Marilyn Monroe's Funeral Embalmer speaks! Joe DiMaggio's involvement- Scott Michaels Dearly Departed

Several years ago I interviewed a gentleman who helped revolutionize the

funeral

industry with this company. I won't have moved on and his name was Alan. Habits when I came in I told you years ago about Marilyn Monroe because you worked on Marilyn's

funeral

at Natalie Woods General and I recently found this recording and I was able to edit it a little bit and what you're going to hear in a moment is that interview that I thought we had started here because we are in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills in the murmuring trees section and Right now I am sitting on Allen's grave, it is not marked e92 2015, it is still marked, it is a little sad, but this is our way of doing it, we are starting the story of his own story in his own words and Alan published a book before. died called sorry, my curse, the colorful portrait of where the funeral and entertainment industries in Hollywood came together.

It had a lot to do with Westwood Memorial Park and Natalie Wood as well, so this is Alan and the next is Marilyn Monroe's Allons Allons story. I called my wife at home and I said you never guess where I'm going and I said you never guess why I just got a call and she says what is that and I told her Westwood wants me to send someone there for the next two or three days. to help with Marilyn Monroe service my wife just loves Marilyn oh and she said something like if you don't go I'm personally going to kill you you have to go I want you to listen to everything everyone says I want you to be like a tape recorder and a movie camera and I want to know every detail of everything, so I went out and the first thing they said is we're going to the embalming room.

The

embalmer

just arrived from Los Angeles. They had a place downtown where we also served them and the other place in Westwood, so he had driven from Los Angeles just like I had and, in fact, the first thing that happened was when I got the call from Westwood and I told him I was coming . I drove to the door myself and there were used people, photographers, journalists. Walter Winchell was there, Louella Parsons and all her ilk, and these guys were actually trying to open the doors on part of the buildings, it was a bit of a strange setup.

There were two buildings where they operated the cemetery and when they opened their own morgue they built a large chapel with a structure and that is what you see on the news is the A-shaped structure, it was so new that I don't even have grapes that I told you the studio had said if you need anything call them, they called the studio and said we don't have privacy because we don't have grapes, they sent them curtains, people can completely cover the chapel. and the embalming room was in one of those little Spanish-style white stucco houses with tiles that are on the property and the morgue manager, the Hakan guy, was in the coroner's office doing some paperwork and his wife was answering the phone. and I walked into his office and said, I think we have a pretty serious problem here.

I told her there are photographers and people testing the doors and windows and then someone will try to go in there and get a photo of her and she says what can I do about it? Ty's not here and I said, well, you better call downtown and talk to James or Clarence Pierce and tell them I highly recommend they get some security there. This could be really easy. and naked MF would have big demands so she calls and talks to one of the Pierces and he says look at whatever Allen says you do, go ahead and do it so she said okay I have his permission for you to do whatever you want".

To get it right, I've never dealt with any kind of security or anything like that and the only thing that was on my brain at the time was Pinkerton, which had been around since 1870 or something like that until I said, you've got a yellow. page, yeah, if I take it out and look at her security and there's pink on it, then I tell this plug called pink tape and I tell them they want six uniformed guards and I said yes, so she called them and said yes, this It's Westwood. morgue now we're having Monroe's funeral here and we need six uniformed guards here and she said wait a minute and she says oh Jesus they want to know if they're supposed to use guns.

I said absolutely, so yes, they can use weapons. his weapons and so, 20 minutes later, the van arrives and six guys pile up and I approach him and said: look, the situation is all out of control, people are trying to get into the building, you guys have done it. , keep moving. here and making sure no one comes into this building and we maintain some security here when the family brought her clothes, they didn't bring panties because they said she never wore them, luckily someone at the coroner's office would have this. dignity to the terror that she raised and they came in a diaper for her, it was the only body I saw come out of the Los Angeles County coroner's office that wasn't totally new, I mean, someone was very respectful and they also expanded these little and funny flaws.

Why did Maryland have to work with falsies? I asked Whitey Snyder, her makeup artist, why she had these falsies and they weren't even full size and he said, Oh, or she did that because she just turned 36 and her boobs were starting to sag. a bit. So she would put on a bra and then she would put on a sweater and then she would put on these falsies and looking at her you think she was standing there without a bra because you see the bumps on her nipples and of course when they are made. a Y incision and they cut through the ribcage, everything caved in and we were in the embalming room and I was helping the imamat, so the first thing he had to do was get this horrible swelling out of her neck, I mean, her. she just shed the skin of the dollar that was hanging, I mean, she died face down and her face became all stained because the blood is a little, a lot of people don't know what expressions are and when we dressed her in this chartreuse Pucci dress and she still looked terrible her face was just a mess lady.

Hamrick, who owned half of the downtown morgue that James and Clarence transferred to the two brothers they merged when they brought to the Santa Monica Freeway, ripped up about 25 morgues because they were all on that strip and then Mrs. Hamrick had to have his own house and James and the clergyman Pierce had his own house, so they went together while Mrs. Hamlyn had to come from the West and she didn't want to see Marilyn, so she came into the bombing room and we had just finished dressing her. I held her sideways while you cut him here and he ripped all the skin off her every night and sewed it up. and he actually cut off some of her hair and threw it in the trash and you know, made her neck look really good and told the people in the office that I really don't feel qualified to do with her hair and makeup. at all and they said, well, don't worry about the 20th century, it's said that if we need anything, call us and we'll give you what you need.

Well, they set up Sydney Glare, who was also River Taylor and Marilyn Monroe's hairdresser. he brought a hat box with his wig from the movie they had just been fired from, so he has to get young and whitey Schneider was his makeup artist and right before they got there, the lady. Hamrick walks into the embalming room and she was Slavic and spoke a little rough, I mean, she's like that sailor and you know, she walks in and looks, he sees it didn't look like Maryland to me, where a bruise said a Little about the

embalmer

s that you know well, Mrs.

Hamrick did an autopsy on her and that's why she's flat and he said we even used the fakes her family brought but they were too small. I didn't do any. She said fakes, so she walked over and did it. It was some kind of stretchy material almost like polyester, but I'm sure it wasn't polyester with the Gucci name on it, but she, you know, it was a little stretchy and she picks it up like this, and she reaches out and grabs these two. little fakes, they're only this big and she throws them in the trash and she and we put a bra on her because they brought a bra but no panties and she jumps over the wall and starts rolling up the cotton we use. most of the shopkeepers have caught rolls on the wall and she comes over and stuffs things in the cotton in the bra and says it was all done the way it should and she backed away and took my gun and says now she looks like Marilyn Monroe. run out the door and you know, I was in my early 20s when all this happened and I really wanted to get something from my wife as a souvenir, but I was thinking, you know, if the embalmer sees me, I'm going to be I'm ashamed that you know I would like something like this and he walks over and he's washing his hands, so without even taking my eyes off him, I go to the trash can, I finish and I'm looking at him, and if I had looked up, it would have been yes whatever and I grabbed the flaws since I could feel it and I put it in my pocket and he never saw it or anything and when I went out and took out the falsies some of the hair that I had cut off to do this surgery on the back of his neck was tight between him and of course I didn't feel it I just grabbed I felt the rubber and that's how I end up with this lock of hair I say and here's the business card that The night manager gave me a name that was Pat Spinelli and said that when you get here, the security They won't let you in unless you show them this card and Pat Spinelli took his folding bed and carried it into the rest room and slept next to it.

Marilyn, afraid that someone would come in and try to take a photo, word was spreading that they were actually offering $30,000 for a photo. Casca now imagine $30,000 in 1962, that would be like $300,000 easy, huh? What about the story? Sorry, I'm interrupting. You apologize, well, what about DiMaggio? I thought he spent the night and I folded a chair next to his coffin? No, this is what happens, he made the cities, he made the list of who was going to be invited, he paid the bill, he, for the funeral home. He had a tour that ended at nine o'clock, which was common in the industry, you could get ashore sharp and after that it would end, so my wife said can you please take me to Westwind tonight?

I want to see Marilyn. So I called Path and told him I'd like to bring my wife there tonight. That's an idiot. Come on, you know, visitors are on hold and nine o'clock, so she said, yeah, so show up around nine o'clock. We get there at nine o'clock and Joe is still there with his entourage and he's standing by the coffin and he's crying and then he leaves and walks to the cemetery and walks for a while and then he comes back in and stands by the coffin again and then it comes out again and finally it was eleven o'clock and Arles time, my wife and I were sitting there talking to Pat and I asked her what's up with this nine o'clock curfew and she said, well, I'm not going Go tell Joe DiMaggio and I said well, yeah, I understand what I said, I'll tell you what I said, we're going to have to go because I have to work for the service tomorrow and it's already eleven, you know, so I went and I got in my car, I started the engine and the entourage came out and started getting in their car, so I turned off the engine, let them out and then I grabbed my wife and I said, well, boy, that was perfect, I want say.

If I had left five minutes earlier, I would have never missed it and could have taken the camera. I could have taken a photograph. Look at any of the newsreels or even photographs in this book of the Shogun and I will paint it. yards walking next door in some parts young love you'll see I bet they're there right now oh yeah and then there's another shot to show more that they were there I said I would, that they were there that day I got there They were there the next day They were there the next day when we had the funeral, so they were literally there the entire time.

There are eight of them in this photo. I think they like to say more about that Villa because of the marginal role of that, because yes. I know this because DiMaggio was so weird about including people you know while excluding so many people, yet the press was allowed on the grounds, right? Yes, they have to stay behind the yellow tape, they put that yellow tape. I was one of those standing. at the door of the chapel, when people came in, they checked their invitation, there were only 31 people and they were chosen by Joe DiMaggio, there were no Hollywood people transmitted, except this guy who is Lee Strasberg and his wife and his.

He ran the famous New York Actors Studio house, so he flew back from New York and came and did the eulogy when the service was over and I opened the glass doors and grabbed one end of the coffin and started pulling it out and my partner was on the other side. of the coffin and the hairdresser and the makeup artist were behind them when I opened the doors, it was dead silent, I mean there were a couple hundred people there and it was absolutely dead, so the moment those doors opened and I started to throw, what he asked, there was a sound of like a thousand cameras that were going to be cooking, oh yes, incredible, and people were talking and everything, and even while the servants were silent, you could barely hear the minister because everyone in the stands.

We were talking and clergyman Chris is there telling people. I'll show you something. My wife is absolutely wonderful at this place. She and my daughter died in their nightgowns and I came here in '94 and wanted to build a duplex on the property I bought in Sin. City that is together in a murmur Had itshairpieces or locks of hair I had a couple of commemorative folders and this is the box my wife used to keep them in and not that photo we were talking about - laughs, yes, terrible. That's the only part of the locker here.

I laugh. Oh my God, it's you.