Was Vanity Fair hoaxed in its Marilyn Monroe cover story?
Mark Bellinghaus’ parody of the Vanity Fair magazine cover.
By Michael Shermer (republished from The Skeptic)
Two years ago we reported on the brilliant exposé by Mark Bellinghaus of a Marilyn Monroe hoax perpetrated at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, where included in a display of the movie star’s personal items were hair curlers.
As Bellinghaus reported, famed psychic James Van Praagh used those curlers (and the blond hair in them) to make contact with Marilyn, and he even carried on a conversation with her on the national television show Entertainment Tonight. Well, Bellinghaus tracked down the origin of those curlers through their maker, Clairol.
It turns out that those curlers were first manufactured in 1974, twelve years after Marilyn died, so it would be interesting to know just who Van Praagh was talking to! Perhaps there are Marilyn Monroe impersonators on the other side as well.
Psychics are not the only ones trying to cash in on Marilyn’s irresistible fame. Last April a news story broke about a newly surfaced Marilyn Monroe sex tape (what else?), which was also swiftly debunked by Mark Bellinghaus as yet another fake.
Marilyn is back in the news this month as Vanity Fair magazine featured her on their October cover in honor of their 25th anniversary issue, offering a potpourri of personal papers and items that promises readers will unlock the 45-year old “Marilyn Monroe mystery.” One such pictured item is Marilyn’s personal typewriter, on which she allegedly fingered letters to the rich and famous, which immediately set off Bellinghaus’s baloney detection alarm — Marilyn Monroe couldn’t type!
This is just one of numerous fakes and mistakes that Bellinghaus says are comparable to what Clifford Irving did when he faked Howard Hughes artifacts in order to sell his authorized biography of the billionaire to the McGraw Hill publishing company for one million dollars.
If you want to read the anatomy of a hoax, check out Mark Bellinghaus’extensive article. He’s a first rate skeptical investigator of all things Marilyn. For my money, the real “Marilyn Monroe Mystery” is why people won’t let this tragic woman R.I.P.
