Next week marks what would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday.
The occasion has sparked renewed interest in the screen icon’s turbulent life and times.
Of course, Marilyn is different from other stars of her era in that the public’s fascination with her brief career has never really waned.
But despite the decades of scrutiny, new claims are still being made about Marilyn, and the latest involves the other biggest star of the 1950s.
Yes, according to Byron Raphael, a friend and employee of Elvis Presley’s, the King of Rock and Roll and the Queen of the Silver Screen enjoyed a “glorious” one-night stand.
“Elvis had never seen Marilyn, then in the early summer of 1960, the two most explosive and legendary sex symbols of their era sized each other up in the street in front of a soundstage at Twentieth Century Fox, and came away unnerved,” a source close to the situation recently told Radar Online.
In newly resurfaced comments, Raphael recalled that Elvis approached Marilyn “in his usual self-deprecating way, his soft baritone edged in southern charm” and said, “‘Hello, my name is Elvis Presley. How are you, Miss Monroe?’”
“Elvis asked her if she would like to come to a party that he was giving the next night,” Raphael shared with Alanna Nash, author of Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him.
“She looked at the guys and said ‘I’m sorry. I can’t, but thank you’ and kind of dashed away. He was very embarrassed, but I think she turned him down because she felt it was too public,” he added.
At the time, Monroe was married to the legendary playwright Arthur Miller, but according to Raphael, the marriage “wasn’t going well.”
“But, as marriages go in those days, in New York, you had to be very careful, because there was fault divorces, rather than no-fault divorces,” Raphael explained.
“Adultery could not only mean money, but tremendous scandal.”
Raphael claims he was there on the fateful night when Elvis and Marilyn crossed paths for the second time — and tumbled into bed together.
“They came together and, without saying a word, started kissing,” Raphael recalled.
“I was in shock and I didn’t know what to do. Then Marilyn, who was about 10 years older, said, ‘You’re pretty good for a guitar player.’ “After two minutes, they went into the bedroom, and I didn’t know if I was supposed to leave, or stay and wait for them, so I sort of just dozed off.”
But Raphael was “startled awake” by the bedroom door opening and Elvis and Marilyn walking out “stark naked.”
While it was certainly (allegedly) a night to remember, Raphael says he never mentioned it to another soul while Presley and Monroe were still alive.
“A few days later, when I mentioned Marilyn to Elvis, he said, ‘She’s a nice gal, but a little tall for me,'” he said.
“I knew that this was the sort of thing that could ruin their careers. They were two of the most famous people in the world, and Marilyn was still married to Arthur Miller at the time — so I never said a word.”
It’s a testament to the enduring power of Marilyn’s legacy that 64 years after her death, claims about her love life can still make headlines.