I'LL NEVER FALL IN LOVE AGAIN : JOHNNIE RAY

Johnnie Ray composed this song, as he had some others.  Said to be his last hit, the singing sensation almost always had a song on the charts in the 1950's. Had he and his music gone out of style because the era of rock and roll was coming in, with Elvis Presley?  Or had he dodged many a controversy because of his sexuality?  Or was it a combination of all these things, and his drinking?  

JOHNNIE RAY IS SHOCKED BY DOROTHY'S DEATH : HE MUST GO ON - THE ROAD, IN LIFE

Once Johnnie Ray and Bill Franklin were a couple and in a star-manager relationship, and Johnnie's health began to restore, the two of them went to live in Torremelios, Spain,  not yet a resort, and lived a simple and affordable life. Johnnie had wanted to quit the show business treadmill he was on.  At this point he was 38 years old and had given up drinking knowing the cirrhosis could kill him. Actually most people would have died as much as he drank.

"That he was still unable to sleep even after this average daily elbow bending and pill popping regimen is an ugly insight to the myriad tensions, pressures, anxieties and mental snares that assailed him.  Johnnie's life was an exercise in extremes, unimaginable emotional zeniths, the rise and plunge of glorious rapture and shattering torture.  His anguish, like his capacity for intoxicants, was beyond comprehension. (page 313).

"Like New York, Dorothy Kilgallen had also changed.  Johnnie was shocked when they met face to face.  Dorothy was obviously deteriorating - her face was puffy, her figure was shot.  She had gained quite a bit of weight and seemed weak; her bearing and gait were stilted, her speech was no longer the tuneful silvery voice of Broadway, but closer to labored, thick-tongued voice of the Bowery.  Dorothy's passion and principals ranj as high, true and clear as ever, but her mental clarity and standards of practice were also degenerating.  (Page 318) 

She had also taken up with a new lover, the one that author Mark Shaw thinks may have cooperated with the Mafia to murder Dorothy.

Johnnie was trying to make a return (ie. not called a comeback) changing his show song list.  When he restarted his return with a show at The Latin Quarter in 1965, Dorothy was back stage for every show. After this success, bookers will calling from all over, and Johnnie agreed to perform in Las Vegas at the Tropicana. He was now mod in his appearance, upgrading to the 1960's with tossled hair and the picture of health.

Dorothy and her husband were also experiencing financial problems like never before.  So she took a paid "press junket" to Vegas in order to see Johnnie perform there.  It was important to Johnnie that she be there to show her support.  At the same time she was, as an investigative journalist, independently investigating the President John F. Kennedy assassination.

Bill Franklin took her calls and said she was using a "Little Girl Lost" voice.  He thought drugs were taking over her life. (Page 423-324)  Still, she arrived dressed beautifully to hear him sing and show her support.

"Dorothy spent four days in Las Vegas.  Between her boundless passion and limited time, Bill felt even more uncomfortable that he had as part of a trio in New York. "We all saw a lot of each other, and there were times when Johnnie and she went out alone.  She would come out to the house one night, Johnnie would go to her hotel the next," he said.  "I kind of felt in the middle there... a lot in the middle.  That happened a lot with her anyway, but it seemed she was feeling like maybe Johnnie didn't love her like she thought he should."  (page 326)

After the success of The Tropicana, Bill still had to search out more bookings for Johnnie.  On the night that Dorothy died, Johnnie wanted to watch "To Tell The Truth," another television game show on which there were mystery guests. Dorothy was one of the mystery guests and the show had been taped previously.

"We had lunch on the Sunset strip," Jimmy Campbell recalled.  "And John picked up the newspaper, opened it up and there was the headline: 'Dorothy Kilgallen Dies In Her Sleep.'  Jesus Christ -- he almost fainted on the spot.

He said, 'Wait a minute now ... and started crying like a baby.  He cried for real. She was a good lady, man.  Good to him, good to me, good to all of us," Campbell's voice tapered to near silence with the recollection.  "We got back up to the house, we're both crying now, and John says, 'Give me a drink.' We got drunk.  They were close, man, really tight.  She was one of the best friends he had.

"After he got done crying about it, he got pissed off." Campbell said, "John didn't believe she died of natural causes.  He said, 'I ain't gonna tell you everything that I know about what Dorothy knows, but I don't believe she just laid down and went to sleep like that.' He didn't tell me the whole story though.  Never would.  I asked him that day and he just said, 'It's dangerous to know what Dorothy knows." (pages 332-333)

Dorothy's funeral in New York in 1965 took place at St. Vincent Ferrer, the same Roman Catholic church she had been married in. A couple thousand New Yorkers showed up. Johnnie watched the news coverage on television and cried.

"John went berserk when Dorothy died," Jim Low said. "That just tore him apart.  I''' never forget it.  He was always very high on her, thought the world of her." The loss was a brutal, devastating blow that smashed Johnnie's life apart." (page 347)

Missy here!  This is the only reference to Johnnie's reaction to his lover's death I could find and I'm glad to know that his feelings for her were genuine.

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JOHNNIE RAY HAS OTHER MEN and DOROTHY : HUSBAND RICHARD FINALLY CONFRONTS THE COUPLE : THE PASSIONATE LOVE AFFAIR ENDS

Notes and Excerpts:

It seems that Dorothy's understanding that Johnnie was bisexual may not have been any more sophisticated than his own understanding of it.  He had other men, some living with him at his home, while he had his passionate affair with Dorothy.  According to this book, she was jealous of other women but not these other men. She even went out with him and some of his men on the town. Perhaps she didn't know he was not sexually loyal to her. While some of these men might have been leeching off Johnnie and tagging along on their dates, Dorothy may have become clingy at this point in their affair. It's reported that Johnnie avoided some of her phone calls and did not want to have her over, creating a boundary there for his other personal life. She might not have thought him capable of sexuality with anyone else, because he spent so much time with her. 

Unlike with her husband, she was sexually fulfilled with Johnnie.  

As 1960 went on, Dorothy found that her celebrity had caused a curiosity about her that was resulting in media interest as well.  She found herself roasted in some media and took to having to defend herself.

While some people were horrified by her affair with Johnnie Ray, there were those who genuinely liked her and liked Johnnie, separately and as a couple. One man said, 'He is so kind, so innately generous... "  However, people who were in the know felt she was not being realistic about there being a future for her with the much younger singer. Johnnie might have lead her to believe he wanted a future with her too. There were those in his camp who thought she was not good for him. By 1962, the hard drinking with Johnnie had taken a toll on Dorothy's health as well and she may have been checking into hospitals to withdraw from not only alcohol but pills too! It's thought that her heath went downhill after this. (And the portrayal of Dorothy as in need of rehab in this book makes the idea that she could not have died of an overdose a bit more realistic.)

'One night in early 1963, Dorothy, Johnnie, Allen, and a large group of frolickers did the town in several limousines. They all drank heavily.  While the rest of the group returned to Johnnie's, the singer and the columnist went off on their own.

They stopped at the Left Bank (Richard's restaurant) and, with Richard present, they necked.  Richard attempted to ignore the situation. They were at a table and he was at the bar. His bartender watched the couple until he could tolerate it no longer and whispered to Richard, "Are you just going to stand here and let her humiliate you like that?"

Richard ordered another drink and said nothing.

Johnnie took Dorothy home to her town house. The two of them were fondling in the Black Room when Richard, bold with booze, burst in on them.

He screamed at Johnnie:  "I'll kill you if I ever see you with my wife again."

"That is entirely her decision," Johnnie said.

"I want you out of here and out of her life," Richard raged.

As Johnnie put on his jacket and prepared to leave, Dorothy, her entire face trembling, begged; "I want to go with you now. Please take me with you. I don't want to be in this house anymore."

Johnnie recalled the episode and all the reasons he marshaled against her desperate imploration: "I thought very fast. I knew that if she were to walk out - and she was ready - everything would collapse for her. I explained to her that she'd lose the column, the television show, everything she had worked a lifetime to achieve. She said she didn't care about any of it.  And I thought about Kerry. I told her, "I'm gonna have to walk out and leave you here.' (page 347)

And though she begged, Johnnie, aided by his friends, tried to make the final cut with Dorothy, who even threatened to kill herself. No doubt she was obsessed with him. Is obsession love? I wonder who hasn't had an experience like this. Dorothy ended up hospitalized and the Dorothy and Dick radio program ended after many years. This passage in Lee Israel's fine autobiography of Dorothy leaves me to think that the marriage was not an agreed-upon Open marriage and that she did have a serious drinking problem and was also psychologically unwell. By mid 1964 Johnnie had moved on and Dorothy had accepted the situation.  (That Richard threatened to kill Johnnie and the idea that he had cause, made Richard Killer a possible murder suspect when Dorothy was found dead, however this is not explored in Israel's book.)  Johnnie Ray became involved romantically with the younger man who came into his life to rescue or revive his career.  As it turned out, Dorothy flew to Las Vegas to see him perform shortly before she died, and this was the last she saw him.

 

Over the last few weeks we have learned so much about the woman Dorothy Kilgallen, who was willing to give it all up to be with her lover, Johnnie Ray, while the book by Mark Shaw is focused on her as an investigative reporter. What I want to know is if Johnnie Ray accepted that Kerry was his son and if he was at least a friend to him.

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DOROTHY KILGALLEN'S AFFAIR WITH JOHNNIE RAY: SHE BIRTHS A THIRD CHILD AND THE FATHER IS NOT LIKELY HER HUSBAND :

 Notes and Excerpts:

Dorothy was competitive by nature and liked to win, so when she became a panelist on the television game show What's My Line, she was respected, if not enjoying a camaraderie with her fellow panelists; their various personalities made the show, which involved guessing the profession (i.e. line of work) of a guest. Her career in reportage continued. In 1953 she covered the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II wearing 'a voluminous gown with more than fourteen thousand embroidered jewels and pearls that were encrusted at the scalloped neckline.  She placed a tiara on her head, put on her white mink cape lined in silver lame, grabbed some pencils, and was off to Westminster Abbey. ... Dorothy's apparent fragility continued to bring out the chivalric in the male animal... (page 238)

(With her husband Richard Kollmar's endeavers in the theater and a restaurant called The Left Bank, he was rarely around. She was tremendously busy too. However, she did not want to be seen socially without a male escort and usually found one.  As for Richard, as he hit middle age, he was rarely totally sober and began to bloat while Dorothy was healthy and energetic. She found other men attractive and had lost respect for her husband. Never the less, the couple bought a five story town house right off Park Avenue, a another upgrade in housing, this one taking most of their income. They had been married fourteen years.)

Excerpt: 'The union that produced their third child was suspiciously identifiable. They were late for a dinner party at the Boscowitzes, offering a flushed and clearly bogus excuse.  Hubie and Lillian giggled at their embarrassment and could pinpoint, years later, the evening Dorothy had conceived. ... He was named Kerry after a county seat in Ireland and Ardan for an Irish warrior who, Dorothy wrote, "was said to have the most beautiful singing voice in all Erin.' (page 253)

'In the early part of 1956, Johnnie Ray appeared on 'What's My Line? as a guest celebrity.  The twenty-nine year old singer, sandy-haired and boyishly lanky, was still headlining in clubs, though the hysteria of the early 1950's had cooled. He remained, however, one of Dorothy's pet-pailletted crushes.  Endsville!' (page 278) 

(After this evening, the two saw each other socially and she started being nice to him in her columns. She was 44 and this was her first affair. They even went to The Left Bank restaurant together but she never joined him when he went on the road to tour.)

'Johnnie did not possess the polish and panache to which Dorothy had gravitated all her life.  He was tender, guileless, show-biz smart but essentially neither intellectual nor verbal... (page 279)

'Johnnie, Johnnie, Johnnie lit up the life she had.  She mentioned him so often and so effusively in the column that he had to tel her to cool it. (page 280)

'She came to Johnnie with staggering emotional and physical appetites  She had not had any sexual relations with Richard for years... (page 283)

'Johnnie was fond of Dorothy and attracted to her, and a bit in awe.  He did not have the macho peer problem that turned so many men off. That she was not regarded by the community as beautiful did not affect his feeling for her or his pride in being seen with her... "She was probably the most feminine woman I've ever known, " Johnny said. "And I always thought she was a pretty lady - the softest thing you ever touched...' (page 283)

'She bought him gifts from Bergdorf's and Cartier including a pair of cuff links with diamonds and sapphires, which he was afraid to wear because of their value.  He sent her lavender roses when he could get them from his little corner florist. "They were almost steel-blue and gorgeous,  I think they were brought in from Holland...  She was as sentimental as a pop tune.  Johnnie was constantly receiving surprise packages... (pages 286-287)

(Some of her friends didn't like him and some dumped her. After some time Dorothy and Johnnie became less discreet. They were excessively together and sometimes openly affectionate.  People thought Dorothy had radically changed.  Johnnie considered himself heterosexual and Dorothy thought of homosexuals as feminine men, which Johnnie was not.)

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RICHARD'S WOMANIZING MADE DOROTHY VULNERABLE TO JOHNNIE RAY

Notes and Excerpts:

By 1950 Dorothy Kilgallen and husband Richard Kollmar were settled in the good life, a life that many could only dream of.  They had rich friends to visit and enjoy. They took vacations to Latin America, the islands of Greece, Rome and Paris. They went to church on Sunday and then to exclusive clubs like The Stork, bringing along the children. Their two children were enrolled in private schools and had a governess.

As a couple they were broadcasting a show together on the radio,  Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick, which brought in enough money for them to live in a sixteen room Park Avenue apartment with a lavish interior. They threw great parties, especially for New Years Eve and their wedding anniversaries, that included dancing to orchestras and costume balls. They appeared to be a perfect couple, still had a good time, still had so much in common. 

And as a Catholic, Dorothy believed in forever marriage.

However:

'Richard's whoring was common knowledge among the cognoscenti in New York - as commonly known as Dorothy's fidelity.  He brought his women to some parties given by Charlotte Manson, who was now a successful radio actress. "He would call me to tell me about his newest," Charlotte Manson recalled. "He would all of a sudden appear at my apartment with them.  It was unforgivable." (page 198)

"Edgar Hatfield arranged the financial settlements for his old school chum when pregnancies resulted.  A famous stripteaser was one of the several women whom Richard inconvenienced.  Hatfield thundered, "The least you can do is take some kind of precautions!"

"I can't be bothered," Richard replied...' (page 199)

(Though Dorothy is thought to have never complained, at least one old friend got a desperate call from her.  The couple began to live separate lives.)

Dorothy's journalism career was such that millions read her Voice of Broadway column as syndicated through the Hearst organization. She was not always kind to those she didn't like so a sometimes critical voice was apparent in what she wrote, and sometimes stars were nice to her just to maintain a good word. 

'...In 1952, however, emerged, at the dawning of the corseted Eisenhower years, a twenty-five year old farm boy named Johnnie Ray. Johnnie had been singing professionally for seven years when his record, "Cry," flip side "The Little White Cloud That Cried," jumped onto the charts and sold two million copies for Columbia, making it the second biggest hit in the company's history.  With a hearing aid protruding from one ear, the deafness resulting from an accident at a Boy Scout jamboree back in Oregon, he looked like a pale, anguished El Greco saint. There was a Kol Nidre choke in his voice, and a demented, revivalist abandon in his performance.  He jumped, wept, thumped, whispered, knelt, and contorted in a way that no white performer had done before.' (page 221-222)

'It was Dorothy, in fact, who was astonished by her own response to the young singer as she witnessed his performance for the first time. (At the Copacabana, New York City.) (page 222)

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Just an end note that on page 148 it's noted that Richard co-produced a Broadway play with his then partner Alfred Bloomingdale.  At the time Alfred, who's Mistress Vicki Morgan was the Mistress of the month in March 2016. VICKI MORGAN :  MONEY MAD MISTRESS OF ALFRED BLOOMINGDALE :  WAS SHE REALLY SO "BAD" WHEN SHE STUCK BY HIM ON HIS DEATHBED? was only twenty-eight grandson of the founder of the famous Bloomingdale's department store. However, the work on the show was actually the doing of RIchard, as Alfred seems to have been a passive partner or investor. I also want to mention that Richard was not a career failure overall, that he worked in a speculative business.  It's just that his wife, Dorothy Kilgallen's career was so outstanding comparatively. 

DOROTHY KILGALLEN THE AMERICAN 'PRINCESS' WHO COVERED CORONATIONS AND QUEEN ELIZABETH'S ROYAL WEDDING GETS MARRIED TO AN BLUE BLOOD

 

Notes and Excerpts from Kilgallen by Lee Israel

(This is about Dorothy as someone who wanted to be with the rich.)

'Dorothy knew the rich were different. She liked the difference. And she genuinely liked the rich... There was a gauzy, ethereal quality about her...' (page 101)

'Single-handedly, she covered the coronation of George VI for the Journal, filling the entire front page of the paper for days with background stories, profiles, hard news of the coronation and all related social functions. On the Queen Mary and in London, she learned about keno, plover's eggs, curtsies, the proper response to royalty, and the significance of royal ribbons... '

(page 102)

'It is well within the realm of possibility that in Dorothy's perplexing psyche, dusty with moonbeams and communion wafers, she was actually seeing these professional events as a kind of social baptism...' (page 103)

'Dorothy had never been ashamed of her family or her household. Brooklyn was another matter. When she became The Voice of Broadway, she persuaded the family to move into Manhattan...' (page 108)

(Dorothy began to socialize with debutantes younger than she.)

'It was easy to like Dorothy socially.  She was a generous friend and a pleasant companion.  Her manners were impeccable.  She never gossiped or bad-mouthed anyone.  She liked her new life.  She loved her job.  She was proud of the columns she was turning out, though never boastful. She had an innocence that the worldly found amusing, a flight, gesticulating insecurity that the more sensitive of her friends found poignant... (pages 112-113)

(And as for the man she did marry, RIchard Kollmar...)

'He proposed on their sixth date, the courtship having been interrupted while he left town with the show. Dorothy told him that she wanted very much to be his wife, but that the problem of religion had first to be solved. Richard was an Episcopalian, and she would not consider marrying outside the Church. He would have to convert... (pages 116-117)

(His mother objected strongly, his father was softer. He did convert. RIchard then formally asked Dorothy's father for permission to marry her.)

'She wanted "Cholly Knickerbocker" to break the news of her engagement on the Society page.  He did, stressing Richard's generational high marks..." (page 124)  (Cholly was a famous society and goings-on-around-town columnist based in New York City.)

(Dorothy went on to brag about Richard's heritage.)

'The simplest conclusion about the relationship between Dorothy and RIchard is drawn often and harshly by many who knew both of them. RIchard, a striving actor, saw Dorothy, a powerful columnist and thought "That will get me where I want to go," and pursued her. It is a view that appears to redound most negatively upon him, but, in fact, makes a pitiable, foolish, and desperately vulnerable woman of Dorothy.  It is a view held by many who loved her, but nonetheless perceived her as an extraordinarily unattractive woman for whom a noticeable attractive man could not conceivably have had genuine feeling. To hold that view of their relationship is to fail to recognize that power can be as vitally aphrodisiacal when it is held by a woman as when it is held by a man.  Even if Richard did perceive  Dorothy as a kind of powerhouse, it is quite likely that he was aroused by that power.  

 (pages 124-125)

(Dorothy and Richard had a wedding with 800 guests, some of them Hollywood celebrities, many of them rather new to her life. They had a reception at the Viennese Room at the Saint Regis Hotel and then went on a honeymoon to Cuba.)

...'the bride and groom left to honeymoon in Varadero, Cuba.  The entire honeymoon package was a diplomatically wrapped gift presented to Dorothy from the North American gambling syndicate that supported General Gulgencio Batista.' (page 130)

(Cuba at the time was not ruled by Fidel Castro and was in fact a popular resort.)

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THREE MISTRESS MAY COMING UP!

Hello My Readers, 

May 2023 is going to be a bit different than most months here at Mistress Manifesto. 

For the first few days of the month - and then the last few - I'm going to post on two women who have been Mistress of the Month... I bet you can guess at least one of them!  The other?  That Mistress of the Month is back in the news because of a special documentary, her own project!

In between, please continue with me as we explore the Alternative Lifestyle of the famous reporter and "What's My Life" television celebrity, Dorothy Kilgallen, whose life may have been ended in murder - the modern version of poison - an overdose.  Was her husband a suspect? Had she managed to shame him with her long term love affair with bisexual pop singer Johnnie Ray? Or, perhaps was it that she was so close to the truth about who had assassinated President John F. Kennedy and someone wanted to stop the truth from coming out?  Mark Shaw, the author who wants to get justice for Dorothy, has worked hard at it.  I feel I can do my part here and, who knows, maybe YOU have information for him that can make a difference.

If you've just hit on this post, or this blog, first, we began the famous Dorothy Killgallen saga in May 2022, so you may want to go back a little to start.

As well, I encourage you to read back a few months. Perhaps you'll find the story of someone who was just like YOU!

Missy

JOHNNIE RAY in HOLLAND CONCERT 1958

22 March 1958 at Avro Studio, Hilversum, Holland.  He was a unique talent and this performance is terrific.  Imagine Dorothy sitting in the audience, so prim but ready to jump out of her skin. Ray's popularity continued to be strong in Britain, even as it dimmed in the United States.

  

Ray was an actor in one film, "There's No Business Like Show Business.  The cast included Marilyn Monroe.  Dorothy Kilgallen was friendly with Marilyn.

DOROTHY KILGALLEN's AFFAIR IS ALL THE GOSSIP IN NEW YORK : EXALTED LOVE OR JUST ONE MORE FOR JOHNNIE?

More notes and excerpts:
 
"Their relationship, whether locked away in Johnnie's bedroom or sharing a table at The Colony or the Plaza, was extremely physical. One evening at El Morocco, Johnnie was seen to remove Dorothy's shoe and his her foot..." (page 226)

"When Johnnie turned 30 in 1957, Dorothy spent days arranging a "Progressive Party," with reservations for dozens of guests at seven different clubs and restaurants... (page 226)

"She had the bus decorated, and everyone was served cocktails between stops.  The first course was served at the Colony, the second at Le Pavillon, and then the St. Regis, only the best...  "And at every spot, there were place cards that she had gone over and arranged that day, so you would be sitting next to a different person at every place we went to... (page 227)

"The delicacy of carrying on the affair was a complex matter of masquerade and reliance on high society's basically hypocritical amoralism and strictly nominal discretion.  The only aspect of the subterfuge that bothered Dorothy was reconciling it with her faith's restrictive dogma. No problem, with Johnnie in on it.  "We came to terms with the Catholic problem, he said, "Once we decided to ahve some kind of commitment, it resolved itself, though it didn't resolve itself in terms of her mother finding out." 

(page 227)

Sadly, while continuing to perform at the hottest clubs in the country, Johnnie also had surgery to repair his long-damaged hearing.  The surgery was a total failure, making him even more deaf, but was promoted as a success, and he went on without a hearing aid and fooled the public. (But what a horror that had to be!)  Johnnie persevered.

The couple did have friends who acted to keep the affair discreet but as the two of them drank to excess, they began to be less careful.  Was it an unashamed display of love and passion or the alcohol? One friend said he saw them both passed out in a doorway...  Yet, Dorothy Kilgallen was also known for her professionalism, for showing up ready to work and doing a great job. So, one wonders, did she work with terrible hang-overs or were the stories of their drinking exaggerated?

As Johnnie aged, his management sought to find ways to invest and preserve his money, Johnnie also honored his professional commitments. His relationship with Dorothy may have been what preserved him in his personal life.

"This chicanery was primarily wool to mask Kollmar's bloodshot eyes.  The situation, however, was not that simple -- Dorothy did her fair share of looking the other , and ignoring Johnnie's "With Love From Your Little Man" ID bracelet was the least of her worries. Throughout their affair, Johnnie had several concurrent male lovers, a number of whom actually shared the 63rd Street apartment (his place) with him. (page 246)

Dorothy's heath began to fail, it is supposed because of the alcohol, and she was hospitalized or had to take time out of her work more than once. These hospitalizations may have been rehabs or nervous breakdowns. Johnnie's physical and mental health were also jeopardized and he began to look a bit skeletal.  He was being pulled in several directions.

She had thought Johnnie needed new management and had a number of suggestions that were meant to be helpful. New management came with Bill Franklin, who then became Johnnie's lover.

"They fell for each other hard, initiating what became the most intense and long-lived relationship with another man Johnnie ever undertook.  The situation was strange.  Slipping around behind Dorothy's back was not so extraordinary; doing so as she recovered from a breakdown caused by Johnnie's refusal to commit was rather unsavory," (page 291-292)

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THE DOROTHY KILGALLEN - JOHNNIE RAY WHIRLWIND AFFAIR - TRUE LOVE FOR THE FIRST TIME?

It's difficult to gauge how much having to hid his sexuality with other men effected Johnnie Ray but when Confidential magazine, a celebrity-driven popular magazine known for outing stars, revealed that he was, it was a serious problem circa the early 1950's.  The story also quoted a psychiatrist who said he was a success because his stage antics were abnormal and that he had a "toxic" effect on teenagers. (pages 161-163)

Johnnie's people worked to save his reputation and career. These were not the days to become a Gay Icon. (I have wondered who cut out pages and made remarks on the copy of the book I got as they must have wanted to censor it.) The Johnnie Ray Foundation for Hard of Hearing was set up to change the focus on the man, to acknowledge his hearing loss, and set him up to be more of a hero.  No doubt about it, Johnnie Ray was a trooper and would always be.  Twentieth Century Fox movie studio signed him up and put him in a movie, There's No Business Like Show Business, that included in its cast, Marilyn Monroe.

"Johnnie was friendlier with Monroe than anyone else in the cast.  He first met her during his Ciro's engagement. "she had problems getting a date," Johnnie said. "Because for most men, the fear of being rejected by Marilyn Monroe was just too much for the male ego.  So they didn't ask.  ...   "Women see reflected in me all of the emotion and tenderness that, unfortunately, the American male doesn't have time for today."  (pages 178-179)

Though divorced, ex wife Marilyn Morrison, perhaps never out of love or obsessed with Johnnie, accompanied him to the premier of the film. There was even talk of a re-marriage.

Johnnie's team emphasized his talent, mentioning that he had written over a hundred songs and also was a short story writer who hoped to write a TV show for himself. They also pitched untruths and misinformation aimed at making friends with some of the singers who were considered peers - or maybe competitors - not revealing his love of jazz and blues music.  Scandal magazines continued to take aim at him. He also made television appearances on variety type shows and some of the top comedians took a funnier spin on his performances.  Then in the spring of 1956 he was the mystery guest on the game show, "What's My Line?"  Though in the four years since she first saw him perform in 1952 had included a number of articles in which she was critical of him, Dorothy Kilgallen swooned over Johnnie. She'd lead a glamorous life since 1938 and had been married since 1940. Her marriage was not good. Now Dorothy's columns were pro-Johnnie.

..."No less frequent were surprise gifts, a series of deliveries from the likes of Cartier (a pair of diamond and sapphire encrusted cuff links( and Steuben (crystal decanters engraved "Johnnie's vodka" and "Just Gin." ...  Johnnie reciprocated with bunches of her favorite flowers, the exotic lavender rose. "They were steel blue and gorgeous... (page 212)

"Johnnie's life suddenly gained the context and security it had lacked. With Dorothy at his side, the treat of scandal and opprobrium melted away, as did her own long-stifled yearnings.  Together they walked on air. Even more surprising, to her friends, they walked in Central Park. Dorothy actually went so far as to don slacks for these rambles, a supreme concession.  No stranger to the best-dressed lists..  her staunch high fashion/little lady wardrobe aesthetic was well known as it was influential."  (page 213)

... 'When Dorothy let her hair down, the reversal was positive.  She remained a first-rate journalist, but also became a round-heeled libertine of the highest order.  ... When Johnnie became her lover, the climaxes shared were explosively, incalculably nurturing.  It was an ecstacy which shattered the psychic walls Dorothy had laboriously erected in an attempt to mask her own, beautiful running dog self - the very same moon howling, careless primitive Johnnie had released long before, and built his career on.  Together, Johnnie and Dorothy crashed out of reality and into their personal dimension.  Given the Star Psychology's fantastically presumptuous, narrow-channeled thought process, they indulged themselves in a display of splendid excess." (page 215)

Jonny Whiteside's writing in his book Cry is so creative, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. When it comes to focusing on Dorothy's strange death that silenced her when her dogged determination may have been to reveal the truth of the J.F.K. assassination, however, it is Mark Shaw's book that takes the big prizes.

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NEW STAR JOHNNIE RAY, BISEXUAL, MARRIED MARILYN MORRISON and A FANTASTIC MARION DAVIES PARTY WELCOMES THEM TO HOLLYWOOD

Notes and Excerpts (and my thoughts as I go)!

I was so surprised to learn what I did from reading this book, which I found missing pages and written on: someone who borrowed it before me must have objected to content. 

I learned that, while I'd heard of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley and knew their music, there had been a singer as popular for a decade, who is thought to be the bridge to rock and roll; Johnnie Ray!  It was then my ambition to understand this man and Dorothy Kilgallen as a couple. 

Dorothy and her husband, Richard Kollmar, remained married, not just because of their Catholicism, but for the sake of public reputation and career, for the sake of their children, despite the fact that he was a womanizer and her affair with Johnnie Ray was marriage threatening.

She was a career women with power, a social woman who mixed with people from various walks of life, a woman who had sexual desires as much as she needed companionship, but also a woman who had ambitions and took risks, some which might have ended in being murdered.

According to author Johnny Whiteside, in his book Cry - The Johnnie Ray Story, Ray was promiscuous, bisexual, alcoholic, and endangered his career picking up men while on the road. (This was happening well before Gay Pride, and decades later other stars endangered their careers by similar behavior.) His sexual life included a long affair with Dorothy when in New York.

Johnnie Ray, fourteen years younger than Dorothy - more importantly from a younger, more adventurous generation - had grown up in a loving and supportive family. From a young age, he nurtured his singing talent though an injury had caused him to partially loose his hearing. Considered by some to be a rube from the country because of his down-home heritage, this friendly, handsome man traveled the world giving concerts. He worked hard. 

"The demands of being Johnnie Ray grew ever more intense.  With Bernie's avid encouragements, he began and would maintain for the next decade an average booking schedule of forty-fifty weeks out of the year.  Being Johnnie Ray was akin to riding a carnival tilt - a- whirl for three hundred and fifty consecutive days  The momentous spin, sweeping revolutions, twists, dips, leaps and dives of motion, the blur of colored lights and distorted crowd noise, the blood-churning repetition were a course of action demanding both total relaxation and complete concentration to survive." (page 131)

Even when his fame waned in the U.S., he remained a favorite in Great Britain and Australia. He could "move his audience to tantrums." At a performance at the Copacabana, a sort of variety show, in New York City, on April 1952, the audience included his peers such as Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, but also important media people like Dorothy Kilgallen and Walter Winchell. (Page 111)

"Then he sang "The Little White Cloud That Cried." Johnnie turned on, shifting instantaneously from bashful by to a man scouring the deepest truth from his lyric, one that represented his essential self's totality of emotional understanding. The audience was, as he counted on, completely unprepared. ... His performance, coming after such a mild opener, shocked the house. He flexed, vibrated, shivered.  Every broad, frantic gesture and dramatic pose emphasized the lyric with physical spontaneity that was electrifying. His voice exhilarated them. It filled the collective ear and struck sparks.  When he finished the crowd was "torn from its 'show me attitude' into wild enthusiasm.  When he rose from the piano and dashed onto the floor, pencil mike in hand, they gasped. (Page 112)

Johnnie soon was accepted by Cafe Society in New York, the blue-blood elite, and made the newspapers. He was also earning what would be millions today, traveling and doing shows in major cities and seaside resorts in America and Europe. He was mobbed by female fans, broke attendance records for concerts, and was given exclusive contracts. He was being managed and he was drinking. Drinking tended to bring out a child-like playful side, such as games with water-pistols. 

Dorothy had held back on approval in her columns but then she saw him perform. She had to confess that she had been wrong.

"Dorothy Kilgallen's Voice of Broadway column described Johnnie as "Endsville." (Page 114.) She would continue to give him mentions in a favorable way from that point on.)

However (surprise!) Johnnie had women after him  Mainly one. Her name was Marilyn Morrison and her father was in the entertainment business. Marilyn was determined to marry Johnnie. She knew he had sex with men and thought she could handle that or convert him. Their engagement was announced by a gossip columnist Louella Parsons. (Johnnie may have been advised he should marry - to hone a public heterosexual reputation. Was he actually in love with her? It's said that there was a sense of some acting, some staging, on both their parts. He may have been torn up about being true to himself. Marilyn managed to miss her period, and that is what, perhaps, actually made up his mind. She actually held a press conference to state that he had asked her to marry him several weeks earlier and in May of 1952 they did in fact marry!  (Later in the media it would be announced that she had miscarried. How much was true?) The relationship didn't last a year but they agreed not to file for divorce until 1954.  

Yet there was someone who wanted to see that unconventional relationship work and who wanted to introduce the couple to every celebrity in Hollywood, and that person, was none other than Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst's mistress of many years...

MARION DAVIES THROWS JOHNNIE RAY and NEW WIFE MARILYN AN OUTLANDISHLY SUMPTUOUS HOLLYWOOD PARTY

Marion Davies was close to Marilyn Morrison's father and thought of Marilyn as a honorary niece and so now that Marilyn was married to Johnnie Ray... After years as the mistress of William Randolph Hearst, who, with him, had thrown many a party at San Simeon (Heart's Castle) and her Santa Monica beach house, Marion was ready to throw a party on her own, for Hearst had died in recent months. Her intention was to introduce Johnnie and Marilyn to everyone important in Hollywood, to help his star soar even higher!  Rather than hold this Hollywood/West Coast party at a club, she decided to turn her house in Beverly Hills into a world-class party venue.

"The three-story pink Mediterranean mansion's exterior front wall was torn open and tented, the driveway re-routed and extended so that arriving guests drover their limousines directly into a huge front room where a battery of valets awaited.  In this reception area was a long bar, a scattering of tables and an ancient Roman sarcophagus, freighted down from San Simeon, scrubbed, re-lined and filled with magnums, jeroboams and Methuselahs of champagne.

From that auspicious entry, guests passed through a series of rooms done up as replicas of New York's top night spots, authentic in every detail -- the tableware was flown in from El Morocco, the Stork Club and 21.  These rooms opened onto a sweeping terrace with a one-hundred-foot-long three-tiered pool running through a formal garden. The affair spilled out onto the grounds, where a circus tent was erected near a fish pond.  Even the garden paths were decorated with synthetic grass.

Three orchestras, the Eddie Oliver, Freddy Karger and Harold Stern oganizations, played.  Parisian florists were hired to create centerpieces for the fifty tables; each consisted of seventy-two American Beauty roses.  Eight uniformed Beverly Hills Police provided security, there were a dozen parking attendants and sixty caterers serving fifty pounds of caviar, four hundred pounds of filet mignon, seventy-five turkeys, three hundred and fifty chickens, and fifteen hams The guest list was reported variously as being five hundred, seven hundred and fifty and one thousand celebrities strong, who polished off fifty cases of imported liquor.  (page 138)

Many guests who were used to being spoiled said it was the most fantastic, even over-the-top, party they had ever been to, and then there was their hostess...

"Davies entrance was a moment of high drama; She appeared at the top of a grand staircase, clad in a velvet and lace Don Loper creation, supplemented by over a half million dollars worth of jewels. ... " (page 139)

Johnnie Ray and wife Marilyn then greeted Debbie Reynolds, Joan Crawford, Charleton Heston, Gary Cooper, Lena Horne, Jack Benny, Merle Oberon, Clark Gable... (These were the luminaries of their era in Hollywood but also significantly older than Johnnie and Marilyn. Marion Davies remained connected. Johnnie had been a star for about a year at this time and proceeded to stun audiences at Ciro's and the Hollywood equivalent of the New York clubs.)

The marriage did not work:

"Johnnie and Marilyn's marriage had been a complex construction based on fame and power, desire and fear, put over in all earnestness through the era's typical Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil fashion. It's final stages were played under the same rules of conduct. (page 151)

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My Readers, as time blogging here at Mistress Manifesto goes on, I find that so many of the people I've chosen to write about, people who've had books written about them mostly, cross over in some way.  Marion Davies is one of the most known mistresses and I featured her in July 2013   Go into my archives to read about her! MARION "ROSEBUD" DAVIES : MISTRESS OF NEWSPAPER MAN AND HEARST CASTLE BUILDER WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST is the title of the main page for that month.

Missy

 

JOHNNIE RAY and DOROTHY KILGALLEN : SHE SAVES HIS CAREER and THE COUPLE OPENLY FROLICK - EVEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES KNOWSA BOUT THEM

From my notes:

In 1959 pop singer Johnnie Ray almost ruined his career when he got arrested for soliciting homosexual sex with an undercover cop in Detroit. Dorothy Kilgallen, his lover of a few years by then, and a powerful  newspaperwoman fourteen years older than he and What's My Line celebrity, was sure he had been set up by the police.  According to author Mark Shaw, Dorothy worked behind the scenes to proclaim his innocence.  (I can imagine if Johnnie and Dorothy frolicked openly that there were those who may have thought of Johnnie as heterosexual. I think back in the day people were not as acquainted with bisexuality.)  There was a jury trail and all the people on the jury were women.  He was acquitted.

(Notes from Page 68)

In January of 1961, President Kennedy's inauguration was covered by Dorothy, who had previously taken her son to the White House and visited the President. She showed up in a silver Rolls Royce for transportation and later attended the "Rat Pack" gala that featured Frank Sinatra and his singer pals. (I note from previous research that at the J.F.K. inauguration there were several balls and the new President showed up at all of them but his wife, First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy when home before the night was through, fatigued.) Frank Sinatra and she had a feud in which they threw barbs at each other, with Frank criticizing her facial features, in particular her chin. But they were polite with each other at this event.

Dorothy flaunted her romance with Johnnie and thee "frolicked" at various New York hotspots including the Copacabana and the Stork Club. Her husband Richard still attended some social events with her but was in the grip of alcoholism and was probably embittered at this point. (Richard was never a real suspect in her death, though some thought he had the motivation to kill his wife because she was so openly involved with another man. The question of Dorothy being a drinker comes up, and there are reports that Johnnie also had a drinking problem. Dorothy did drink but not to the point where it interfered in her television appearances, her work as a reporter on trials, and so on.  It would seem she separated her work obligations and duty and her personal life.)

Interested in Frank Sinatra's Mistress who became his wife, Barbara Marx Sinatra?  She's here at Mistress Manifesto! Check Pages to find out what subjects I've covered and when so you can find them in my archives!  BARBARA BLAKELEY MARX - SINATRA : TWICE A MISTRESS - THRICE A WIFE appears in October 2018

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JOHNNIE RAY : DOROTHY KILGALLEN'S AFFAIR WITH THE GENERATION YOUNGER 1950's POP SINGER WHO BOBBYSOXERS THREW THEMSELVES UPON

Dorothy Killgallen was a personality.  She was normally polite and poised but also was known for her ability to have a good laugh. She wore beautiful clothing and was attended to by a personal hairdresser. She had a tremendous career as a journalist and author and was famous, popular, and social. She had a spacious decorated brownstone to live in and on the fifth floor a personal abode she used as an office, which also was furnished with a bed. She earned money, though how much more than Johnnie Ray is not known.  Why did his older married woman who coaxed her beauty appeal to the singer?

According to Mark Shaw:

Excerpt: "When Johnnie Ray, the rangy, handsome, humble son of a devoted mother and mill worker with the golden voice, appeared on What's My Line, Kilgallen was stumped, and not happy about it.  Regardless, backstage the two chatted for better than an hour."  (Page 57) 

(Johnnie appeared at Jill's fourteenth birthday July 16, 1957. Jill, Dorothy's daughter, and her friends were fans of Johnnie, so Dorothy called his agent and asked if he could send over some records for the party. Instead Johnnie himself showed up with an armful of records and entertained them for an hour. I note that by then, the toddler at the house, youngest son Kerry, was probably Johnnie's so I question why she would have to have arranged this with his agent.)

Dorothy asked Ray if he would go see the film An Affair To Remember with her.  

Ray asked Dorothy to a Count Basie concert.  Both Johnnie and Dorothy loved jazz.  After the concert, he took her back stage and introduced her to Count Basie.

In 1958, with Johnnie, Dorothy hosted "63rd Street" parties at his address, a 2000 square foot New York apartment. (Page 64)

Excerpt: "That Kilgallen paraded her romantic relationship with Ray out in the open air may have been risky for others in the entertainment industry but there is no evidence that she was condemned for this illicit affair in any newspaper or magazine article.  To the contrary, Kilgallen was given a pass as if she had the right to such companionship outside marriage." (Page 65)

(Friends reported that the couple were lusty and could be heard in the den where they cavorted at parties.)

Missy here:  I knew nothing of Johnnie Ray, who's fame and popularity was like that of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, in the 1950's. Coming up I'll be telling you about some surprises I learned by reading the book Cry, by Jonny Whitesides. Be sure to watch the videos I've posted.

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JOHNNIE RAY on WHAT'S MY LINE 1954

PULITZER-PRIZE NOMINATED REPORTER DOROTHY KILGALLEN and POP SINGER JOHNNIE RAY : A FLAUNTED UNCONVENTIONAL ROMANCE IN THE 1950's BEFORE SHE DIED

This month I'll be posting about the love affair between hot-shot pro journalist and "What's My Line" game show panelist, Dorothy Kilgallen, and the extremely popular and talented singer, Johnnie Ray, whose heydey was in the 1950's, as part of the mystery as to who killed Dorothy. For like her friend, Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy's suspicious death of overdose was called suicide.  If she was murdered by drug overdose, it wasn't administered by Johnnie.  

A little background:
I have to confess that a couple years ago I became obsessed with the work of lawyer-turned-investigative writer/ author Mark Shaw.  I heard him being interviewed on the radio and at this point I've listened to at least twelve hours of other interviews he's done which appear on YouTube. However, none of those interviews, which focused on the mysteries of the President John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination in 1963, and the tie in with actress Marilyn Monroe's murder and her affair with then Attorney General, and President's younger brother Robert Francis Kennedy, mentioned singer Johnnie Ray, who was in his career prime in the 1950's.

Then, I decided to read the book Denial of Justice, and reading it I learned that Dorothy's marriage was broken or Open and that she'd had this affair and likely had an extra-marital child with the singer, her youngest born years after her first two children. Johnnie, who was fourteen years younger than Dorothy, was actively bisexual. And so while Dorothy was thought to be a conservative Catholic, prim and proper and white-glove posh, she was in fact living an alternative lifestyle decades ago. It seems her and her husband intended to stay married but had let go of convention. Because of their high profiles and the attention Dorothy received as a journalist, though she generally avoided commentaries about who might be a Communist in the 1950's era of McCarthyism, this was outrageous behavior.

DOROTHY MAE KILGALLEN  (1913 -1965) 

JOHNNIE RAY  born JOHN ALVIN RAY  (1927 - 1990)

Dorothy Kilgallen rose up in the world through hard work and enterprise. Her story is one that many modern women can relate to, but she was an ambitious trail blazer in those days before feminism. Her father a journalist, growing up with advantage, Dorothy decided college would only delay her entrance into the exciting world of reportage. As an 18 year old,  she became a newspaperwoman. In 1936, she packed up a battered manual typewriter in a hat box and entered into a contest with two men to see who could travel to the most places in a race around the world in 24 days. She came in second and published a book about it called Girl Around The World and became famous. She  proceeded to write a column called 'Voice of Broadway' which was syndicated and appeared in all Hearst newspapers. Kilgallen covered events such as the wedding of Grace Kelly to the Prince of Monaco and the coronation of King George VI. Her American competition were newspapermen like Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan.

In New York, she mixed socially with celebrities and society figures as well as mobsters and their cronies because they all hung out at clubs she frequented as a New Yorker.  She did, despite what she learned about them through observation, research, interviews, attending trials, and honing informants, care about what she wrote and published and was not one for conjecture. However, her remarks in columns did sometimes upset people and she likely made enemies.

She began to cover murder trials and to find her voice and to advocate for those she thought had been done wrong. After J.F.K. was assassinated in 1963, Dorothy began to investigate and interviewed Jack Ruby, who had murdered Oswald, the man the assassination was pinned on, in plain view and which was was shockingly televised. It was her intention to publish the truth about that assassination. In the last weeks of her life, despite her dogged determination, she admitted to being afraid for herself and her family. She even told a friend that if certain people knew what she knew, she could be killed. So when she was found, in a room she never slept in, make-up still on, wearing something she would not usually to bed,  just hours after appearing on What's My Life, all of it was suspicious.  Her research files were missing. Who had them?  At the time, though she and Johnnie Ray were still friends, the passionate affair they had was over. She was left craving company and that vulnerability may have been exploited.

What if she had the whole truth and nothing but the truth about J.F.K., R.F.K. their father Patriot Joseph P. Kennedy, the Mafia - Oswald - the man the J.F.K. assassination has been pinned on, Jack Ruby - the man who assassinated Oswald, and Marilyn Monroe?  Who wanted to stop her?  Was it the CIA. the mob, or perhaps someone else?  Author Mark Shaw has the story, though not that final answer.

Dorothy Kilgallen, of Irish Catholic heritage, was a woman with drive, intelligence, and courage. Like many a career oriented woman today, she wanted it all.  She had married  actor, singer, and Broadway producer, Richard Kollmar, at 27, when he was 30, on a winter day in April of 1940 with 800 guests in attendance. She kept her own name. He had proposed after a few weeks of dating and in marrying him she may have desired his American Blue-Blood connections. I can just imagine her thinking at 27 that it was time to marry someone if she intended to have children. She came from a conventional first-comes-marriage heritage and, like many, she probably intended to go forth and have a loving, forever marriage. After two children who came in the first few years of the marriage, the couple began to live separate lives.  This could be blamed on having shared and separate careers. They kept up appearances. According to Lee Israel, who wrote a biography called 'Kilgallen,' Dorothy went out most nights with an escort, loathing the idea of being seen out alone anywhere and thought of as undesirable.

Richard was a womanizer and alcoholic, who kept his own apartment for flings and may have paid off a few women he got pregnant to have abortions. Just how much Dorothy knew is speculation. There's a possibility that her husband was also bisexual, as Johnnie Ray was. 

She had an outstanding career - for a woman of her times. She became a celebrity and earned an excellent living, but her husband, whose work in theater was less reliable, never achieved her level of success in the world. Few women had her power. While Richard Kollmar had his lifestyle before they married, the speculation is that he resented his wife's achievements. With the double-standard of their day, he may have even hated that his wife had decided it was only fair that she have an affair if he was doing so. At some point Dorothy must have felt entitled to have a love of her own after the sparkle of her early marital days had diminished. But there was a difference:  That love turned out to be Johnnie Ray ,who she was deeply in love with, and who traveled the world as an entertainer, who was considered to be the link between Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.  Perhaps the Kept Man in this story was not Johnnie but her husband, Richard.

Dorothy and Richard had partnership in a radio show in New York from 1946 to about 1956, a morning show that gave the audience the impression they were over-hearing the married couple in their domestic morning chat. They moved to a five story New York city brownstone that was professionally decorated and showed their acquired wealth. Implied is it was the money she earned who allowed them to live so well. On the fifth floor of the Brownstone, Kilgallen had a private office space, which also had a bed in it, and which she called the The Cloop. No one was allowed in there, not even her children. Johnnie Ray had the private number and was allowed in. And at the end of her life?  Perhaps one other man. An even younger than she journalist who denies their was more than a platonic friendship.

What about Johnnie Ray?

Ray was fourteen years younger than Dorothy and had a kinetic and youthful quality. He toured extensively and was hyped up. He used speed to keep going, as well as being a drinker. Most of his after-show antics were playful, silly by today's standards.  However, he went cruising for other men and got arrested for soliciting and almost ruined his career at a time when homosexual entertainers stayed in the closet. The first time he was arrested he wasn't famous enough for the arrest to make the papers. The second time it did, there was a trial. Dorothy campaigned using her column to help and he was acquitted by an all woman jury. 

Ray was a good looking Oregon country boy, who had lost some of his hearing as child, yet managed to sing beautifully.  In videos I've watched of his interviews, he comes off not as simple but simply nice. Dorothy was capable of upgrading his life.  With his own career a success he may not have needed her financial help but help she tried. She bought him a crystal chandelier and advised him on art, album covers, and career moves. There is no doubt this relationship included sex and that their affair was known to very many people, including J.F.K!

In about 1954, Dorothy had her third child, a son whose father was likely Johnnie Ray. (After her death, Richard disowned this son, according to a Wiki I read.)

So, like many having affairs who live(d) in the public eye, Dorothy and her friends were careful not to let her alternative lifestyle be known to the American Public, and considering that she was in the world of reportage and had made enemies, many people had to be relied on to keep the open secret. Careful to hone their images and professional reputations, they also accommodated their desires and needs. And like a professional journalist, Dorothy also set some boundaries about what she would publish, even as because of her associations and friendships, she did know about the affair Marilyn was having with the President's brother, Robert Kennedy. She hinted that Marilyn was on the upswing and involved with a man more famous than Joe DiMaggio in a column that was published shortly before Marilyn's suspicious death.

I hope I've tantalized you enough that you will continue reading as I post throughout this month on Dorothy Kilgallen and Johnny Ray, while advocating also for the work of Mark Shaw, whose intention is to have Dorothy's death investigated again. 

I will also be using as a reference two other books:

Please join me in learning more about Dorothy and Johnnie here at Mistress Manifest.

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Interested in my archived blog posts?

Marilyn Monroe was our Mistress of the Month in May 2016.

Joseph P. Kennedy, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy,  Jacqueline "Jackie" Bouvier Kennedy, President John F. Kennedy and his mistresses, even Jackie's cousin, Little Edie Bouvier, have all appeared here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot.  And so have a number of other people who show up in the books I've read to prepare this month's posts!