The Marilyn Tapes

Questions Still Remain About The Movie Star's Death

(CBS) 
It wasn't long before Marilyn caught the eye of a young man who had an idea for a new magazine.

"There is no date on the cover, because I didn’t have enough money for the second issue," remembers Hugh Hefner, the creator of Playboy. He put his money on Marilyn, who appeared in a daring pose.

Hefner says he thinks Marilyn put Playboy on the map. "There is some question as to whether I would be sitting here talking to you if it was not for Marilyn Monroe," he says.

Marilyn was now the sex symbol in America, so it was only fitting that she would gravitate toward another famous symbol: baseball legend Joe DiMaggio.

The pair were a bit of an odd couple. While Marilyn was the sex symbol, Jeanne Carmen says Joe DiMaggio was not only traditional but also quiet.

"They got married too fast," says Summers. "And things started to go wrong rather quickly, partly because they were so different."

Even the honeymoon went wrong - Marilyn left her new husband to entertain thousands of troops on the front lines in Korea. After only nine months, their marriage was over.

Within two years, Marilyn would move from the most famous baseball player to the most renowned playwright of the time, Arthur Miller.

"Marilyn came as close to loving Miller as she ever came to loving anybody," says Summers. "Arthur Miller loved Marilyn Monroe … he was consumed with interest in how she ticked."

Marilyn was complicated. Beneath the Monroe image was a fragile girl named Norma Jean, born out of wedlock and shuttled through 11 foster homes.

"She had almost no relatives, very few friends and she was lonely," says Carmen.

But when Marilyn was hurting, she would throw herself back into her work. In 1958 she was shooting "Some Like It Hot" with Jack Lemmon and her old friend, Curtis.

Marilyn's performance would earn her a Golden Globe Award.

But behind the scenes, Curtis noticed cracks in the veneer. "I knew there was something disturbing her. For some inexplicable reason, she was going down the wrong path and no one knew it," he remembers.

In 1961, Monroe and Miller's marriage also ended in divorce.

Marilyn suffered through bouts of depression; there were hospital stays and a growing dependency on sleeping pills. Summers says Monroe saw the pills as a kind of escape.

But Marilyn’s life had already taken a dramatic turn: She was about to enter a triangle of fame and power that would forever add to the mystery of her death. She met President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

A house on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif. would hold the secrets of the last chapter in Marilyn's life.

At the time the house, Summers explains, was the home of JFK's brother-in-law Peter Lawford and his wife, Pat Kennedy Lawford - the president's sister.

Lawford was an actor who moved in a glittering celebrity circle. His home was known as the western White House, and Marilyn was just one of the famous friends who would be invited when the president was in town.

"Based on your research, is there any doubt in your mind whatsoever that Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy had a sexual relationship?" Van Sant asked Summers.

"No. I don’t doubt that at all," he replied. "I think that comes to us from enough sources that we can be confident of it."