She may have been the biggest star in the world, but this was going to be the most important night of Marilyn’s life: Headlining a fundraiser that would double as President John F. Kennedy’s 45th birthday party, on May 19, 1962, at Madison Square Garden.
Now the world would finally know: She and the married American president were a thing.
And what a headline that would be: Marilyn Monroe, the world’s biggest movie star, and the president of the United States!
He was going to leave his wife, the admired but frosty Jackie, and marry her. He had said as much, and Marilyn believed him. Once he won re-election, he would be free to make her the next First Lady of the United States.
It wasn’t so crazy: Marilyn had Jack on her hook for years, long before he was in the White House.
For this most pivotal night, Marilyn wanted to look like the German sex-siren Marlene Dietrich, but edgier, more risqué.
So she’d turned to Dietrich — herself a former lover of both Jack Kennedy and his father Joe — and the star had sent Marilyn to her own designer, the French costumier Jean Louis.
The result was a gossamer, flesh-toned dress glittering with thousands of hand-beaded rhinestones, so figure-hugging that it had to be sewn onto Marilyn’s body, so tight that she couldn’t wear underwear.
Half an hour before her performance at the Garden, Marilyn was in her dressing-room when the president’s brother, Bobby, arrived at the door. They spent 15 minutes alone together.
Marilyn knew both Kennedys wanted her, and she wanted both of them. Jack, of course, had the charm and power, but Bobby had a kind of gravitas that attracted her.
Hellbound and Down 