Monroe also thought sex with former spouse and playwright Arthur Miller was just "so-so" and maintained a deep affection for ex-husband Joe DiMaggio. But she credited her psychiatrist with teaching her how to achieve orgasm.
The Los Angeles Times newspaper revealed a few glimpses into Monroe's mind in excerpts of tape recordings the sex symbol and actress is said to have secretly made for her psychiatrist in the days before she died at the age of 36 in 1962.
The Times said it obtained a written record of the tapes from the only person still alive who claims to have heard them – former prosecutor John Miner, 86, who says the recordings support his belief Monroe was a victim of foul play.
Miner took "extensive" and "nearly verbatim" notes from the tapes when they were played for him by Monroe's therapist, Ralph Greenson, now deceased, while Miner was investigating her death.
Monroe's body was found on August 5, 1962, in her Los Angeles home. An autopsy concluded she died of barbiturate poisoning, and the death was ruled a probable suicide.
Conspiracy theories abounded for decades suggesting Monroe was murdered. Prosecutors re-examined the case in 1982 but decided there was insufficient evidence to warrant a new criminal investigation.
Miner told the Times he examined the tapes in a bid to determine Monroe's state of mind and came away believing the recordings showed the actress was anything but suicidal.
In the transcript published in the Los Angeles Times -- the original tape recordings have not surfaced -- Monroe reveals herself as a flirt and a gossip, as well as being introspective, well-read and having considerable intellectual ambitions.According to excerpts, Monroe started off the recording – a kind of self-analysis through free association – by thanking her doctor for helping her regain "control of myself, control of my life".
"You are the only person who will ever know the most private, the most secret thoughts of Marilyn Monroe," she says.
She also credits him for helping her unlock the secret to orgasm after years of unsatisfying sex, and goes on to dwell on the shape of her own body, her two famous former husbands, and her feelings toward such fellow stars as Gable and Frank Sinatra, whom she called "a wonderful friend".
"Speaking of Oscars," she says, "I would win overwhelmingly if the Academy gave an Oscar for faking orgasms. I have done some of my best acting convincing my partners I was in the throes of ecstasy."
On her own attractiveness, she says: "I stood naked in front of my full length mirrors for a long time yesterday," she says. "I was all made up with my hair done. What did I see. My breasts are beginning to sag a bit ... My waist isn't bad. My ass is what it should be, the best there is. Legs, knees and ankles still shapely. And my feet are not too big. OK, Marilyn, you have it all there."
Of her sexual liaison with Joan Crawford, Monroe said, "Next time I saw Crawford, she said she wanted another round. I told her straight-out I didn't much enjoy doing it with a woman. After I turned her down, she became spiteful."
Although Monroe has long been rumoured to have had an affair with President John F Kennedy, the tapes bear no evidence of that, the Times said. They do strongly suggest she and the president's brother, Robert, were involved romantically."There is no room in my life for him," she says. "I guess I don't have the courage to face up to it and hurt him. I want someone else to tell him it's over. I tried to get the president to do it, but I couldn't reach him.'
Discussing her failed marriage to DiMaggio, Monroe said, "We didn't end our love for each other." She said the baseball great needed a "traditional" wife but there was "no way I could stop being Marilyn Monroe and become someone else".
By contrast, Monroe's marriage to Arthur Miller was "my mistake, not his," she said. "He couldn't give me the attention, warmth and affection I need. It's not in his nature. . .. As bed partners, we were so-so."
The Times said Miner was allowed to hear the tapes on condition he never reveal their contents and only broke his promise years after Greenson's death when some Monroe biographers suggested the doctor might be considered a suspect in her death.
