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GREENSON Ralph

Romeo Samuel Greenschpoon.

 

Date of birth : September 20, 1911, Brooklyn.

Date of death : November 24, 1979, Los Angeles.

 

Portrait : 

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Place of living : 902 Franklin Street, Santa Monica : 

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Adress of his office : 436 North Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills,CR 14050  (after 1962, associated with Hyman Engelberg).

 

He would have had an office at 405 North Bedford Drive, shared with Dr Milton Wexler (psychoanalyst), before 1962.

 

Practise :

Marilyn's psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

Founder and member of the Psychoanalytical Society in Los Angeles.

Psychiatry teacher at the Medicine School of UCLA.

Member of the Medical Council of the Reiss-Davis Clinic.

Author of dozen of scientific publications.  

Story

Russian origins.

He was raised in Brooklyn. His father was a doctor.

He was the eldest of 4 children. His twin sister, Juliet, became a famous pianist.

He studied at the Columbia University, then at the university of Bern (Switzerland).

In Bern, he met his wife Hildegard (Hildi) Troesch and married her in 1935.

They had 2 children, Daniel and Joan (Greenson Family).

Shortly before the war, he studied the Freudian psychology in Vienna (Austria) where he linked with Sigmund Freud.

His brother-in-law was Milton Rudin, the husband of Elizabeth, his younger sister. 

From 1934 to 1936 : he was intern at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles.

1937 : he offically took the name of Greenson.

1938 : He went back in the USA with his family. He followed a Freudian analysis with Otto Fenichel (Hanna Fenichel).

Since November 1942, he began his national service in the Health Department, at the Veterans Hospital in Canandaigua (New York).

The Air Force regional hospital in Scott Field (Illinois) discharged him of his militay service, mentioning a serious incident occurred in Canandaigua on December 13, 1943. Greenson had declared having been injured on the head (probably after a collision) during a trip in an ambulance : temporarily unconscious, he suffered from a minor amnesia. Since this accident (the report added), Greenson had lost the sense of smell, suffered from occasional crisis and expressed a nervous deficiency (sometimes very marked) of the left side of his face.
He had bad reflex and an insufficient coordination of his right arm.

Became unfit to the national service abroad, he was named head of the neuropsychiatry department at the Air Force convalescence hospital, in Fort Logan (Colorado). Promoted Captain, he then ran the specialized section of "operational fatigue".

1945 : he applied for being discharged of his military service to practise psychiatry in private in Los Angeles (letter dated from December 5, 1945 to the military authorities in Washington). There was a veterans community, who wanted to follow a psychiatric treatment. But he didn't obtain satisfaction.

1946 : back to the civilian life, he settled as a psychiatrist in Los Angeles and was named teacher in clinical psychiatry at the University of California.

1947 : he bought a house at 902 Franklin Street, Santa Monica. He bought this house which construction had just ended, to John and Eunice Murray, who couldn't pay their loan off, for the amount of 16 500$.

Among the psychoanalysts registered and graduated in Medicine who exercised in the Los Angeles County in 1950, was Dr Ralph Greenson, founder of a Freudian group known under the name of Los Angeles Psychoanalytical Society. The said society had close links with Anna Freud in London, and with her European and New Yorker colleagues.

Marianne Kris, Greenson's friend, recommended him to Marilyn when she was in Los Angeles on the set of "Let's Make Love" in February 1960.

During the 50's, he had a thriving clientele : in his Beverly Hills office flocked many celebrities and also wealthy people from the West of the county.

In addition, he taught psychiatry at the Medicine School of UCLA and was taken for a popular lecturer near the specialists as the uninitiated. He was analyst (he was former and controller) at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytical Society.

Apart from the help he could have given to his private clients, in the south of California, he had the reputation of a speaker knowing how to fascinate his audience.

As many of his colleagues of this era, he relied a lot on the use of drugs, associated to psychotherapy.

He used to prescribe to his patients (personnaly or through their general practitioner) some barbiturates or sedatives in vogue. Thus, he tried to relieve their crisis and to make their life easier.

From every of his interests, the burden of celebrity seems to have been the most important for him, and also for the personalities he treated.

He specialized in the treatment of the stars. He even had his own experiment of screen; he had contributed to the writing of a novel where he described his war memories, a novel which was screend under the title of "Captain Newman, MD" (1946). Gregory Peck had the leading role and Greenson earned 12.5% of the gross receipts.

1955 : he had a heart attack. 

In the 60's, his patients were Peter Lorre, Celeste Holm, Vincente Minelli,Vivien Leigh, Inger Stevens, Frank Sinatra(become his patient on the advise of his lawyer, Milton Rudin, Greenson's brother-in-law, after he committed suicide, after his break-up with Ava Gardner).

He appeared on the analysts list recommended to the Communist Party members.

Since 1960 (when he had Marilyn as a patient), he became one of the most important Komintern agent.

 
The versions concerning their first meeting diverge : 

Meeting with Marilyn in 1960 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

He was recommended to Marilyn by her lawyer Michael Rudin (Greenson's brother-in-law).

Or by Frank Taylor, a friend of Arthur Miller.

Or in August 1961 by Dr Marianne Kris (Marilyn's psychoanalyst in New York), when Marilyn was hospitalized in Los Angeles during the shooting of "The Misfits".

During the post-production of this movie, Marilyn visited him every day at his office.

She wrote to him during her stay at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, on March 1961 :

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The press had mixed comments about him. Although nobody had doubts about his devotion towards Marilyn, his methods were not much usual, and for some biographers, his motives were fallacious. He has been described as thirsting for gratitude, being only interested in famous people, tending to popularize the serious questions in the only purpose of being appreciated and attract attention.

He was involved in the dissimulations surrounding Marilyn's death, and was even charged with murder complicty.
 
After her return to Los Angeles, Marilyn visited him daily at his office to get some advices.

Ralph Roberts, friend, chauffeur and masseur of Marilyn, took her, during the second half of year 1961, every day, to her 4.00 PM appointment with Greenson.

From a professional point of view, he had his defenders and his opponents. He was very prolix, wrote articles, held conferences and Anna Freud regarded him with esteem (for a while, he had treated her brother Ernst Freud).

He recommended psychotherapeutic treatments in association with drugs, as barbiturates and sadatives, something usual at that time.

But the way he involved his patients within his daily life was a particularly unsual aspect of his practice.
For Marilyn, he made his household a substitute family in the only purpose of setting new psychoanalysis approaches up.

In one of his articles, he urged his colleagues to "emotionally being involved in their patients life, if they wanted to establish a trustworthy therapeutic relationship".

Greenson's thesis, as he would have claimed it to his family, was that the traditional Freudian therapy didn't work with Marilyn.

She had to experience a stable and traditional family, to be able to found one herself. By acting this way, he seemed to have forgotten one of the ground rules of his profession : the absolute necessity of a critical distance.

At the same time than himself, he led his own family in the experiment. 

October 1961 : he asked Marilyn to sent Ralph Roberts back to New York because she was very dependent on him. Few days later, he sent her Eunice Murray.

1961 : he wrote his work "The Technique and Practise of Psychoanalysis". He was determined to finish it before the end of the college year, and didn't want to devote too much time to his patients.

So he resigned from his dean post at the training school and from his post of President of the Council of the teachers at the Los Angeles Institute for Psychoanalysis, and limited his professional interventions.

Nevertheless, he didn't hesitate to take charge of Marilyn's care.

End of 1961 : Marilyn had dinner with the Greensons 3 or 4 times a week, called night and day at any time for questions, even minors, about her life and sometimes turned up at their home, even at night.

She spent her last Christmas with "Romy" as she called him (at home ha was called Romeo), although DiMaggio
had taken a plane to join her.
He exerted an influence on every aspects of Marilyn's life, whose dependency increased.

He suggested her to go back to work and persuaded her to accept the shooting of "Something's Got to Give", where he obtained the place of Marilyn's special adviser.
On his request, she hired Eunice Murray as housekeeper, first in her Doheny Drive's apartment, then at 5th Helena Drive.

 

Because of the tension which reigned on the set of "Something's Got to Give", Marilyn visited him twice a day. These appointments were the only ones she didn't cancel during her 2 weeks absence from the set, because she suffered from a chronic sinusitis.

On May 10, 1962 Greenson and his wife left Los Angeles for a 5 weeks trip to Israel and Switzerland. After a complete dependency period, suddenly Marilyn found her alone, with her Dexamyl boxes for only comfort.

It was the moment when the tensions with the Fox studios reached their climax, and when Marilyn was suspended. She called Greenson, he took charge of the situation and declared to the Fox managers than Marilyn was ready to go back to work.

At that time, Marilyn would have confided to her friends that her dependency towards Greenson worried her and that she was afraid that he could even be harmful. The way Greenson cut her off from the people she loved also preoccupied her. Ralph Roberts, one of Marilyn's friend Greenson had warned her about, confided to Donald Spoto : "She was deeply irritated by the way he used her... He had tried to get rid of the main part of her circle, which was relatively reduced. But when he tried to warn her against Joe DiMaggio, she began to reconsider the whole case".

Marilyn's death circumstances are contradictory and controversial. Greenson's role varies a lot according to the versions.

On August 4, 1962, he visited her at home, on her request, or in the beginning of the afternoon, either in the beginning of the evening or both. He could have come until 7.00 PM with a short break, or remained with her for 2 hours, until 7.00 PM, after she had calmed down.

In his statement to the police, he said that he came back home.

The most extreme partisans of a consipracy wonder if he really came back home.

In the beginning of the evening, he called to know if everything went well; Eunice Murray answered him that Marilyn was calm and resting in her bedroom.

In his version, the one which was the official version basis of Marilyn's death, he says that at about 3 or 3.30 AM, Eunice Murray called him, because she had noticed some light in Marilyn's bedroom and that her door was locked. Greenson came and broke Marilyn's bedroom window and found her dead.

Dr Hyman Engelberg arrived and confirmed Marilyn's death, then, at 4.25 AM, they called the police.

Many Marilyn's biographers consider that Marilyn's death time is much close to 10.00 or 11.00 PM, and that this period of time would have allowed Greenson to organize or to take part in the dissimulations of the true circumstances of her death. Some suggested that Greenson was involuntarily responsible of Marilyn's death, because of his prescription of sedatives which would have worked with some others she would have taken out of his control.

On August 20, 1962 he wrote to Marianne Kris, telling her that Marilyn had wanted to give her therapy up. 
She was irritated when he didn't agree with her and angry with him. They would have planned to talk about it on Sunday morning.

On August 8, 1962, he attended, with his family, Marilyn's funeral : 

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His last statement of fees for July and August 1962 came to 1 4000$ :.

Then he flew to New York, followed a therapy with his friend Dr Max Shur (friend and doctor of Freud) which lasted 7 years.

Then he came back to Los Angeles where he set up with his friend Hyman Engelberg, in an office located 465 North Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills.

He only received few patients and devoted himself to writing and teaching.

At the end of his life, he suffered form nervous breakdown and coronary disorders, and had an aphasia attack.

He died on November 24, 1979 (,).

Until his death, Greenson kept a scrupulous silence and ethically indisputable about his famous patients confidences.

He only appeared once, in 1973, to contest the version of the events published in Norman Mailer's biography.

He claimed that  : "Each link between her death and any political event is false. Mr Mailer's version is disgraceful. He changes the truth, makes innuendos about her sexual life and pretends that her doctors would have given her treatments non conventional to morality. This is a pack of lies".

However, since his death, many letters and documents have been discovered by Marilyn's biographers.

In a letter sent to Dr Marianne Kris, 2 weeks after Marilyn's death, Greenson wrote : "I was her
therapist, the good father who didn't disappoint her, who helped her with his perceptive advices and at least, gave her his tenderness. I had become the most important person in her life. I felt guilty to impose her to my own family. There was something engaging in this girl, we all loved her and she knew how to be adorable".
 

 

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