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Marilyn's funeral was the first service held in
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery's Chapel of Palms. It was held on Wednesday, August 8, 1962. The service was coordinated
by Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn's half-sister Berniece Miracle, and business manager Inez Melson. Only a few of Marilyn's closest
friends & members of her entourage were invited.
Friend & make-up artist Allan "Whitey" Snyder lovingly styled Marilyn's hair
in the coiffure recently featured in her film Something's Got To Give. Marilyn had requested that Snyder prepare her
in death nine years earlier. Snyder agreed & joked that the body was to be delivered to him warm. Marilyn presented him
with a gold money clip engraved, "Whitey Dear-While I'm warm. Love, Marilyn."
In death, Marilyn held a nosegay of pink teacup roses, a gift from DiMaggio,
who also provided a blanket of flowers atop the casket.
Above: Agnes and Marjorie attend to Marilyn on the set of Something's Got To
Give a few months before her death.
Marilyn's final resting place is a marble crypt near the graves of her childhood guardian,
Grace Goddard, childhood caregiver, Ana Lower, and former foster sister, Bebe Goddard. For twenty years, Joe DiMaggio arranged
for red roses to be delivered three times weekly.
Marilyn wearing the green Pucci dress in which she was buried. |
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A grieving DiMaggio, who had planned to remarry Marilyn on this day, spend the
night prior to the service on his knees before Marilyn's open bronze casket. Friend & dresser Marjorie Pletcher dressed
Marilyn in a short, apple-green, silk Pucci sheath, accessorized by a green scarf. Marilyn had worn this dress at a press
conference in Mexico city the previous February.
In the chapel, non-denominational
minister, Rev. A.J. Slodan, delivered the 22nd Psalm & based his remarks upon the biblical quotation "How fearfully &
wonderfully she was made by the Creator." The organist played Tchaikovasky's Sixth Symphony, and Judy Garland's "Over the
Rainbow" resonated at Marilyn's request. A tearful Lee Strasberg delivered the moving euology in an emotional voice that trembled
with sadness.
Above: The chapel organ in 1998. Below: Mourners at the crypt as Marilyn is interred.
Marilyn Remembered dedicated this
marble bench with bronze
inscription
plaque to Marilyn in 1982.
Floral arrangements arrive on the morning of the funeral. |
