Mimosa

Ralph Roberts, actor, masseur, and former Pentagon liaison, could frequently be found in the kitchen of Lee Strasberg's NYC apartment on Central Park West. One pleasant spring morning he by chance met Marilyn. Not the turned-on public persona of Marilyn Monroe he had crossed paths with in the past, but the honest, casual Marilyn who existed outside the public eye. Thus set in motion the beginnings of a deep friendship that forever changed Ralph, and unquestionably altered the course of his life. The next several years saw him in the Nevada desert with Montgomery Clift and Clark Gable, at the NYC apartment of Lester Markel, grilling at Frank Sinatra's hilltop home, and on the phone with President Kennedy. Ralph saw Marilyn almost daily, and served as a sympathetic ear and a close friend. He was fiercely protective of his friend and her privacy. This book is a collection of Ralph's recollections, and a rare and intimate view of Marilyn as the person she was when the cameras were off. Years after her untimely passing, fed up with the many falsehoods printed about his friend, and with the encouragement of Lee Strasberg and May Reis, Ralph set out his honest account of Marilyn Monroe's last years.