Illustration by John Paul Leon.

Browsing and checking E mails in the WeHo library, West Hollywood film director Philippe Mora stumbled upon FBI files that indicated Marilyn Monroe's death was not suicide. He tells his tale here in a WeHo News exclusive. See a comic book treatment of his story below the article.

[Editor's note Marilyn Monroe had strong ties to West Hollywood. Her former apartment in WeHo just went up for sale]

We dropped into the West Hollywood Library to browse. I got onto one of the computers there to check my email.

Nothing interesting; I was researching a film about the sixties and so then I went to the FBI site to browse through files on sixties celebrities.

Philippe Mora standing in front of the West Hllywood library the day he stumbled across the Marilyn Monroe FBI files that shook the world.

I did not know at the time that sporadically, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI releases files into the public domain. However, it normally did not say when or what will be released.

In an index of celebrities of all kinds on the FBI’s site I saw Marilyn Monroe’s name; she was a character in my documentary film that was nothing if not a tragic icon of the early sixties.

I opened the files.

A file named "Robert Kennedy" inside her file said he had been in her house the morning of her death; he had then flown to San Francisco and called Peter Lawford and asked, ”Is she dead yet?”

This file was initialed by various high up FBI executives close to Hoover and had been opened a few times according to dates on the file - and was now released again.

My reaction was WTF?! Almost immediately my eyes popped out of my head like in a Robert Crumb comic or early Mad Magazine.

Dominic looked at me and said, “Dad, what’s wrong?”

The file was sordid, horrible and frightening.

Either a sleeper fake planted by Kennedy haters or startling history. Either way, why was it buried?

Various parts were blacked out. I emailed my editor in Sydney, Paola Totaro, a prominent journalist (who later became Vice President, Foreign Press Association in London).

“Where are you?” She emailed.

Illustration by John Paul Leon.

“I am in the West Hollywood Library but inside the FBI on the Internet,” I replied. I emailed the file to her.

Within minutes she emailed back basically saying, “Don’t move; our lawyers are all over this right now. You got this from inside the FBI itself, right?”

“Yes right!”

Moments later she said this is front-page stuff, legally cleared, etc. - go and write about it.

Sydney is 17 hours ahead of LA.

The story appeared on the Sydney Morning Herald’s March 17, 2007 front page: FBI files link Kennedy to Monroe death.

Saturday early morning in LA my phone was ringing off the hook.

The Drudge Report had picked up the story and then it exploded over the world in every major paper in London, Paris and Moscow, Germany and on and on.

CNN, Fox, ABC news shows all wanted an interview. Fox sent a car to pick me for a Gerald Rivera interview. CNN sent a car over. Good Morning America wanted me to fly to NY but I couldn’t do it.

In London all the major papers picked up the story. According to an executive at ABC pressure was on to stop the story in the U.S, but internationally and on the net, the story was well and truly out.

Ironically, I was a long time JFK/Camelot fan.

In 1978 I started making a film called The Times They Are A-Changin’ (with Bob Dylan’s permission to use that title), about the sixties and its social and political convulsions.

It quickly became apparent to me that the murder of JFK really started that part of the sixties associated with total loss of faith in the establishment.

Pamela and Philippe Mora in their West Hollywood apartment (which, BTW, was once rented by Cary Grant). Photo by WeHo News.

If JFK could be murdered in that fashion then the powers that be had failed. It was the end of innocence.

I sought and got permission from the Zapruder family to use the famous film. I found a reverse angle on the assassination and saw a moving object on top of a vehicle on the grassy knoll that could have been a person.

The rough-cut was screened for producer David Puttnam, executives at Casablanca Filmworks and Columbia Pictures including Bill Tennant, Columbia boss Dan Melnick and an incoming boss at Columbia who was replacing Melnick.

The film began with great color home movies of JFK, Jackie and family in a montage with Richard Burton singing “Camelot.” It was simple and effective.

Then the deluge of assassinations and chaos, Vietnam, psychedelics, cultural and political trauma.

Shortly after screening the producer David Puttnam and I were locked out of our office and cutting room respectively and the film completely stopped.

I am no stranger to controversy but looking back I sense that Marilyn’s story is still highly charged.

As the Monroe files story expanded across the media clearly public interest in her remains undiminished after over half a century. The questions still remain.

The saga continues. As recently as August 2 this year, the Associated Press and then international papers reported that some FBI files on Monroe had gone missing.

The icon and the news of her possible murder certainly thundered around the world from that little West Hollywood library.