marilyn monroe had it all. >> physical beauty, her figure, that smile on her face. >> she was the greatest start of the 20th century. sean: at 36 marilyn's fascinating life came to an abrupt halt. >> she died at the peak of her career and beauty. sean: adding to the mystique was how she died which continues to be shrouded in mystery. >> people don't really want to know what actually happened to her. i think they would prefer the mystery because what really happened to her is a rather dark story. sean: august 4, 1962, marilyn had spent the day quietly at her home in brentwood, california. >> there were a series of phone calls that she received that evening, one of them was from joe dimaggio jr. who said that she was very clear minded. sean: that phone call was reported to be around 7:15 p.m. just 30 minutes later marilyn was said to have received another phone call, this time from her friend, peter lawford, a fellow actor who was married to pat kennedy, sister of jack and robert kennedy, and she wasn't sounding quite as clear minded anymore. >> her words were slurry, she sounded extremely d

marilyn monroe had it all. >> physical beauty, her figure, that smile on her face. >> she was the greatestt of the 20th century. sean: at 36 marilyn's fascinating life came to an abrupt halt. >> she died at the peak of her career and beauty. sean: adding to the mystique was how she died which continues to be shrouded in mystery. >> people don't really want to know what actually happened to her. i think they would prefer the mystery because what really happened to her is a rather dark story. sean: august 4, 1962, marilyn had spent the day quietly at her home in brentwood, california. >> there were a series of phone calls that she received that evening, one of them was from joe dimaggio jr. who said that she was very clear minded. sean: that phone call was reported to be around 7:15 p.m. just 30 minutes later marilyn was said to have received another phone call, this time from her friend, peter lawford, a fellow actor who was married to pat kennedy, sister of jack and robert kennedy, and she wasn't sounding quite as clear minded anymore. >> her words were slurry, she sounded extremely distur

we have a special investigation into the death of marilyn monroe. and will barack obama apologize to the officers in massachusetts? massachusetts? coming up. you could buy 300 bottles of water. or just one brita filter. ( drop plinks ) brita-- better for the environment and your wallet. i'm pretty much the same as i am in a plastic bottle? except that you'll save, like, $600 bucks a year. but other than that, we're pretty much the same. pur. good, clean water. geico's been saving people money and who doesn't want value for their dollar? been true since the day i made my first dollar. where is that dollar? i got it out to show you... uhh... was it rather old and wrinkly? yeah, you saw it? umm fancy a crisp? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. sean: and we continue now with former speaker of the house newt gingrich. mr. speaker, at this press conference that the president held the other night the issue came up of harvard professor henry louis gates jr., and the president literally said not having bee there,

coming up next, the bra shedding insight into marilyn monroe's iconic figure. right after this. >>> almost 47 years after her death, the public's fascination with marilyn monroe is as strong as ever. now an auction in london has uncovered secrets of her famous hourglass figure. nbc's john yang has details. >> that's a very interesting -- >> reporter: marilyn monroe in "the seven-year itch," a signature moment. and in "some like it hot," displaying her natural appeal. >> look how she moves. that's just like yellow on springs. >> reporter: but now it turns out she sometimes gave nature a boost, as with this bra which sold at auction in london this past weekend. >> it is a great souvenir of a sex symbol obviously. >> she had such presence and such magic. a perfect woman really. >> marilyn monroe, the bra. >> reporter: the unidentified winning bid came by phone from hong kong. >> 3,200 pounds. sold. >> reporter: more than $5,200, well above the estimated selling price, for an undergarment that was ahead of its time. >> i should imagine it was made for her by the st

. >> so says mark rosler who has had the iconic status of marilyn monroe and he expects michael jacksonthem all. even elvis. >> it's hard to say th anybody could eclipse what his future earning potential probably is. >> it may seem like a creepy thought. in the film "it's a wonderful life" the idea scared the living daylights out of jimmy stewarts' character. but he says this has incomparable value. >> michael jackson's name has magic and power to it right now. and i don't see th diminishing any time in the near future. >> the numbers don't lie. since his death on june 25, michael jackson's songs have dominated radio station playlists and itune downloads. there were some three million this week alone. memorabilia has been flying out of outside tables and indoor shelves. sales of his cd's have spiked from 10,000 week to 1.1 million over the last two weeks. jackson's albums occupied the entire top ten at amazon.com and barnes & noble's. and that's just the beginning. there are hopes that the comeback show in which michael jackson was to star in london may continue somehow, still featuring

. >> reporter: so says mark rossler, whose company has obtained the iconic status from marilyn monroeto john way. he expects michael jackson to outearn them all. even elvis. >> reporter: rossler, says the mystique has incomparable value. the numbers don't lie. since his death on june 25th, michael jackson's songs have dominated radio station playlists. and i tune downloads. there were some 3 million of those alone. >> what will you have? >> coffee, darling. just coffee. >> reporter: more than three decades after his death, elvis presley remains a high-earning, cult rat iccultural icon. >> those estimates are always in the billions. >> presley was found unconscious at his mansion around 2:30. his he was pronounced dead later. >> reporter: elvis' death in 1977, uncorked an outburst of affection for his music. >> elvis' legacy deserves protecting. there seems to be something in elvis for everyone. >> reporter: if elvis is any example, michael jackson's legacy may follow a similar pattern, as he remains both in their hearts -- ♪ i treated you bad >> reporter: and on the charts. i'm chris

. >>> on aighter note, rather intimate items of marilyn monroe's put up for auction. they include a bra that the iconic actress used to enhance her famous figure. we'll tell you all about that just a little later. >>> we'll begin with the video of a u.s. soldier being held hostage by the taliban. nbc's george lewis is in hayley, idaho, the hometown of bowe bergdahl. >> we're in front of zany's river street coffee house where bergdahl worked before joining the army. his family and friends prayed over his safety, deeply worried about him after seeing the video. on the tape, clearly under duress, private bergdahl talked about his family here in idaho. >> i miss them every day. when i'm gone, i miss them and i'm afraid that i might never see them again and that i'll never be able to tell them that i love them again. >> reporter: in his hometown of hailey, bergdahl's family remains in seclusion. family members issued a written statement -- "we hope and pray for our son's safe return to his comrades, and then to our family, and we appreciate all the support shown to us by o

it goes all of the way back to marilyn monroe. you've got heath ledger. list goes on and on and on. >> lindsay lohan, anna nicole smith. >> lohan's not dead. >> she's not dead -- >> correction. >> if you remember, nancy, she had a problem with drugs and people hanging around her. >> true. >> whenever they were trying to get her to stop. that's the problem. there are so many sycophants. there are so many people -- >> remember elvis presley apparently had a whole tackle box full of drugs everywhere he went. they just fed the addiction and that is what somebody is going to end up being charged with, mike brooks. >> that's why the dea is involved with lapd because keep in mind, every prescription that's given there's a dea number on that. they can go back and find out, okay, what drugs were given to whom, when, by what name. the dea also rules the pharmacies. they run the pharmacies. they'll go back and look at all of the records of these doctors, the five doctors on the list, and i think some of the ones that would be right up front, dr. ratner, dr. klein an

marilyn monroe just hit the theaters in "some like it hot." the chevy impala was the hot- selling car in america. life was like a day at the beach. the unemployment rate was 5.5%. the living was easy. democrats using that to prove that the 60% combined rate we could be seeing to pay for things like health care will not think the economy. higher rates in the 1950's did not. why should higher rates do it now? back then, we had only 280 million years in this country. we have closer to 354,000 today. 354,000 earning $1 million or more. we have 1000 times the taxpayers now. on the phones right now, the man for whom 1959 is ancient. he was born way after that. art laffer, always good to have you. that is the argument i am hearing. we survived those 90% tile rates just fine. we will again. what say you? >> that was my first year in college. i was doing my freshman year at yale and it was the year before kennedy decided to run for office on the promise to cut those tax rate because there were so terrible. kennedy won the election against richard nixon

. >> yo pienso que michael jackson muere en el momento justo de su carrera, si marilyn@ monroe no hubiera unas alas de la corte superior de los angeles fue el otro escenario donde se hablÓ del legado de michael jackson. >> el juez tomÓ cartas en el unto, porque es importante preservar los bienes, sin embargo la familia quiso posponer eso al decir que todavÍa no habían enterrado a su hijo. >> el juez no postergÓ su dictamen, y le dio cuidado al abogado del fideicomiso de 500 millones, los principales beneficiarios, son su madre, sus hijos y entidades de beneficencia. >> la madre de la artista, sufriÓ un doble revÉs, ya que inicialmente habÍa sido nombrada albaceas de los bienes. >> la mamÁ es heredera. >> dejar deudas por casi 500 millones de dÓlares, Éstas podrÁn ser saldadas con las regalÍas de su mÚsica. >> estamos con un asesor legal. estamos frente a un marasmo legal? >> efectivamente, porque estamos viendo que la familia no quedÓ completamente satisfecha con los deseos finales de michael. >> este es el Único juicio de familia? tambiÉn estÁ lo de los niÑos? >> primero se va a ver el t

nobody, not marilyn monroe or lucille ball or elvis embodies as many contradictions as michael jackson did. he had a troubled family and childhood was not a time of innocence for him. most of the all, race. he em bodies the contradictions in race in our culture like nobody else. we can't walk away from michael, because until we resolve him for himself. of course, we're not going to resolve him, but we don't want to lelt him go until we resolve it. >> i don't think it has anything to do with resolving any conflicts whatsoever. i think there's a number of things going on here. one is he is a worldwide story. in the age of internet what we looked at is kind of the media coverage, sort of a glut the media coverage, it's not just television. the first couple days it was an internet story. you had online news organizations and including tiny ones like ours and the big ones like yahoo! had the biggest traffic in their history on the day after michael jackson died. people around the world. that's because anybody anywhere in the world, and we were getting comments from indonesia, france, it was

good enough for the likes of marilyn monroe in "some like it hot." >> i can't wait to see her face. >aracters in movies. >> fish. >> reporter: take the santa cruz beach boardwalk. it's the coney island of the west. clint eastwood's "sudden impact" was filmed here. and so was the washboard. one of the biggest attractions is the giant dipper. one of the ten oldest roller coasters in the world. who says history can't be a thrill ride. the only thing with more twists and turns is california's asphalt yellow brick road with jaw dropping vistas that all gracefully lead tourists to the city by the bay. >> it's the best way to see the city. >> reporter: san francisco's famous fog, the best light. couldn't get any better than this. out here you're nothing but the wind and the waves. sail under the golden gate. >> reporter: captain kirk's sailing adventures. yes, captain kirk quietly goes where few land lubbers have gone before. offering a chance to hear your echo from under an engineering wonder. california. mother nature's play ground. with the sand, and surf, and wind. lee cowan, nbc news, s

in our time marilyn monroe became a star when sexuality was being defined.n black and white music were being fujed, james dean when teen-age alienation was growing. jackson broke racial barriers at mtv and made his music a visual banquet as well. >> they came along at a time in the culture that they needed to be there and we needed them as much as they needed us. >> reporter: jackson's legacy has its own complexities because it is virtually impossible now to escape minute-by-minute security any. >> michael jackson turned us all into pop psychologists. we spent years and years studying this man, man, child, completely baffled about what was going on in his mind and i think that that was part of our fascination with him was we didn't understand him. >> reporter: what is absolutely clear is that the value of the work he leaves behind is immense. elvis presley has generated far more income and depth than he ever did in life, more than $52 million last year. the competition occurs not over how to divide the estate of an icon but how to multiply it. so on a day li

and, she is recognized everywhere, think about, you know, this is marilyn monroe, madonna, this is whoeverto name, who is known all over europe. and she is supposed to go, sdpus germans which would not be at all difficult for her and learn military secrets and, you know, sneak around, maybe steal documents and nobody is going to notice? everybody notices her. everywhere she goes. it is absolutely absurd. and yet, she agrees, and he agrees, and she simply says, when i come back, with the great secret, i want my million. now, three days later, being a practical woman, she realizes that she made an error in her calculations, and she writes him a letter, noll in code, and sends it through the regular mail, and asking him for money to refurbish her wardrobe since she cannot seduce the german crown prince or you know, the head of the army, with an old wardrobe, i mean, how could i woman do this! and he refuses to... refuses the money. the whole thing really does take on an absurd notion. she sets off to attempt to follow his directions, the ship she is taking stops in england on the way, as one

plus an original love letter from marilyn monroe to joe dimaggio, along with the wallet in which the but the 47-year-old owner of a general contracting firm says his most prized possession is the one of a kind collection it's taken him nearly two decades to create. >> i have everybody president signed on a baseball since 1901 through president-elect barack obama. >> reporter: autographed balls from the last 19 commanders in chief. when he finally landed what he says is the only baseball teddy roosevelt ever signed, he'd assembled a collection that even the hall in cooperstown cannot match. >> i'm positive i'm the only one that has this collection. >> reporter: how do you know that? >> because the theodore roosevelt signed baseball is the only one known to exist. the first five presidents that signed baseball, i have one or the hall of fame has one and no other ones have surfaced. >> reporter: he bought most of the balls at auctions. no matter how extravagant the bidding became, he refused to ever be denied. >> the biggest challenge was keeping it quiet so nobody else knew about it so

mark rossler, whose company cmg has sustained the posthumously iconic status of everyone from marilyn monroeo john wayne. he expects michael jackson to outearn them all, even elvis. >> i think you'd have to rank michael jackson at perhaps number one. it hard to say that anybody could eclipse what his future earning potential probably is. >> reporter: it may seem like a creepy thought. in the film "it's a wonderful life", the idea scared the living day lights out of jimmy stewart's george bailey. >> you're worth more dead than alive. >> reporter: but he says the michael mystique has incomparable values. >> michael jackson's name has magic and power to it right now and i don't see that diminishing any time in the near future. >> reporter: the numbers don't lie. since his death on june 25th, michael jackson songs have dominated radio station playlists and itune downloads. there are some three million of those this week alone. memorabilia have been flying off of outside tables and indoor shelves. sales of his cds have spiked from 10,000 a week to 1.1 million over the last two weeks. jackson's al

marilyn monroe, anna nicole smith, john belushi.lways have to blame somebody, hold somebody hostage. >> let's talk about the relationship between jackson and this dr. murray. >> murray's attorney said that their relationship went beyond dr./patient. >> let me clear up something. make sure we understand. dr. murray was not a doctor first. he was a friend first. they were close personal friends and michael jackson really treated him as family. >> murray is a cardiologist who met michael jackson in 2006 when he treated one of jackson's kids. he did not become jackson's personal physician until this past may when jackson hired him to go on the london concert tour. >> he was going to be with him a lot in terms of providing care for him it seems like. what else do we know about dr. murray's medical clinics? >> his practices have had some financial problems. in nevada he was hit with more than $400,000 in debts. and the second clinic cost more to maintain than he made there. he was set to earn $150,000 per month plus expenses, to tour with

look at marilyn monroe, judy garland and now the biggest star ever. what are they doing about this? what can they do? >> carlos, i'll go to you as our -- i mean, how big is the problem? and our caller is zoning in on hollywood. let's start there. it is a nationwide problem, but what about hollywood? >> it's huge in hollywood, because stars -- i mean, because doctors are human beings and they get star-struck. when a star comes to a doctor and says, i need this script, i need this prescription, the doctor is until recently going to say yes because there hasn't been any repercussions. we saw with anna nicole smith, with heath ledger, now with michael jackson, and that's why i'm hoping this investigation is far-reaching. because we need doctors in hollywood, and around the country, who are prescribing these drugs to these celebrities, to take a second and say, wait a minute, i don't want to get in trouble if something bad happens. >> when we come back, we'll talk to cooper lawrence about this, the author of "cult of celebrities." not only the celebrities themselves, but the star-struck

. >> reporter: marilyn monroe.n springs. >> reporter: the volleyball scene from "top gun." sexy. or so my wife says. the beach scene in "from here to eternity." now, that's sexy. and then, of course, there's this. >> this is a carl's jr. teriyaki burger. >> reporter: a promotion from carl's jr. called hot chicks eating burgers. and asking for video submissions, racy, right? it's downright pg compared to this. >> delicious holes. >> reporter: a promotion for biscuit holes called name that hole. there's a whole steamy genre of fast food ads. from the famous paris hilton ad. to quizno's. >> only a dollar? >> it seems like the industry is trying to push every bound of sexual innuendo, to try to sell something like a hamburger. >> reporter: this might take the cake. aburg king ad from singapore. look cloetsly. get it? now, take a cold shower. >> they're beyond the pail. they're good, american brands, with good products. there's a better way to sell a product than that. >> reporter: the old saying goes, sex else is. burg

marilyn monroe wore them. elvis wore them.0s with heavy metal bands, we saw them on metallica. it was always a real rock 'n' roll look. >> reporter: and just about every pair has their favorite pair. >> they have a great, fresh, young look. they're the antithesis of mom jeans. >> reporter: today's skinny jeans aren't your mom's or your grandmother's either. they've evolved and some are feeling the pinch. >> the thing that's changed about skinny jeans is that they've gotten skinnier. you see women now wearing things that are nine inches around the ankle. i mean that's a bracelet. >> reporter: and some doctors say clothing worn that tight does more than draw looks. it could be inviting nerve damage. >> what happens is the person starts to feel a nagging kind of burning or tingling sensation in their thigh that they can't really figure out. it's sometimes quite painful. >> reporter: and in extreme cases, the squeeze might cause g.i. issues, bladder and east infections and even serious blood clots in the legs. >> once you start ha

got locks from marilyn monroe, abraham lincoln from einstein. >> i have geronimo's pony stale. >> hecer stuck in the envelope after following michael to the hospital. the whole idea turning it into a diamond, saying, yuck. >> i bet he has a lock of hair in the baby book. >> how many do you get from the lock of hair? anywhere from one to two to ten. folks plan to offer the jackson family one of the diamondbacks free of charge. collector teamed up with life jam in 2007 to turn beethoven's hair into diamonds. one auctioned off for 200,000 bucks. figured michael fetched much more. reaction online was outraged. this is tasteful and refined. to who? bigs? >> that's what people find a little creep in, making money off hair. >> we create departments from hair. it would be remiss of us to not make a diamond to offer that to the world. >> we are the world. >> we are diamonds. >> the professor and police officer all getting together over at the white house for that famous beer or two.

the one that comes to mind to me is marilyn monroe buried here? ok, a different cemetery? didn't you see joe dimaggio bring roses every year on her birthday. i remember seeing that video all the time. whether or not you will be able to get access to the grave of michael jackson is up in the air. brian: going to be buried without a brain. figure out the autopsy. they need the brain for another couple of weeks. body without the brain. maybe they can buried brain later. evidently they need to get harder. brain is very soft. michael's is very soft. when you stop using it it gets harder and makes it easy to look at as a coroner. just telling you. brian. gretchen: thank you medical examiner kilmeade. brian: just telling you if you are looking for his brain, it's still out. meanwhile, breaking news out of russia this morning where president obama is turning into a cold war enemy to help keep rogue nations in check. eric: let's go-to-live to moscow and dana lewis. dana, what's going on there? what's the latest? >> well, president obama had a key speech today at the new economic sc

we've seen it before, marilyn monroe, anna nicole smith, john belushi. when the unnecessary deaths occur, we want to blame somebody. we have to hold someone hostage. >> but here you have a doctor who's giving this drug to help michael jackson sleep. >> to help -- >> you're supposed to give this drug operating on somebody in the operating room. >> let me put the shoe on the other foot. paul callan, i want to hire you to defend me. how do you defend him? >> the only way to defend him is, hey, the doctor didn't intend to hurt michael jackson, he was trying to help michael jiangson. maybe he did have ventilation equipment. there was a nurse hanging around. there was a nurse nutritionist. >> there wasn't a heart monitor. >> that's another thing the anesthesiologist will tell you you have to have a heart monitor and ventilator. this is a dangerous drug. none of those things were present. so i think there's a defense here, of course, but it will be a technical defense. >> you think this is leaning more towards the civil case than the criminal case? malpractice.

marilyn monroe had it.thing to do with this combination of extravagant talent and vulnerability. >> reporter: and this very vulnerability, the whispers about his looks, his health, his private life, only fed the fascination. >> he paid a very big price for it. but he's a huge part of the global cultural landscape. he may be the most famous person in the world. >> reporter: finally there is us the avalanche of coverage has a message beyond the story. it tells the world that this is a matter of enormous weight and for millions that creates a powerful impulse to be part of an event so large. >> we love you, michael! >> michael jackson has had an indelible affect on my life and i feel as though i had to be here and experience it with everybody else. >> reporter: that may be the only real answer when we ask why all this. jeff greenfield, cbs news, at neverland, california. >> couric: that's the "cbs evening news" for tonight. i'll see you tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. that's 10:00 a.m. here on the west wit