Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley once had sex. And the details of their encounter (or some of them anyway) are being related for the first time by retired agent Byron Raphael, the man who delivered Monroe to Presley's hotel room for the secret rendezvous.
Presley had approached Monroe, at the urging of the William Morris agency, about the possibility of a mutually beneficial public affair, but Monroe turned him down (she was married to Arthur Miller at the time). But Elvis was smitten enough by the drug-addled bombshell that, two weeks hence, he called Raphael and arranged for Marilyn to be driven to his kingly digs that they might engage in acts of coitus. Here Raphael remembers the once-in-a-lifetime evening:
It was a rainy night and I brought her to the Beverly Wilshire [hotel] and we went upstairs to his room. When he saw her, they came together and, without saying a word, started kissing. I was in shock and I didn't know what to do. Then Marilyn, who was 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. The next thing I knew I was startled awake by the door opening and I dove behind the bar. And they both walked out stark naked. I didn't say a word. I just stayed quietly.
The two stars then disappeared back into the boudoir, says Raphael, and he decided to beat an exit from the hotel room. The details of their further activities that night are now lost to history. Says Raphael:
He either put her in a cab or she stayed the night, I don't know. ... A few days later, when I mentioned Marilyn to Elvis, he said, 'She's a nice gal, but a little tall for me.'
Raphael decided that remaining silent would be the most prudent course of action. And apparently so did Elvis.
There were a lot of other young girls I would bring up to see Elvis - but he would never mention Marilyn again.