Gene Kornman’s classic 1953 photo of Marilyn in her gold lamé dress from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes graces the cover of Inland Empire magazine’s November issue. The print edition is currently on sale across Southern California, with a free digital version available here.
“I guess you could call this our Noir Issue,” writes editor Don Lorenzi. “Palm Springs was very different in the ’60s. It was literally the getaway for celebrities, politicians and tough guys. They knew that law enforcement and the media paid little attention to the desert’s denizens. We take you behind the palms.”
Tammy Minn’s cover story, ‘Desert Heat’, was previously published in 2019, and is reprinted ahead of the magazine’s 50th anniversary (and Marilyn’s centennial) in 2026.
Marilyn visited Palm Springs a few times – most notably with Johnny Hyde in 1949 – while other stars, like Frank Sinatra, owned lavish homes in the desert resort.
And despite multiple controversies, Seward Johnson’s giant ‘Forever Marilyn’ statue has become a popular tourist attraction.
However, the article repeats the false claim that Marilyn had a home in the Vista Las Palmas neighbourhood. In fact, she never lived in Palm Springs.
And finally, in a recent article for the Mail on Sunday, J. Randy Taraborrelli – author of The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe (2009) and JFK: Public, Private, Secret (2025) – revisited the rumour that Marilyn spent a weekend with President John F. Kennedy at Bing Crosby’s Rancho Mirage estate.
“Much has been written about Jack Kennedy’s relationship with Marilyn Monroe and the story has always been that they had sex at Bing Crosby’s home in the desert resort of Palm Springs, 110 miles east of Los Angeles, in March 1962. But how much truth is there in this?
One of the primary sources, Marilyn’s masseur Ralph Roberts, wasn’t present at Crosby’s that weekend. He claimed Marilyn called him from Crosby’s and then, to his surprise, put Jack on the line. Jack didn’t identify himself, Roberts said, but he recognised his Boston accent. It begs the question, would the President of the United States hop on the phone with a total stranger while having what was supposed to be a secret rendezvous with Marilyn Monroe? That scenario has always seemed suspect.
Then, there was Los Angeles County tax assessor Philip Watson, who, in countless books, was said to have claimed to have seen Marilyn and the president together at a guest cottage on Crosby’s estate. However, when I interviewed her in 2024, his daughter Paula McBride Moskal, who was then 15, says her father never mentioned it to her or other family members.
‘I can only say that if my dad ever saw the President of the United States hanging out with someone as famous as Marilyn Monroe it would be a story I sure would’ve heard a lot growing up,’ she said. Paula Moskal does say Jack Kennedy was discussed in her household but only because her father didn’t believe a Catholic should have ever been elected president ‘and that was something he and my mother, a pro-Kennedy Democrat, argued about all the time’. Surely, Watson would’ve used as a defence for his position the fact that he’d caught the Catholic president cheating on his wife with the likes of Marilyn Monroe but Paula insists it never came up.
Similar holes can be found in the stories of other sources but the person who sheds the most doubt on the rendezvous is Pat Newcomb, Marilyn’s publicist. As one of Marilyn’s closest intimates, she was present for nearly every major event in the star’s life from 1960 through 1962, when she died. For example, she’d spent the night before Marilyn’s death as a guest in her home and was also there the morning after her death.
Now 95 and a sensible, rational person who wasn’t the least bit defensive when I talked to her last year, she would likely have been involved in the planning of any such weekend. Yet she told me she knew nothing about Marilyn ever being at Bing Crosby’s home for any reason whatsoever, let alone to be with the president.
‘I never heard about it at the time. I only heard about it years later from all of the books and movies about Marilyn, but definitely not at the time it supposedly happened. I don’t even think I know where Bing Crosby lived,’ she said. When your friend, one of the most celebrated women of all time, spends the weekend with the President of the United States, that seems like something you’d remember.
Granted, Pat Newcomb is known for her discretion and loyalty to Marilyn. Much of the Marilyn fan community, in fact, is uncertain of her for that very reason, always believing she’s holding something back. Still, one might imagine she’d simply decline to comment on the Crosby weekend if she wanted to hide something.
It’s also worth noting that there’s no substantiated record of President Kennedy ever being alone with Marilyn Monroe between March 1962, when he was at Bing Crosby’s, and August of that same year, when Marilyn died. If the rendezvous at Crosby’s never happened, it stands to reason that perhaps these two celebrated people were never alone together, ever.
Of course, it may still be true that Jack Kennedy had sex with Marilyn – absence of evidence is, as they say, not evidence of absence. Based on our present knowledge of the situation, though, it’s not a proven fact.”
Thanks to Fraser and Jackie at Marilyn Remembered
The Marilyn Report 