Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy • Story Two

Passport

1. Project: “All About Love”
2. Format: a fantasy late-night radio broadcast with a host and live listener calls.
3. Author of the idea and rights holder: Iskandar Kadyrov
4. Age rating: 18+
5. Story Two: Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy
6. Genre: Literary radio drama-essay

Teaser

To be late is to make sure you are being waited for. You, and no one else.

Night. The studio line is open. Tonight we speak of a woman who was waited for, of an empty stage, and of the minute that was worth the wait.

Announcement

The second episode of the fantasy radio program “Night Call.” Last time we spoke of a woman who waited. Tonight, of the one who was waited for. One evening in 1962, an empty stage, an announcement repeated again and again, and the minute that a whole evening had been waiting for. The host and the listeners on the phone try to find out what lateness is: coquetry, or the oldest question about love. Whether it was love, the episode does not claim.

About the project

“All About Love” is a literary project by Iskandar Kadyrov about the most mysterious of human feelings. Here, love is not a story with a happy or a tragic ending, but a particular state that one day changes everything around us: time, space, the person, even a voice and memory. Each episode brings two people, one story, and the moment when love becomes a part of great human culture.

Note: The epigraph is attributed to Marilyn Monroe; no documentary primary source has been established.

Good evening, or rather good night, dear listeners.

Last time we spoke of a woman who waited. Tonight, in our second broadcast, we speak of a woman who was waited for. Or, more precisely, of one who knew how to make the whole world wait. The studio line is open, the lamp above the microphone is burning, and it seems the first call is already here. Good night, you are on the air.

— Good evening. Is that you again?

— It’s me again.

— So what is tonight about?

— About being late.

— A strange subject for love.

— Let’s find out.

There is a line that is attributed to Marilyn Monroe. Did she really say it? I don’t know, and I won’t pretend that I do. But it sounds so much like her that one wants to believe it: “To be late is to make sure you are being waited for. You, and no one else.”

Think about it. Who is late? Someone who wants to find out whether anyone is waiting. Someone ready to sit in an empty room and watch the door, knowing that on the other side another person is glancing at the clock. This is not coquetry. It is, perhaps, the oldest question asked by a person who is afraid of turning out to be unneeded.

May nineteenth, 1962. New York, Madison Square Garden. They say more than fifteen thousand people filled the hall. An evening in honor of President Kennedy’s forty-fifth birthday, although his real birthday was still ten days away. Officially, it was a fundraiser for the Democratic Party. Unofficially, it was an evening on which everyone wanted to see who would come.

One name after another is called to the stage, names we still say today with a catch in the breath: Ella Fitzgerald, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante. But the hall is waiting for someone else. The evening is hosted by Peter Lawford, an actor and the president’s brother-in-law, and he starts, as the story goes, a game that the audience will soon understand and love.

He announces her. The light falls on an empty stage. No one.

He announces her again. The hall laughs. The stage is empty.

He announces her once more, and the laughter grows quieter while the waiting grows thicker. One and the same phrase, again and again, louder and tighter, like Ravel, who also never changed his melody but only lifted it higher. Everyone knew that she was famous for being late, and yet each time the hall believed that this time she would come out.

And at last Lawford says: “Mr. President, the late Marilyn Monroe.”

She steps out. A fur wrap slides from her shoulders, and beneath it there is a gown the color of skin, scattered with crystals, so that for a moment it seems she is dressed in nothing but light. She closes her eyes. And she sings “Happy Birthday,” not the way it is sung at children’s parties but low, almost in a whisper, and two words weave themselves into the familiar tune: “Mr. President.”

The whole song lasts a little over a minute. But for the sake of this minute, it seems, it was worth waiting all evening.

The president comes to the microphone and makes a joke. “I can now retire from politics,” he says, “after having had ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.”

That is all. The evening will go on, the guests will go home, and the recording will remain. I have watched it many times.

If you have watched it too, or if you have ever waited, or been late, or feared that no one was waiting for you, call us. I would love to hear not the history of the stage but what you felt.

I think that is a call. Good night, you are on the air.

— Good evening… I wasn’t going to call, really. I’ve watched this recording a hundred times, and I always thought: well, a bit vulgar, a bit theatrical. And then not long ago I watched it again and suddenly understood that she was afraid. You see? She stands in front of thousands of people and sings, supposedly, for everyone, but really for one. And that one cannot answer. He just sits there and looks. I think she wasn’t singing “Happy Birthday.” She was asking: did you wait for me?

You have just said the most important thing. Thank you.

And here is another call. Good night.

— Good evening. I see it differently. I don’t think she was late because she didn’t care. A person who has been waited for all her life sooner or later starts being late, just to check: are they still waiting? It’s like knocking on a wall and hearing an answer. And you know what struck me? That evening she achieved something that is very rare for the rest of us. Thousands of people were waiting for her. For her, and no one else.

That, perhaps, is the answer to the question we began with. I won’t repeat it. Thank you.

Was there love between them? Honestly, I don’t know. Many historians believe they met only a few times, and the rest is rumor, recollection, and silence. We will not pass off guesses as facts. But we know something else: that evening, she was waited for. And she came.

In less than three months, in early August, she would be gone. And fifteen months after her passing, in Dallas, the president’s life would be cut short. Lawford’s words, spoken then as a joke, would in time sound different. But on that night, the nineteenth of May, they were only part of a game. A game in which a woman was late in order to make sure that she was waited for.

The telephone is ringing. Good night, you are on the air.

— Tell me… was he waiting for her too?

Allow me not to answer at once.

We will never know. But one thing is certain. The hall waited. And she, in spite of all the lateness and the fear, walked out onto that stage.

So what was it? Love? Or only the hope of it?

I don’t know. But watching that recording, I still think…

She was late. And yet she came.

This was Night Call. May the soft aftertaste of this night stay with you, and the hope that somebody is waiting for you. Good night.