn’s case, she died face down, so there were purple blotches on her face, and her neck was very swollen. They had bathed her at the coroner’s office, and her hair was frizzy and fairly short.”
“You could tell she had not bleached it for some time, because the roots were darker and had grown out about half an inch.”
“Her natural hair color was a light brown, not blonde. Her legs hadn’t been shaved for at least a week, and her lips were badly chapped. She was also in need of a manicure and pedicure.”
From Daily Mail…
A call came into the West Los Angeles Police Station in the early hours of August 5, 1962. Dr. Hyman Engelberg identified himself to Sergeant Jack Clemmons on the desk and stated that Marilyn Monroe was dead in her house at 1230 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood.
Engelberg said Dr. Ralph Greenson had informed him that her death was from an overdose of Nembutal and stated it was suicide. Clemmons jumped into a squad car and headed out to her house.
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office called Westwood Village Memorial Cemetery and instructed them to remove her body. Manager Guy Hockett took the assignment and discovered her body was in the early stages of rigor mortis, a condition that typically begins six to eight hours after death but he had been informed that death had occurred three hours prior to his arrival.
Hockett delivered her body to the mortuary.
Abbott’s company was called and they sent Leonard ‘Chris’ Kreminski to assist in removing the body. It was later transported downtown for the postmortem.
‘Because of the tremendous implications of this case, it took much longer for Coroner Theodore Curphey to finally make some statements. His best and most dedicated pathologist, Thomas Noguchi, known to some as ‘The Knife,’ spent about three times as much time as it usually took him to do a full postmortem.
‘The deputies at the coroner’s office informed me that Dr. Noguchi had been extremely thorough with his examination of her body. He spent a great deal of time looking for hypodermic needle marks, which he did discover in her arm pit, but this area is often used by doctors when treating female movie stars.
‘He continued to search in unusual places like inside her nose, between her toes and fingers, under her tongue, and in her genitals, but was unable to discover any additional injection points’, Abbott writes.
Abbott was present and entered the embalming room with the embalmer, identified only as ‘Frenchie’.
‘When we removed the sheet covering her, it was almost impossible to believe this was the body of Marilyn Monroe. She looked like a very average, aging woman who had not been taking very good care of herself. Obviously, the circumstances surrounding her death had greatly exacerbated her poor appearance and she was unrecognizable.
Monroe’s bedroom where she died.
‘When someone dies, gravity causes the blood to settle to the lowest point of the body. This condition is called lividity, and considering that many people die lying on their backs, the discoloration that occurs is seldom visible.
‘In Marilyn’s case, she died face down, so there were purple blotches on her face, and her neck was very swollen. They had bathed her at the coroner’s office, and her hair was frizzy and fairly short.
‘You could tell she had not bleached it for some time, because the roots were darker and had grown out about half an inch.
‘Her natural hair color was a light brown, not blonde. Her legs hadn’t been shaved for at least a week, and her lips were badly chapped. She was also in need of a manicure and pedicure.’
‘We began discussing the terrible swelling in her neck, and Frenchie decided that a surgical procedure was needed. This was out of my area of expertise, so I deferred to his decision. Frenchie knew how to correct the problem, but it wasn’t going to be pretty.
‘He instructed me to hold her on her side so he could make an incision in the back of her neck in the shape of a marquis diamond and remove about two square inches of skin. He then pulled the sides together and stitched it up. It wasn’t pleasant to watch, but it was quite effective in reducing the swelling.
‘Marilyn’s executrix had just brought in her clothing, so Mrs. Hockett, wife of the cemetery’s manager, rang me to come up to the office and pick up the package. She also informed me that the lady said Marilyn didn’t wear panties, and she couldn’t find any among her clothing.
‘I also noticed that among the items was a small pair of false breasts. I had seen falsies before, but these were much smaller than any I’d seen’
‘That doesn’t look like Marilyn Monroe,’ Mrs. Hamrock stated. ‘What happened to her boobs?’ In his own defense, Frenchie told her that the cutting of the ribs during the autopsy had caused this condition. He further stated that he had even used the falsies that were brought in with her clothing, but they had been much too small to enhance her physique’.
Mrs. Hamrock reached down and pulled at the neck of the dress, which was a very springy material. She reached in with her other hand to remove the falsies and threw them into the trash can. She then pulled some clumps of cotton off a roll and formed much larger breasts by stuffing her bra. At this point she stepped back and proudly exclaimed, ‘Now that looks like Marilyn Monroe!’
Abbott later retrieved the falsies from the trash and took them home.
Sydney Guilaroff, Monroe’s makeup man, and Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder, arrived at the mortuary. Sydney brought the wig that was made for her for the film, Something’s Got to Give, and Whitey applied her makeup.
Whitey told Abbott that Marilyn’s breasts at age thirty-six were beginning to sag. She wore a bra but placed the little falsies between her bra and the sweater to make it look like she was unsupported and braless.
Joe DiMaggio kept a vigil at the mortuary. He stood by the casket for a while and then he walked in the cemetery outside and cried. They had married in January 1954 and Marilyn had filed for divorce 274 days later. They remained close and Joe never stopped loving her. Monroe was buried in Westwood Cemetery.
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