There’s been a great deal of publicity surrounding the release of “My Week with Marilyn”, the film starring Michelle Williams as the iconic actress and sex symbol. Various producers and actors involved with the film have weighed in on what Marilyn was like and what she felt and thought. The only problem with this is that few of those talking actually knew Marilyn at all. They relied on archived articles or photos for their information.
I decided it was time to speak with someone who really did know Marilyn, and in a way that few if any did. I sat down with legendary psychic/medium Kenny Kingston, who was Marilyn’s spiritual counselor and friend for many years. I have known and worked with him for a long time and have co-written several of his metaphysical books. But this talk was to be all about Marilyn, not strictly about the psychic world.
As a bonus, the chat took place around a table and chairs given to him by Marilyn. Also on the table was a gold and crystal candelabra given to him by the blonde legend. She was generous in that way, he said, and loved giving gifts when it was totally unexpected.
The walls of his home are covered with photos of Kingston and his many celebrated clients and friends and awards he’s received from charitable institutions over the years, as well as memorabilia from the 7 years of psychic hotline infomercials he hosted and the many other television shows he’s been a guest on. Also included are covers from the 7 books he’s written
I knew that Kingston had often spoken of his association with Marilyn and that he has had visits from her spirit in the past. So my first question was whether he’s heard from her lately regarding not only “My Week with Marilyn” but also “Blonde”, the other Monroe-based film starring Naomi Watts that is being readied for an early 2012 release.
“Yes, I’ve heard from her,” he smiled. “She’s quite excited about both films. She spent time with Naomi Watts for a while because she heard that Watts was nervous about playing her. Marilyn wanted to put her at ease.”
And as for Williams? “Well, truthfully, Marilyn much prefers her portrayal at this point,” he answered. “She approves of the production and of Michelle Williams playing her, though she wishes the record could be set straight about a few things.”
And that’s what I’d hoped for. It seems Kingston says that no one yet has gotten it right about Marilyn – at least not the Marilyn he knew. He first met her in the mid-1950’s when his friend, Broadway and film actor Clifton Webb, asked him to give a psychic reading to a friend of his, a Mrs. DiMaggio, in San Francisco, where Kingston was living at the time. Because Webb was a dear friend, Kingston agreed to make an appointment for the reading as soon as possible.
“DiMaggio was a common name in San Francisco at that time,” he said, and he never thought to ask for the client’s first name. “It only mattered that she was a friend of Clifton’s,” he said. “We had a quick conversation and I set the date and that was it.”
The night of the appointment, set for 9 p.m., Mrs. DiMaggio was late in arriving. Finally, at 9:15, Kingston’s houseman suggested giving up the wait for the woman. “No, I feel she will still come,” he said, and told his houseman he could turn in for the evening.
A few moments later, the doorbell rang. “When I opened the door, a beautiful blonde in a black coat with white ermine trim and a white transparent kerchief on her head stood before me, struggling somewhat for air as she whispered, “I’m Mrs. DiMaggio.”
Instantly, Kingston recognized her as screen goddess Marilyn Monroe. She was wearing the same outer garments she’d worn in photos he’d seen from her recent marriage to baseball great Joe DiMaggio. The couple were living in San Francisco.
Kingston said. “I asked her why she was so out of breath and she said, ‘I took a cab to your area but walked the last few blocks. The story broke in today’s paper that I am undergoing psychiatric therapy and I didn’t want your reputation ruined.’ That was the essence of Marilyn Monroe,” he said fondly. .
Their client/psychic relationship quickly developed into a friendship. Whenever Marilyn needed detailed psychic advice she would visit Kingston in person, but often they would discuss smaller matters over the telephone, since both enjoyed speaking by phone and shared a love of late-night conversation.
She used a special code she thought up when calling Kingston. “Hello You, it’s Me,” she’d whisper into the phone. She enjoyed this air of mystery and also thought it would protect their privacy in case anyone overheard, Kingston revealed.
Often, he spent evenings at DiMaggio’s Restaurant in San Francisco, owned by members of the DiMaggio family. Frequently on hand was Joe himself. Patrons lined up outside the restaurant’s doors, but Kingston knew they were truly hoping to get a glimpse of DiMaggio’s famous wife.
“But they’d never see Marilyn in the main dining room,” he said. “She was often at the restaurant…but she spent time in the kitchen so as not to steal Joe’s thunder.” Often, she’d help cook something simple for Kingston and they would sit and talk.
Her cooking skills weren’t great, he said. “She never made anything complicated,” he admitted. “It was usually steak and eggs or diced potatoes and even then she had the help of one of the regular chefs. The funniest thing was that there were all the tourists lined up at the bar or dawdling over their dinner in hopes they’d get a glimpse of the gorgeous lady, without knowing she was just a few feet away, in the kitchen!”
Some of Marilyn’s happiest days were spent with DiMaggio, Kingston said, and he observes that psychically he always felt that had they stayed married she would have lived a long and happy life. “Marilyn desperately wanted to be happily married and have children.”
Kingston eventually moved to the Beverly Hills area of Southern California and soon, Marilyn and Joe settled there, to be close to the film industry.
When she and DiMaggio divorced, Kingston was nearby to help counsel her. But one of the most difficult and longest-lasting struggles he worked with her on had nothing to do with the men in her life, Kingston insisted. What Marilyn fought against, sometimes on a daily basis, was a then-mysterious emotional disease which could keep her a prisoner in her own home for days at a time.
“Marilyn was gaining a worldwide reputation for her lateness and inability to appear on a set or at a meeting or party. People thought she was being a prima donna, when in fact she was not drinking or under heavy medication or pulling a star tantrum at all,” he stated strongly.
“She was suffering terribly from a disease that even today is misunderstood – agoraphobia. I worked with her, using meditation and affirmations but it was an ongoing struggle for her. She’d say to me tearfully, ‘Kenny – I really want to be on time. I try to get ready but sometimes I’m almost paralyzed with fear. I spend hours getting ready because I’m afraid to go out. I sometimes just can’t face people.’ And I know that’s what happened many times when she was blamed for problems on a set, including the set of “The Prince and the Showgirl”, which is the film depicted in “My Week with Marilyn” so I wanted to set the record straight about my friend,” Kingston said.
The seer said that Marilyn loved the color red and he advised her to either wear it or carry something red with her at all times, because the color represents energy and strength. She’d laughingly tell him where she was wearing red at times, he said.
The game table and chairs that she gave him were originally painted pale cream with yellow upholstery. But recently, he had the upholstery re-done in caramel and had the wood painted red in honor of Marilyn, he said.
The gifted psychic said that he believes one reason he and Marilyn became such friends is that he was never one to gush over her film beauty. “To me, she was simply my friend and she liked that she could be herself around me,” he reminisced.
“She was not the dumb blonde some people said she was,” he continued. “She may not have had extremely high intelligence but she was at least average or above. And what mattered was that her heart was wise.”
Much of 1961 found Marilyn happy according to Kingston. But by the end of the year and into the early days of 1962, her personal agony intensified again. She desperately wanted to be taken seriously in films and felt she was not accomplishing this.
To pacify herself and take her mind off her career, she decided to purchase a home.
“Come with me,” she urged Kingston one evening, “I want you to see what I want to buy.” Kingston said that they headed for the city of Brentwood and an area off San Vicente Boulevard. There are twenty-five streets named Helena there, and Marilyn asked him to turn onto Fifth Helena.
“I felt uncomfortable as we drove to the end of the cul-de-sac”, he recalled. “But Marilyn was like an excited child. There were too many trees that cast ominous shadows on the property and I felt it would further her depression,” he said.
He tried to discourage Marilyn from purchasing the property but this was one time she did not listen to her spiritual advisor and friend. Today the home has a secure wall and gate surrounding it but in those days he said Marilyn never seemed concerned about installing such things.
Negativity did indeed invade her life even more as time moved on and she moved into the home. On August 1, though, Marilyn called Kingston to say that she’d been reinstated by 20th Century Fox and she would return to complete filming on “Something’s Got to Give”, after having been dismissed from the set.
“Let’s go to the beach to celebrate!” she urged, since this was one of her favorite places to visit. But Kingston told her he had clients that day and was unable to go. He suggested she go alone, wearing no makeup, no dark glasses and just a sloppy Joe sweater and kerchief. “I’m going to do it!” she giggled.
That night, she called, proudly telling him how she laughed and played with children on the beach. She was elated and then told him she intended to skip a party she and Kingston were planning to attend at Peter Lawford’s beach house in a day or two.
“I want to be refreshed and ready for my press conference,” she told him. The conference was scheduled for that coming Monday and the media assumed she was going to announce that she was having an affair with John or Bobby Kennedy. But sadly, Kingston told me quite a bombshell of information.
“It had nothing to do with the Kennedys,” he sighed. “Marilyn was going to reveal that she and Joe DiMaggio were going to re-marry on August 8. They’d planned their clothing, ordered the flowers…everything was set.”
Her last words to Kingston that night, three days before her passing, were “Love is the one immortal thing about us. Without love, what else can life mean?” Unfortunately, in the early hours between August 4 and 5, Marilyn passed away.
It was not, Kingston insisted, murder or suicide. “It was simply a tragic accident. It was a combination of a little too much alcohol and too much medication. Marilyn was very happy – she had love back in her life, her career was moving forward..”
Marilyn has contacted him from the spirit world on many occasions and pertaining to the case of Michelle Williams and “My Week with Marilyn”, he said that she is very pleased with the way Ms. Williams has portrayed her and predicts many award nominations for her and for the film.
Kingston couldn’t be more pleased. “And Marilyn is delighted,” he concluded. “The only thing I regret is that people hadn’t fully displayed the Marilyn I knew, but hopefully this article will help tell her story from my perspective.”