Cover

Volume 15, Issue 12
Published July 25th, 2007

Summer Reading

Exceprts From Five New Books By Cleveland Artists And Writers

With so much attention paid to what doesn't happen in Cleveland, it's easy to overlook what does. Every day around Northeast Ohio, in studios and coffee shops and spare bedrooms, creative people write and illustrate their passions. The "Summer Reading" issue is our way of honoring and promoting the work of a few such people with local roots, some still living here and some who have moved on; some long known to us and some we've just met. Their works span genres and styles, touching on everything from the salacious to the scientific, from the comforting to the disturbling. We hope you find something that you like, and that you support these writers and artists by buying their books.

Russell Schneider, Whatever Happened to Super Joe?

From the mid-1950s through the mid-1990s, the Cleveland Indians fielded teams that just couldn't win. Yet each lousy team in those "bad old days" had its share of good guys, likeable and colorful young men who earned a spot in fans' hearts, if not the Hall of Fame. This included players like "Super Joe" Charboneau, whose Rookie of the Year season inspired a nickname, a book and a theme song, though his career flamed out fast. In this excerpt from the recently published book Whatever Happened to "Super Joe"? (softcover /$14.95/224 pages), author Russell Schneider catches up with Charboneau and 44 other former Indians players to find out what they think now about their playing days with the Cleveland Indians and their lives after baseball. The book is available at Northeast Ohio book stores and online from Amazon.com. For more information, call Gray & Company, Publishers or visit grayco.com.

Joe Charboneau

Outfielder, Designated Hitter, 1980-82

Best season: 1980, 131 games, .289 batting average, 23 home runs, 87 RBI

Indians career: 201 games, .266 avg., 29 home runs, 114 RBI

There was a book written about him, even a song, all of which should have thrilled Joe Charboneau, then a 25-year-old outfielder who won the American League Rookie of the Year award and was living his boyhood dream.

But, "To tell you the truth," Charboneau said as he reflected on his brief major-league career, "all that stuff embarrassed me ... the nickname, the book, the song, the stories. I just wanted to play ball; I wasn't interested in a lot of publicity."

As it turned out, the career of "Super Joe" - as he came to be known to fans of the Indians - flamed out almost as quickly as it peaked. And peak it did. He batted .289 with 23 homers and 87 RBI in 1980. Then injuries that required back operations in 1981 and 1982 all but ended his career.

"After I hurt my back the first time, I never got rid of the pain, and I never got my swing back.

"I still have pain, though not as bad as when I played. I can only run maybe half speed, else my back will go out. I don't swing a bat. If I took a round in the batting cage, it would really hurt. I can play golf, but it's painful and I have to limp around the course."

Ah, but back in 1980, before he lost his swing and his power, Super Joe really was super, although, if he had a choice, it would have been that the nickname had never been coined.

"I was never a big fan of that Super Joe stuff," said the one-time Super Joe. "In fact, I was kind of surprised the first time I heard it."

A book, titled Super Joe: The Life and Legend of Joe Charboneau, followed. It was co-written by sportswriters Burt Graeff and Terry Pluto, who covered the Indians for The Cleveland Press (now defunct) and The Plain Dealer, respectively.

Charboneau said the book is an "easy read with plenty of fun stuff in it, though a lot of the stories are only minimally true, some are greatly exaggerated, and others were never true to begin with."

Charboneau attributes their source to "buddies of mine who came in from California, got to drinking beer with some of the writers, and made up a lot of stuff."

Among the anecdotes: Charboneau opened beer bottles with his eye socket, ate cigarettes, drank beer with a straw through his nose, and once pulled an aching tooth and fixed his broken nose with a pair of pliers - and a shot of whiskey.

"It was all crazy stuff, but the truth is, I did get a lot of play from them. Every city I went to, the stories got bigger and bigger, and even different," he said.

"But I never brought them up, or encouraged the guys to write those things, and I really don't want to even talk about them now."

There also was a song that started with the lyrics, "Who's the newest guy in town? /Go Joe Charboneau./Turns the ballpark upside down./Go Joe Charboneau./ Who's the one to keep our hopes alive, straight from seventh to the pennant drive? /Raise your glass, let out a cheer for Cleveland's Rookie of the Year!"

Charboneau and his wife, Cynthia, whom he married in 1977, make their home in North Ridgeville, Ohio. They raised two children, a son, Tyson, born in 1979, and a daughter, Dannon, born in 1981.

Charboneau signed with the Philadelphia Phillies, who selected him in the second round of the secondary phase of the 1976 amateur draft. He received a $5,000 signing bonus in 1976, and his peak salary was $33,000 in 1981, in the wake of his "super" year.

"But, honest to God," Charboneau said, "I didn't play for the money. Not ever. Maybe that was dumb on my part because I had a family, but I loved to play baseball and I wanted to make the big leagues. The paycheck was just a bonus, really."

His Rookie of the Year season began when an injury sidelined Andre Thornton, making it possible for Charboneau to crack the starting lineup on April 11, 1980 in a 10-2 loss to California. He went 3-for-3, with a home run, launching the legend of Super Joe.

The highlight of the season came on June 28 in an 11-10 loss to the Yankees in New York. Charboneau blasted a home run into the third deck of Yankee Stadium, reached previously by only two players, Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx and Frank Howard.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," said Charboneau. "Tom Underwood, a left-hander, was pitching for the Yankees. It was the first time I ever faced him, and I got ahead in the count, 3-and-1, and looked for a fastball in, which I got. I swung, and I never hit a ball better.

"As I was going around second base, I looked up to where the ball landed and thought to myself that I'd probably never hit another ball like that again. And I never did. It was a once-in-a-lifetime swing. Later they told me it was one of the three longest home runs ever hit in Yankee Stadium. Imagine that! Yankee Stadium, the 'House that Ruth built.'

"The whole thing was unbelievable. It seemed like the ball carried forever." The memory of it does for Charboneau.

Super Joe was super until the final three weeks of the season, when he got hurt. "It was something with my pelvis, and I didn't play anymore." He finished with 453 at-bats and 131 hits, of which 23 were homers. He won the rookie award easily, out-polling six other candidates. Charboneau was named on 102 ballots, more than doubling the 40 votes received by runner-up Dave Stapleton, an outfielder for Boston.

Unfortunately - for Charboneau and the Indians - his glory days ended when the season ended, ultimately attributable, he believes, to his back injuries.

"I realized early on that I probably didn't have as much talent as a lot of other guys and I had to play harder, which may be the reason I got hurt. I wasn't really a good outfielder; I didn't have a good arm, and I didn't steal a lot of bases. So I had to play harder, which I did. I played as hard as I could."

It was the following spring training, 1981, that Charboneau hurt his back sliding into second base head first. "It had rained that morning, and I basically kind of stuck in the dirt," he said. "My legs kicked back over my head, and I knew I did something. I had a lot of pain, and foolishly I continued to play. But I didn't have the same swing, and I never got it back."

After 48 games with the Indians in 1981, Charboneau was hitting .210 with four homers and 18 RBI, and was demoted to Class AAA Charleston, West Virginia, where he wasn't much better.

When the season ended, Charboneau underwent the first of two operations on his back. He played only 22 games in 1982 and hurt his back again, this time running to first base, and had more surgery the following August. For all practical purposes his career was finished.

Charboneau was back in spring training with the Indians in 1983 but soon was returned to the minors for rehabilitation, which wasn't successful. He was released.

"I refused to let it end my career. I kept trying to get back to the big leagues," he said. But that didn't happen.

Charboneau did get a trial with Class AAA Hawaii in the Pittsburgh farm system, but it didn't last long. Later he played for several independent teams in the United States and one in Europe, even a couple of semi-pro teams. Finally, in 2000, Super Joe gave up and took his last swing as a professional.

Charboneau coached for several teams in the independent Frontier League, and also, since 1991 he has operated "Joe Charboneau Baseball" in Twinsburg, Ohio, giving lessons and doing coaching clinics.

"Sure, I have a lot of regrets, but no complaints about anybody, and no bitterness. I always knew an injury could happen and, for me, it did. Somebody wrote an article about me in 1980, and I said all I really wanted to do was stay healthy. But I didn't."

And so ended - for Charboneau, the Indians and their fans, much too soon - the legend of Super Joe.

Reprinted from WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SUPER JOE?

Stephen Kasner: Works 1993-2006

"Just another dark and trippy CIA grad." That's what some justifiably forgotten freelance hack called Stephen Kasner in the pages of this very publication about 10 years ago. As a fellow CIA grad, a friend of Kasner's and an enthusiastic fan of his work, I was a few clicks beyond miffed. The incredible thoughtfulness and complexity of the man was and is vividly evident in his canvasses, simultaneously gloomy and luminous, and to caricature him as a typical art-school goth dipshit was unthinkable. After having been a gallery fixture here for a decade, Kasner made a move to Northern California in 2004, which brought his work the attention a Cleveland artist can rarely hope for. He's now the subject of a monograph from Baltimore's Scapegoat Publishing (scapegoatpublishing.com), a beautifully printed book that shows Kasner's damn-near irreproduceable work in the best light possible - would that newsprint could do it such justice. With introductions by Integrity vocalist Dwid Helion, Free Times art writer Douglas Max Utter (who clearly should have been the one to write about that show 10 years ago), and Kasner himself (excerpted below), Stephen Kasner: Works 1993-2006 is the must-have Cleveland art book - at least until someone finally honors Derek Hess thusly. -Ron Kretsch

Below: "Sleep Impression I," oil on aluminum, 35x32", 2006. Right: "Untitled II," Gold leaf on

gicleé, 11x9", 2002. Below Right: "Dreamscape IV," Oil on paper, 42x30", 2003

From On Painting By Stephen Kasner

Crystallizations are the most potent singular moments that occur in a person's lifetime. They are not the first set of things we feel, but they are the first feelings that contain vital intensity and psychic charge. Not merely associations from childhood then, but emotionally saturated details, objects, things, and ideas that are infused with an energy that recur in our desires and objectives throughout adult life. Crystallizations are moments and their properties which we consciously or unconsciously carry through our lives, that mold and shape who we are, what we adore, what we strive for, and what we tend to seek in our own desires and yearning for joy. ...

Dreams, memory and the refinement of crystallized moments remain the primary forces propelling my work, in an effort to create a continuous, fluid recording of a life in flux. It is, though, equally my goal to allow the paintings to exist independently, on their own, and beyond my personal realm of exploration. Very often my titles are not designated based on what personal memory and emotion may have inspired them. Rather, after the works are completed, they assume independence and are titled with their own individual personality, with perhaps only a trace of the emotional details which brought them into being. The paintings reach a point where they grow beyond anything I ever intend them to be. It is a slight shift, a mild moment, a weird instant, and suddenly they are like children who have grown too large for my arms. That is how I know they are complete.

Peter Kuper, Stop Forgetting to Remember

Peter Kuper has reached the point that he can do his work anywhere in the world, and in the process gather more fuel for it. Originally from Cleveland Heights, his cartooning and illustration career encompasses autobiography, emotionally complex explorations of the human condition, cover art for Time, Newsweek, The Progressive, and (even if it doesn't appear alongside those on his Web site), the Free Times. He also draws graphically slick comic strips like Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy.

This month Kuper's in the US, taking a break from a two-year residence in the Southern Mexico state of Oaxaca to promote his newest book, Stop Forgetting to Remember (Crown, 2007). It's a graphic autobiography filtered through the fictional life of its main character, Walter Kurtz, who also happens to be a cartoonist who went to New York to try to make it big. The book begins with his arrival there, and follows a course of artistic ambition, sexual exploits, pot smoke, the birth of a child, and the subsequent rush of responsibility. He touches on politics, including the Bush presidency and its war on Iraq, but ultimately Stop Forgetting is about life, sweaty, complicated and ongoing.

This Tuesday, July 31, at 7 p.m., Kuper appears at Mac's Backs (1820 Coventry Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216.321.2665) to sign copies. Shortly thereafter, he and his family will return to Oaxaca, which he says will serve as the setting for another quasi-autobiographical volume.

- Michael Gill

Ted Schwarz, Hollywood Confidential

Hollywood Confidential: How the Studios Beat the Mob at Their Own Game is the first truly in-depth look at the sexy, humorous, violent, and tragic history of the mob in Hollywood from the 1920s, when Joe Kennedy decided to buy a motion picture company, to the 1980s when the last vestiges of mob influence were revealed through investigations of former Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan and his union backers. The revelations continue into the 1980s when the major studios were no longer important, the independents were on the rise, and it was no longer possible to buy, bribe, or blackmail in a meaningful way. There were deals and bad guys, but the mob as it existed was finished in Hollywood. Author Ted Schwarz is a Cleveland resident and longtime Free Times contributor.

You know the story. Marilyn Monroe. Lover of Jack Kennedy and maybe Bobby. Ex-wife of Jim Dougherty, Joe DiMaggio, and Arthur Miller. Career and health going downhill. Kennedy protectors nervous about living witnesses to the President's misbehavior. The mob killed her. Or her doctor. Or... You name it and it's probably been written as fact.

So what's the truth? Let's start with one name. Judith Campbell. Dead years after being the go-between with mobster Sam Giancana and President Jack Kennedy as they plotted to kill Fidel Castro.

Then there was Marita Lorenz. She was a contract CIA employee paid in envelopes of cash. She carried the poison capsules to Fidel, then let him live, had his son, and is still alive today.

Judy Campbell was a mob sweetheart, a good-looking brunette who knew when to say thank you for a handful of chips in Vegas-"Here, honey, enjoy yourself at the tables"-jewelry, or a night on the town in restaurants where the tips alone were more than some people earned in a week. She knew the difference between love and sex, pleasure and commitment. She knew that no matter at what level they played the game, and she was feted and bedded by Chicago mobster Sam Giancana, singer Frank Sinatra, President Jack Kennedy, and others - they all looked the same with their clothes off. She was privy to the dirty little secrets she conveyed from mob to White House and back, as well as to casual pillow talk. And when she died years after the others, it was cancer, not a hit man that did her in.

Real life has always been simpler than our fantasies. And in real life, that most tragic of movie stars, Marilyn Monroe, was a slut, a drug abuser, and a woman so power hungry she created myths because they were more interesting than history. She claimed to be an orphan yet both her parents out lived her. She claimed to have been shunted to an endless series of foster homes and orphanages, but the life she related to reporters at the suggestion of her friend, columnist Sid Skolsky, was actually lived by her foster sister, Bebe Goddard.

Marilyn celebrated her engagement to baseball great Joe DiMaggio by going to director Elia Kazan's home at 2:30 in the morning, climbing into bed with him, and having celebratory sex. She returned from her honeymoon and stopped by Schwab's Drugstore to tell her friends Leon Schwab, Sid Skolsky, and police officer Fred Otash she was going to marry playwright Arthur Miller.

Not that DiMaggio was much better. He was obsessed with Dorothy Arnold, his first wife, after she divorced him. And while he was forever loyal to Marilyn, he comforted himself with an endless string of willing showgirls.

It was the drugs that killed Monroe, just as they shortened the lives of so many others in Hollywood. Her favorite was pentobarbital in such forms as Nembutal. The studio doctors supplied it for sleeping and gave stimulants for morning, turning everyone - actors, crew, even the executives into inadvertent drug abusers. This had been going on since before World War II, before Norma Jean became Marilyn, before too many died, such as Judy Garland, Peter Lawford, and of course Monroe.

It was August 5, 1962, when Marilyn Monroe died. She was the eye of a hurricane over which she had not control. Her career was faltering and the studio assigned Fred Otash, by then a private investigator, to retrieve her when she lost consciousness at the home of a drug abusing friend. However, she was looking forward to some new opportunities and a better contract.

Bobby Kennedy was in Los Angeles that day, a fact well known to the city's police. Chief William Parker, in office since 1950, was in line to be the next FBI director as soon as the Kennedy brothers could convince J. Edgar Hoover to retire. Parker protected his future job by arranging to be notified by Bobby's staff whenever the Attorney General was going to be in town.

Bobby and his brother-in-law Peter Lawford went to see Marilyn who had already taken too many pills and too much booze. Bobby argued with her and stressed that Jack did not find her special, had no plans to marry her after he started his second term and could get a divorce without repercussions. Peter told her to get some sleep, then come to his house to be with friends and eat the Lawfords' favorite - carry out Chinese consumed from the cartons. All their words were recorded by Fred Otash whose "bugs" were found years later when Marilyn's house, long owned by others by then, was renovated. Ultimately interviews, memoirs, and other resources revealed the following as being part of what was taking place.

1. Jack Kennedy followed Dwight Eisenhower in returning the CIA to "wet work," the assassination of key international personnel whose deaths would benefit the United States. The current target was Fidel Castro, an early example of attempted, and failed, regime change. Members of organized crime worked with the CIA in exchange for the implied promise that they could reopen the gambling casinos and nightclubs they had run under the Batista regime and which Castro had closed.

2. Chicago's Sam Giancana, having helped the Illinois dead vote Democrat, was further ingratiating himself by coordinating Castro's poisoning by the young Marita Lorenz, daughter of an American woman and German sea captain who had been allied spies during World War II. Courier of information between Kennedy and Giancana was Judith Campbell Exner, a mutual bedmate thanks to Frank Sinatra's introductions including when Jack was in the Las Vegas Sands on February 7, 1960. At the same time, Jack Kennedy was involved with several other women, including Marilyn Monroe, often meeting in Peter Lawford's home. The planned hit was secret. The women were not. Columnist Jim Bacon told me, "It was only when Richard Nixon was doing to the country what Jack Kennedy was doing to women that we felt we had to write about it."

Marilyn Monroe, like too many other actors, was rapidly deteriorating in 1962, addicted to a variety of stimulants and depressants originally encouraged by the studios to get a full day's work from their personnel. This had been going on since the 1930s.

The problem for the actors was that some built up a tolerant to drugs with a maximum safe dose. If a 5 mg sleeping pill was adequate to give someone a night's rest, gradually it would stop working. Then the person might increase to 7.5 mg. That would work for a while, then the person might need 10 mg.

For many of the drugs, including those taken by Monroe contemporaries Judy Garland (dead), Elizabeth Taylor (in and out of rehab), Peter Lawford (dead), and others, there was a maximum dosage regardless of the tolerance a user might have. For example, the maximum dosage for a user might be 25 mg. Take 25 mg. and the person is safe. Take 26 mg. and the user dies. Some were taken as prescriptions, some came from incompetent professionals such as Max "Dr. Feelgood" Jacobson, M.D. of New York City. His injections of a combination of vitamins, amphetamines, and other substances were utilized by such notables as then U.S. Senator Jack Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, actors, and others. The attitude seemed to be that it wasn't quackery if a doctor gave it to you.

Marilyn, recently hired to star in Something's Got to Give, was known to be addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. She had collapsed during her previous picture, The Misfits, and had been treated by Dr. Ralph Greenson, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist. She was also using alcohol in quantities that were dangerous by themselves and potentially lethal in combination with the drugs.

Director George Cukor, who had seen Marilyn's lack of professionalism and gradual deterioration, was livid that she had been hired for Something's Got To Give. Early in the shooting Cukor went to the press in frustration, telling reporters that Marilyn "is so fraught with nerves she can't even match one take with the other."

Her insecurity had been heightened the previous December when Marilyn was reminded of her age by beauty experts hired to "save" her from the inadequacy of being herself. Hair not adequately blond? Bring in Jean Harlow's Paul Porterfield who had "enhanced" Harlow's look with chemicals that created what was called "hot platinum." Porterfield went to his chemistry set and mixed laundry bluing with sparkling peroxide to slowly whiten Marilyn's hair. There were hot-wax treatments and mud packs, and the Beverly Hills equivalent of Dr. Feelgood added tranquilizers and so-called vitamins to her daily "health" regimen. She was drugged, painted, and constantly reminded that she was not good enough without the help of all the experts, all the pills.

"First Brother-in-Law" Peter Lawford told Jack and Marilyn that he and his wife, Pat, would divorce after the 1964 election when divorce could no longer hurt the president. Marilyn, who had bedded, wed, and divorced arguably the nation's greatest athlete the greatest playwright (Arthur Miller), was regularly having sex with the President. She had his private phone number, much to Jacqueline's disgust. Why would he not divorce and marry her when his political career was over?

Annoyed that she thought the affair was something more, both Peter and Bobby told Marilyn that Jack wasn't going to marry her. His father had an affair with Gloria Swanson, then the nation's most popular actress. Jack was simply doing what his father did.

Tired and depressed, Marilyn spent the weekend before her death at the Cal-Neva Lodge where drugs were plentiful and sex with lodge owners Sam Giancana (secretly) and singer Frank Sinatra, who had official title to the license. There were also rumors that photographs were taken of her, then destroyed on Giancana's orders. Fed up with being used, Marilyn took several pentobarbital capsules, a drug she had used and abused for the previous 15 years. Then she called the Cal-Neva switchboard operator for help. Her stomach was pumped. She was physically fine. Her friends assumed it was another cry for attention.

Marilyn was an old Hollywood story. It had been Judy Garland's unwritten obituary. And though mob guys were using her, this had nothing to do with organized crime. Judy Campbell was still the actress go-between for Giancana and Kennedy. The then little-known Marita Lorenz was based in the Florida Everglades region, working covertly to overthrow Castro for the White House. And a handful of other women, believed to include actress Angie Dickinson, had heard enough White House pillow talk to have as strong a sense of what was taking place as some top government analysts. Marilyn was out of everybody's loop, except when someone wanted fast sex with a fading star.

The ending was sordid but not murder. It was August 4, 1962, and Robert Kennedy and his family had gone to San Francisco. He came down alone to Los Angeles on his own, the Los Angeles Police Department providing light cover as usual. Senior officers knew everywhere he went until he returned to his family.

On the day of her death, a despondent Marilyn opened her apartment to Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawford. The latter was having a dinner party that evening and wanted Marilyn to drop by. It would be a typical Lawford evening - Chinese carry out for the guests to eat out of the cartons. Bobby said he might be there or he might return to San Francisco in the late afternoon. Either way, Peter and Pat Lawford wanted Marilyn to join them.

Marilyn already high on drugs possibly washed down with alcohol had an argument with Kennedy over how she was being treated. Lawford suggested that Marilyn take a pill, get some sleep, and come to dinner refreshed. Then Marilyn was handed a pentobarbitol and this is where the problem began.

Monroe, Kennedy, and Lawford all had prescriptions for the same dosage of the same sleeping pill, the drug of choice during that era, just as the tranquilizer Valium would become a generation later. Each of the three friends was known to keep a container at all times.

If Marilyn accidentally overdosed on pills she took from her own prescription bottle, there was nothing illegal about her death. If she also ingested one or more pills, exactly the same as her own, but from someone else's prescription, the person who shared his/her prescription could be charged with involuntary manslaughter.

In addition, anyone who knew about it-and the conversations were taped by at least Fred Otash, who turned the tapes over to LAPD Chief of Detectives Thad Brown, a longtime friend with political connections - could be charged as an accessory after the fact for remaining silent. The simple act of giving Monroe a pill could have led to demands that either the Attorney General of the United States or his brother-in-law could be charged with a felony.

Marilyn continued to take depressants that day, talking with Peter by phone around 5 p.m. Bobby returned to San Francisco, but the Lawford party was ongoing and Marilyn was wanted. She declined, trying to get some rest by continuing to take the sleeping medication because her usual dose did not seem to be working.

There was another call to the Lawfords at 7:30 p.m. when Marilyn's speech was slurred. Peter, having heard about the previous week when Marilyn had to be "rescued" at the Cal-Neva Lodge, held the telephone by the cord and said to friends, including Producer Joe Naar, "Its phone dangling time with Marilyn."

Eventually Peter, fearing publicity embarrassing to the Kennedys, called Milt Ebbins, Marilyn's manager, who called her lawyer who called her psychiatrist. Four hours passed while everyone worried about image, not Monroe, and by then the drug was so thoroughly absorbed, there was no way to save her even if she was still alive. Marilyn's last call was also the final window of opportunity to help her, though no one knew that.

Naar, a longtime friend of both Peter and Marilyn, offered to go check on her, but Peter refused. He was tired of the melodrama. He took the same drugs and more (and later died from them himself). She would be fine.

Neither Peter nor individuals who are not familiar with drug addiction was the fact that Marilyn's stomach, like those of other drug abusers, became as accustomed to the pentobarbital, chloral hydrate, and other drugs she had routinely been taking for several years as it did to regularly eaten food. This meant that the drugs were rapidly digested and passed into the intestines. An autopsy following a known overdose would find no trace of the pills in the addict's stomach.

Several coroners later reviewed Marilyn's autopsy report written by Coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi. The only ones who disagreed with his findings that Marilyn died of an accidental overdose in the manner of Judy Garland and others were doctors unfamiliar with drug-addict deaths.

The lack of public knowledge and the slow trickle of additional information led to easily countered rumors if anyone checked. For example:

(1) Sam Giancana sent mob hit men after midnight. They taped her mouth shut [Fact: no residue or other trace evidence existed] and gave her a suppository that killed her [at a time when she would have been dead]. (2) An ambulance came and took her to the hospital, then returned her corpse and set the scene [Fact: she was in full livor mortis when officially found. Her blood was pooled in a way that is broken up and not repeated with any body movement.]. (3) The Kennedy family ordered the hit. [Fact: Judy Campbell knew far more than Marilyn. Marita Lorenz knew far more than Marilyn. Angie Dickinson knew at least as much as Marilyn from an ongoing relationship. One died of cancer. The others are still alive.]

The death of Marilyn Monroe, despite fantasy to the contrary, was the greatest Hollywood crime than never happened.

Author's note: The range of interviews conducted included Leon Schwab, Fred Otash, Nick Sevano (Marilyn's friend and Sinatra's manager for 27 years), Joey Bishop, Marita Lorenz, various Los Angeles police detectives, producer Joe Naar, and others. Interviews with now deceased friends and associates are often available in the Marilyn Monroe collection of the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills. Copies of most of Schwarz's interviews and documents, including FBI files obtained under Freedom of Information, are in the Ted Schwarz archives, Special Collections, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

Stephen Post and Jill Niemark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People

Dr. Stephen Post is at the helm of the new breakthrough science connecting being good and doing well. As the president of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, his research on the life-enhancing benefits of caring, compassion, kindness and altruism has been making headlines since the institute's founding in 2001. Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting Research the Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life (Broadway Books) reports the latest findings.

Chapter 1: Find the Fire

If I could take one word with me into eternity it would be "give."

For the past 18 years I've taught medical ethics at Case Western University Medical School, and since 2001 I've run a research institute dedicated to exploring the extraordinary power of giving. We've funded over 50 studies at 44 major universities.

I have one simple message to offer and it's this: Giving is the most potent force on the planet. Giving is the one kind of love you can count on, because you can always choose it: It's always within your power to give. Giving will protect you your whole life long.

Most of us can recall with radiant clarity those moments when giving was receiving, when another's happiness was our own. After 55 years on this earth, I, like you, hold those moments as my most precious. But I also know about the power of giving because, as head of the Institute for Research On Unlimited Love (IRUL), I've funded studies and seen scientific proof. A whole new topography of research is joining pioneering scientists across many disciplines, focused on the traits and qualities that create happiness, health, contentment and lasting success in life. These scientists are discovering the deep, remarkable impact of benevolent behavior on mental and physical health. Personally, I am now convinced that giving is the answer to the malaise that corrodes many lives today, a malaise born of too much "bowling alone," as sociologist Robert Putnam describes our fragmented lives.

You wish to be happy? Loved? Safe? Secure? You want to turn to others in tough times, and count on them? You want the warmth of true connection? You'd like to walk into the world each day knowing that this is a place of benevolence and hope? Then I have one answer: Give. Give daily, in small ways, and you will be happier. Give and you will be healthier. Give, and you will even live longer.

Generous behavior shines a protective light over the entire lifespan. The startling findings from our many studies demonstrate that if you engage in helping activities as a teen, you will still be reaping health benefits 60 or 70 years later. And no matter when you adopt a giving lifestyle, your well-being will improve - even late in life. Generous behavior is closely associated with reduced risk of illness and mortality, and lower rates of depression. Even more remarkable, giving is linked to traits that undergird a successful life - such as social competence, empathy and positive emotion. By learning to give, you become more effective at living itself.

As psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger wrote, "Love cures - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it." This book will show you why giving is scientifically sound advice, and by the time you're finished reading these pages, you'll have many tools for embarking on a healthier, more giving lifestyle yourself.

This Is Romance of a Different Kind

This book has one purpose: to inspire you to a healthier, more giving lifestyle. It offers:

o The latest scientific findings connecting generous behavior and happiness, health and longevity, as well as a look toward future science;

o A practical roadmap in the distinctly different ways of giving available to all of us every day, which allows you to think about daily giving concretely, chapter by chapter;

o Stories of giving, for what is life but a tapestry of stories? We are meaning-making creatures, and stories inspire us;

o A new and unique Love and Longevity scale developed by top scientists, with which you can self-rate your own strengths and gifts;

o Simple, practical suggestions and exercises to help you shift easily and gradually to a life of greater giving.

You'll notice, as you read this book, that when I speak of giving and love, I rarely mention romantic infatuation. What of the face that launched a thousand ships? The rose that, by any other name, would not smell as sweet? The troubadours, music, poetry, art and wars waged because of love?

Romantic attraction is a pleasure-driven passion that carries its own unique brain chemistry, marked by fevered highs and, at times, wrenching lows. When we "fall" in love, infatuation propels us on a tidal wave of overwhelmingly positive feelings, so that we see our beloved as perfection incarnate. This early bliss helps propagate the species - but it tends to be fleeting. Though falling in love is an experience we all cherish, it is not the kind of love that does the heavy lifting in life. Staying in love requires the many expressions of generous behavior that are the core of this book. I have been married for 25 years. It's fair to say that my marriage began with romantic infatuation. Friendship emerged because it had to. After the birth of our daughter, cooperation and tolerance became essential; in fact, the transition to parenthood was one of the most maturing events of my life. But even the new, cooperative friendship that developed as we became parents would not have been enough to hold us together over the decades. A deeper kind of love emerged, one grounded in compassion, hope, forgiveness, loyalty, tolerance, respect.

In every marriage that begins with the dizzying highs of romance, it is the deeper, quieter ways of love that ultimately sustain it. Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant, who has followed the lives of Harvard graduates for half a century, gives the example of a judge who met his wife in high school. At age 65, he reported that his love was "much deeper than at the beginning." At age 77, he said, "As life gets shorter, I love Cecily even more." This book is about that kind of love. And it is giving that renews and sustains love over time.

How Did a Bioethicist End Up Running an Institute on Love?

One evening in the year 2000, at Duke University, a philanthropist named Sir John Templeton sat with me over a friendly cup of tea and suggested I start an institute to study love, and love alone. Sir John is legendary in the investing world for creating one of the most successful stock funds of the last century. His specialty was emerging markets, where stimulating business benefited the local economy. Knighted in 1987 for his achievements, Sir John retired to the Bahamas and began a unique kind of philanthropy. His foundation gives away $60 million a year for both spiritual and scientific endeavors and achievement. His annual Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities offers about $1.5-million a year and has been awarded to everybody from Mother Teresa to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to physicist Paul Davies.

I was a bit floored by Sir John's suggestion. When I came to Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1988 I chose to focus on the needs of Alzheimer's sufferers and their families. I was drawn to these people I call the "deeply forgetful" because I had seen my own grandmother die of Alzheimer's. I knew that even in the haze of dementia, she could still give and receive love - in fact, it was the only language left to her. These patients revealed to me the simple truth that love is our core. I learned a lot about giving from the deeply forgetful and their families, as I traveled around the country holding focus groups. Sir John knew this, and he himself had long been captivated by the idea of unselfish love.

A few months after we'd shared tea, Sir John wrote me to continue the conversation; he asked that I establish a first-class scientific institute to study the impact of love and giving on our lives. Soon after, I sat down with the dean of Case Medical School, Nathan A. Berger, to discuss it. "Nate," I said, "public health is about more than the flu and lead paint and obesity. It's also about benevolence and generosity and hope. Love is actually powerful medicine. We all know that, Harry Harlow told us that half a century ago, but we don't study it enough."

In 1951 psychologist Harry Harlow had offered an extraordinary presidential address at the American Psychological Association. Harlow was one of the first scientists to bring love into the lab. His controversial studies of baby monkeys clinging to cloth-and-wire 'moms' are unforgettable-they showed us how deep and hard-wired the need for affection and warmth is. "Love," Harlow said, "is a wondrous state, deep, tender and regarding ... [and yet] psychologists tend to give progressively less attention to a motive which pervades our entire lives." He challenged the entire audience of his peers, asking why we study hatred, violence, fear, pornography, but not positive emotions.

Nate got my point. Visionaries like Nate and Sir John are rare. And so in 2001, with a generous startup grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love was founded as an independent entity located at Case Medical School.

Many colleagues of mine, even good friends, have been amused by the name of the institute. When you accept a challenge like Sir John's, you've got to shore up a lot of nerve to push it forward. And so I embrace the skepticism I encounter. It's one of the delightful challenges of this kind of work, and increasingly, people have come to take the institute seriously.

When people ask me what the Institute does, I have three answers. The first: we fund pioneering, high-level, empirical research on unselfish love in every aspect from human development and genetics to positive psychology and sociology. The second: Remember what Mr. Rogers said after the September 11 terrorist attacks? He was asked on television what parents should tell their children about the terrorist attack and his simple answer was: "Keep your eye on the helpers." That is what this institute does: it keeps an eye on the helpers, literally studying their good hearts, good works and good lives, and distills lessons for the rest of us to live by.

And the third answer? In the giving of self lies the unsought discovery of self. In other words, when we give, we find our true selves. At the institute, we aid that discovery as we can.

Though we are all flawed in a thousand ways, giving can guide our lives. Philosopher Ruth Groenhout of Calvin College recently asked me, "What would it take to generate a true revolution in scientific and evolutionary thinking so that love could be acknowledged openly and unabashedly?"

How about scientific proof, for starters? The evidence is mounting and as you will discover in this book, it is hard not to be swayed by the new research. Let's replace cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore I am," with the far more benevolent notion, "I love, therefore, I am." Love is not so much taught as transmitted, from good neighbors to parents, children, strangers and saints. What message could be more important?

Consider the story of Katherine Meyers. In the winter of 1996 she met a homeless man named Marvin on the streets of Chicago, and he told her:

"Don't call me homeless. I have a home and it's in my heart." Katherine had just dropped money in Marvin's cup on her morning walk down Michigan Avenue, often called the "magnificent mile" because of its imposing stores and architectural splendor. "As I passed him I felt as if my feet weighed 200 pounds," she recalls. "I couldn't keep walking. I was being pulled back." She turned around and introduced herself. Marvin was born blind, and yet he walked without a cane. "You have eyes in your feet and hands," Kat said, and he reached for her hand and put it on his heart. "And your heart," she added. She sat down and they began to talk. Soon she put her arms around him and as she did so, she noticed that people walking by them were turning away. Kat says, "They were missing out on this man's wisdom. He sat there without judgment or bitterness." She has been working with the homeless ever since. "I've learned that an outstretched hand doesn't always mean, 'Put money here.' Sometimes it means, 'Take my hand. See me in my humanity. Acknowledge me.'"

Giving is a great equalizer. No matter your background - privileged or impoverished, blessed or difficult - the starting place for a life of greater love is within your reach. I think of the life of Susie Valdez, nicknamed the "Queen of the Dumps." Susie was born in the slums of Mexico, dropped out of school in the 10th grade and had four babies in quick succession. Packing just a few possessions, she moved with her children to El Paso, Texas and spent the next 40 years caring for dirt-poor Mexicans. Susie founded a mission, raised funds for two medical centers, mobilized prominent politicians, subsidized schools, and fed as many as 3,000 poor people a day. Many who've met her marvel at her charismatic radiance in the face of so much suffering.

Give love, and you'll discover life in all its force, vitality, joy and buoyancy. In generosity lies healing and health.

The New Science of Love and Health

The remarkable bottom line of the science of love is that giving protects overall health twice as much as aspirin protects against heart disease. If giving weren't free, pharmaceutical companies could herald the discovery of a stupendous new drug called "Give Back" - instead of "Prozac" - and run TV ads about love. The findings of my institute build on pioneers who've come before me - from great philosophers of love like Pitiram Sorokin to path breaking psychologists of happiness like Martin Seligman, the former head of the American Psychological Association, and author of Learned Optimism.

The study of love leaves no person or field of science untouched. For those of us sharing the unfolding of this new field, it is an inspiring time. We are seeing the scientific confirmation of lifelong intuitions. The new research encompasses everybody from Afro-American teenagers to middle-aged Vietnam veterans to churchgoers, atheists and the elderly. It draws on scientists from diverse fields - psychology, evolutionary biology, cross-cultural anthropology, gerontology, epidemiology, public health, religion, and human development. Some researchers are even trying to bring love into the doctor's office, asking physicians to prescribe generous behavior. Adam Hirschfelder is one such pioneer: He heads a new program called Rx: Volunteer, where patients recruited from the Medicare practice of a large HMO in California receive a volunteerism "prescription" from their physicians.

Giving protects the giver at all ages and stages of life. They say only the good die young. Of course, sometimes the good do die young, and we all eventually face sickness from causes that are completely beyond our control or responsibility. But the remarkably good news is that, over the past 10 years, we have about 500 serious scientific studies that demonstrate the power of unselfish love to enhance health, and our new IRUL-funded studies render the picture even more vivid.

Copyright (c) 2007 by Stephen Post, Ph.D., and Jill Neimark. From the book Why Good Things Happen to Good People by Stephen Post, Ph.D., and Jill Neimark, published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House Inc. Reprinted with permission.

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