Paul J. DavidsI spoke with filmmaker Paul J. Davids on his new work, Marilyn Monroe Declassified.

In 96 minutes, Marilyn Monroe Declassified balances the image of the blonde bombshell icon we thought we knew with information about her revealed in newly declassified FBI and CIA files. Here is the proof that her troubles were not all the product of her upbringing in an orphanage, abuse of prescription drugs and failed marriages.

Beginning with her wedding to Communist-leaning playwright Arthur Miller (when she converted to Judaism), she was tailed, targeted and tormented by the FBI, CIA and Mafia – and ultimately, through affairs with powerful men, she was unwittingly caught in the middle of a vendetta of lethal forces. Dead at age 36, just months after singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” at JFK’s extravagant party, she was officially listed as a “probable suicide.” The film makes a powerful case that the official conclusion was wrong.

PAUL DAVIDS is an author, artist and director, who has produced films that include Marilyn Monroe Declassified (2016), NBCUniversal’s Jesus in India (2007) and The Sci-Fi Boys (2006), and Showtime’s Roswell (1994) (more on the Roswell incident, and here’s the Pauly Cast episode on the subject).

He co-authored six books of the Star Wars saga with his wife, Hollace Davids, for Lucasfilm.

He is a Princeton Psychology graduate. His uncanny experiences of phenomena related to Forrest J Ackerman are the subject of the film, The Life After Death Project (2013).