The mystery of Marilyn Monroe and Château Lascombes

The name appears on an otherwise empty page headed 21 February 1961, with the date repeated above and below a single line drawn across the page.

Further down, simply Marilyn Monroe.

It’s one of the many treasures that you can find in the gilt-edged guestbook of Château Lascombes, but it’s one that is a particular mystery, because in theory Marilyn Monroe never visited France. Is it possible that she snuck in to the country on a private jet for a night of partying in Margaux?

She certainly wouldn’t have been out of place. Turn to the next page and in May 1961 you find Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti, and, just one page further on, Brigitte Bardot.

This was part of the golden age of Château Lascombes under Alexis Lichine. The estate became the unquestioned centre of social life in Bordeaux, and the guest book attests to the many glittering names that came through its doors. Not only was Alexis himself a celebrity in his own right – owner of both Prieuré Lichine and Lascombes, a renowned wine importer, author of the hugely influential Wines of France, and a genius-level networker and raconteur – but he would marry just four years later Hollywood actress Arlene Dahl (the ceremony took place in Bridgetown, Barbados in the Queen’s Fort House).

Together, they would bring both Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas to the Médoc – continuing a talent for entertaining that he had honed as an aide to General Eisenhower after the Allied landings in France in 1944, when he planned and presided over sumptuous dinners at the Supreme Allied Headquarters in Versailles (when he wasn’t in Paris, he was billeted at Eisenhower’s weekend villa in Cap d’Antibes, close to where his son Sacha created rosé juggernaut Whispering Angel a few decades later).

Alexis’ legendary hosting skills continued with his second wife Gisèle Edenbourgh, who became Mrs Lichine in 1956 and was at Lascombes for many of the dinners detailed in the book – she gets a name check from the owner of Golden Horn Armenian restaurant in New York, who writes, ‘America builds houses, Alexis builds châteaus… salud to Lascombes, Gizzelle and Alexis… the family and wines with a soul’ (he then apologies to Gisèle for butchering the spelling of her name).

Tracing its pages is addictive.

The first entry dates from September 1952, with comments written by members of the syndicate of investors that Alexis had brought together to buy Lascombes. Among them you find Polly and Gilbert Kahn of Kuhn, Loeb & Company (and trustee of the Metropolitan Opera), investment banker Maurice Newton and his wife Lucienne,  Paul Manheim of Lehmann Brothers, and the banking legend David Rockerfeller. Achille de Wilde, Belgian négociant and owner of nearby Château du Tertre, had been installed as manager, and many of the notes praise his warm welcome.

Guests came from the world of politics, art, film, music, theatre and more. Hidden within the pages is Charles de Gaulle, who Lichine had met during his time with Eisenhower in the war (this was also when he met his first wife Countess Renee de Villenauve, but the marriage lasted only a year). The artist Alfred Cohen was a regular visitor (see two of his images below, drawn when he joined Alexis for harvest in 1955).

The beauty of the book lies not just in autograph hunting but in its celebration of life. Who wouldn’t want to join a party that inspired Cohen to write, ‘I King Bacchus relinquish my crown to no one – but in this case I crown Lascombes 55 the emperor of wines’?

Fast-forward to February 1961. What is Marilyn Monroe’s name doing in the Lascombes book?

This was the year that The Misfits, written by her then-husband Arthur Miller and directed by John Huston, was released. It would be the last completed film for both Marilyn and her co-star Clark Gable, and had its premiere at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway on January 31, three weeks before the date in the guest book, and official release on February 1, 10 days after. Could she have slipped over to France, incognito, in between?

It seems unlikely.

Filming The Misfits was famously miserable for Marilyn, plagued by escalating arguments with Miller as their marriage broke down. She was still recovering emotionally from a number of miscarriages, taking various painkillers and sleeping pills, and was having to continually relearn lines from the numerous rewrites that Miller undertook. Coupled with the intense heat of the Nevada summer where filming was taking place, she had a nervous breakdown during filming and was eventually admitted to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York on 11 February, 1961. Her divorce from Arthur Miller had become final on January 20.

She would remain in hospital for four weeks, only discharged on 5 March, just over 16 months before she would die, of an overdose, on 5 August, 1962.

These dates mean it is pretty much impossible that she was in Bordeaux in late February, much as we might wish otherwise. Most likely, particularly given the starry array of guests that Lichine entertained, is that somebody at the château knew Marilyn, and marked her name in the book to pay respect to her for the tough time she was enduring.

But there is another strange Bordeaux connection to The Misfits. It was during the filming of another John Huston movie – this time the 1984 Under the Volcano – that a young Philippine de Rothschild flew out to the movie set to collect the long-promised artwork from director John Huston for Château Mouton Rothschild’s label. She would spend three days on the Mexican set before returning with a commitment for the drawing that would become a watercolour of a ram leaping in joy accompanied by the sun and a vine. It adorns the legendary Mouton 1982 vintage, and provides another link to the heady days of Hollywood movie stars partying with the Bordeaux elite. See if you can spot any others in the video below…