Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (Touchstone Book)

by Cramer, Richard Ben

  And with Marilyn, he showed no swagger of possession. In his years of exile, he’d learned a few things. He told her that she’d saved him by sending him to a psychiatrist. He hadn’t stuck with the therapy long, but it was long enough to convince him that the rage inside him could ruin lives—his, first and foremost. Now, at the age of forty-six, Joe very seldom took a drink—maybe one beer with dinner. And after dinner, a cup of tea: the endless coffee was a thing of the past. He seemed to want to cultivate a distance even from his old self. With a rueful laugh, he told Marilyn that if he’d been married to that guy he was seven years ago . . . well, he would have divorced him, too.

  He wanted her to feel safe with him—and that meant showing her he’d changed. He could take care of her without taking over. He didn’t remonstrate about her habits, her friends—never said a bad thing about her work. Anyway, she didn’t have any work. She didn’t seem to have enough energy to get work, or even to want it. The years since their marriage had changed Marilyn, too.

  In some ways, she was more womanly—that was a word the Hollywood writers used to describe her looks when The Misfits came out. Of course, she’d been so miserable then—overweight and drugged out and haunted around the eyes . . . that was probably just their shorthand way of saying she had aged. Now, as she neared her thirty-fifth birthday, she’d lost all that extra weight—she was, if anything, too thin. But still, the girlishness hadn’t come back. Now, when she went out incognito (without makeup, with her black wig or a head scarf and shades) she didn’t have about her the air of a waif—maybe a housewife, a bit washed out, too busy (or too hopeless) to put herself together.

  She could still turn it on, when she took the time and trouble. She could be dazzling—she could be Marilyn Monroe—as she was the couple of times Joe took her to the St. Petersburg ballpark, and the boys on the club were so thrilled to meet her, to shake her hand, and get her autograph. (Joe didn’t even mind that now.) . . . But that was an act of will on her part. That’s what she didn’t have the energy for—not often, anyway.

  It had always been her will that made Marilyn Monroe. And whatever else was wrong (a marriage, a movie, the studio, the industry) she’d always had that as her guide and spur—her own restless wanting. The real change now was she couldn’t count on that. When she was weary or hurting, she found that reservoir was dry—she didn’t want to be Marilyn Monroe, or anything else—and that was scary. While she was still in the hospital in New York, she’d had a visit from her friend, the poet Norman Rosten, and what he saw disturbed him ever after. “She was ill,” as Rosten would later write, “not only of the body and mind, but of the soul, the innermost engine of desire. That light was missing from her eyes.”

  In Florida, Joe and Marilyn hid away, and took care of each other like an old married couple. She liked to do for him. She made his tea, and listened to his troubles. Joe Jr. had made it out of Lawrenceville, and was enrolled at Yale. But the boy wasn’t happy, wasn’t doing well, wasn’t fitting in. He was drinking, and that made Big Joe angry. The boy had wrecked the car Joe bought for him—now he wanted another. Did he think they grew on trees? . . .

  Joe tried to guard Marilyn’s sleep, made sure she ate, and listened to her troubles. Her stomach was hurting her, and sometimes she had awful pain and cramps. She didn’t know how she could find a psychiatrist in New York—she could never talk to Dr. Kris again. She liked her psychiatrist in L.A., Dr. Greenson, but she wouldn’t move there just to talk to him. There was no one to talk to at night, no matter where she was, and sleep was impossible. That’s why those pills were so important . . . .

  She gave Joe not a whit of trouble. She made elaborate plans to sneak in a visit with her half-sister, Berniece (who lived in Gainesville, Florida). But then, Marilyn called Berniece in tears. She couldn’t make the meeting. Joe had decided, that day was for fishing. Another day, he decided they had to hit the beach. So Marilyn (covered with clothes from her ankles to a large floppy hat) sat with Joe on a couple of deck chairs outside the hotel. One passerby stopped and asked for her autograph. Joe growled: “Leave the lady alone.”

  When the Yankees went north in April, Joe and Marilyn broke camp, too. They would be at the Stadium for opening day—honored guests in the press box. In fact, they were together almost every day and night, at the suite Joe used in the Hotel Lexington, or a few blocks away, at her apartment on East 57th—the place she used to share with Arthur Miller. Now that apartment was half-furnished. (Things Arthur liked had moved with him to the country house.) Some rooms had nothing in them but the white wall-to-wall carpet, with leftover stains from the basset hound, Hugo. (He’d moved with Arthur to Connecticut, too.) . . . Joe didn’t like to leave Marilyn alone in that apartment. The way he figured, someone had to watch over her—and he was the man.

  It was like he told her when he made his first gingerly push back into her life—that was a few months back, on Christmas night. As Marilyn recalled in a letter to Ralph Greenson, her L.A. psychiatrist, she was in the apartment with her new publicist, a woman named Patricia Newcomb, when a forest of poinsettia plants arrived. Marilyn asked Pat who they were from, but Pat said she couldn’t tell: the card only read, “Best, Joe.”

  Marilyn said, “Well, there’s only one Joe . . . .”

  “Because it was Christmas night,” as she wrote to Dr. Greenson, “I called him up and asked him why he had sent me the flowers. He said, ‘First of all, because I thought you would call me to thank me,’ and then he said, ‘Besides, who in the hell else do you have in the world?’ ”

  MOSTLY, SHE HAD her staff for companions. They were at the apartment six days a week. There was her secretary (Arthur’s former secretary), May Reis, a businesslike gray-haired woman who mostly kept to her cubbyhole office—an island of order amid Marilyn’s oceanic mess. There was Hattie Stevenson, the stout cook, who arrived in the morning to poach Marilyn’s eggs and mix her Bloody Mary, and spent the afternoon doing not much in the old-fashioned kitchen. And Lena Pepitone, the curly-haired Neapolitan seamstress and lady’s maid, fought a losing battle for cleanliness in Marilyn’s bedroom and closet. (Marilyn could rip thirty blouses off their hangers, before she found one that was not altogether terrible.)

  Now that Joe was around, Marilyn often asked Lena to stay and cook supper—spaghetti with sausage, veal piccata . . . Lena cooked just like she did at home. And she was delighted to do it for Mr. DiMaggio, who was Lena’s idea of the perfect man. “He may have been famous,” as Lena remembered in her memoir, “but he was very sympathetic and easy to be with.” She got him alone in the kitchen one night, and in Italian (for secrecy’s sake), she brought up the big question on her mind. “ ‘Why don’t you marry Marilyn again. She loves you. It would be wonderful for her.’

  “Joe just shook his head sadly. He said that he loved her more than any other woman, that he’d do anything for her. But marriage . . . they had too many differences that just didn’t work. He felt, as always, that her career was what was killing her.” Then, Joe’s rusty Italian ran out, as he brought up the word “Hollywood”—he made a face like he had a terrible pain, and held his stomach with both hands . . . . But Joe couldn’t bring up that pain with Marilyn—not anymore.

  The other subject Joe tried to avoid was Ralph Roberts, Marilyn’s closest companion, confidant, and masseur. Ralph was a handsome, soft-spoken actor from North Carolina. He’d made a second career as Masseur to the Stars. But in those days, his career was Marilyn—Ralph would do anything for her. He’d show up in the middle of the night (or at dawn) if she needed a massage to get to sleep. He’d drive her to her doctors’ appointments, or business meetings—whatever she had to do. He listened to her endlessly about her plans, her fears, suspicions, the scripts that came in the mail . . . the long and the short of it was Ralph loved her.

  Joe didn’t understand—or thought he understood too well. But it wasn’t like he imagined. It was more innocent, and intimate. Marilyn could talk to Ralph about anything—almost everything. O
ne evening that spring, Marilyn was telling Ralph about Joe’s body—it was beautiful, rippled with muscle, but not bulky, every part in perfect form—like that statue, she said, Michelangelo’s David. Then, she asked Ralph to walk with her to Joe’s hotel. She got all dressed up—or dressed down, with her head scarf and shades—and they went to the Hotel Lexington. And there was Joe, who’d just come back from some dinner where Italian-Americans had honored him as Man of the Year, or Man of the Age, or something. And they’d given him, as Joe said, “a trophy for it”—which he showed to Marilyn and Ralph: a copy of Michelangelo’s David. Joe started blushing and got mad when they burst out laughing.

  But the Man of the Age couldn’t push about Ralph’s presence, either. Joe would grumble obliquely—like he had nothing against the guy, but . . . wasn’t she taking advantage of Ralph? (“Oh, no!” Marilyn would say, “Ralph likes to do little things for me.”)

  In May, it was Ralph whom Marilyn took along to L.A., for meetings at the studio, and another procedure by her gynecologist (once again, for those cramps—her chronic endometriosis). Once again, Joe had roses delivered to her hospital room. And he sent letters—one of which was later found among her papers. Those three handwritten pages, on Hotel Lexington stationery, reveal a man who was trying to find common ground, without taking up too much ground himself.

  Dearest, Had an early dinner at the Colony with George. Was able to relax and enjoy our boiled chicken as we were the only two people in the place. It’s always nice to hear your voice and I well realize your phone bill runs into astronomical figures. I’d like to be able to tear mine up without opening the envelope this month—as I have talked to Joe [Jr.] quite a bit this month, trying to help resolve some of his present problems. You have been quite a help to me in so much as discussing Joe’s affairs . . . . And dear, I want to thank you beyond words for helping relieve my mind . . . . I’m sure you’re not interested about my every day activities . . . so I’ll dispense of the boring details. However, I’m always interested in your activities . . . . It was nice to hear you say “you are gaining weight and are slowly but surely rounding into form” (WOW!!!!) Now I hope that the happiness we all seek comes to you soon—so that friends who give a damn will relish right along with you. I better wrap this up as I feel mushiness coming on. And so my dearest, good night! My love, Joe.

  BUT HOW COULD he help himself, when Marilyn needed him? He had to take care of her. That was the role she cast him in. (As she told one Danish journalist: “To know that Joe is there is like having a lifeguard.” And Marilyn always seemed near drowning.) . . . That summer, back in New York, she’d be wheeled into the Manhattan Polyclinic for another emergency operation—gall bladder surgery, this time—and once again Joe stood by as her protector in the hospital. (Marilyn wouldn’t work at all in 1961, except one way or another on her health.)

  In her weeks of recuperation after that surgery, Marilyn would be joined in the East 57th Street apartment by her half-sister, Berniece Miracle. The house staff was also on duty, Ralph was back in New York, on call. Marilyn’s publicist, Pat Newcomb, flew in from L.A. to be in daily attendance. And of course, there were the doctors, who stopped by every afternoon to have a talk (and a drink) with Marilyn—and they’d write her prescriptions for whatever pills she fancied that day.

  But as Berniece would remember, in her book, My Sister, Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe:

  “The daily routine peaks for Marilyn when the doctor departs and Joe DiMaggio arrives for dinner . . . .

  “Lena prepares a dinner each evening for four: Marilyn, Berniece, Joe and George Solotaire, a ticket broker in New York . . . .

  “Sometimes when Joe and Marilyn were discussing something, George and I would go into the den to watch TV. We would watch a couple of programs and leave Joe and Marilyn alone. Joe acted as if he were still in love with Marilyn.”

  Well, that was true—and more: Joe was once again a man with love in his life. He’d put Marilyn to bed (he insisted, she had to rest), then he and Georgie would hit a few spots—it was always too early to sleep. They’d walk into a club to take in a late show, and a ringside table would materialize by magic—while the rest of the patrons applauded—the champ was back. At one exclusive ristorante on Park Avenue, Joe sat in for late supper with Eddie Arcaro and Rocky Marciano—and the place literally seized up with champions. (As Joe would remember with amusement, the head-waiter had to lock the doors.) When DiMag and the other Big Names made items in the next day’s press, Joe didn’t complain that it was time to leave town. In fact, he talked about getting a place in New York—an apartment of his own, home base—maybe it was time. When Photoplay followed up its first doubting salvo (“Will She Break Joe’s Heart Again?”) with a full investigation (“Marilyn to Wed?”)—the magazine concluded: “Joe has changed in the years between. He is not the fiery combination of temper and brawn he used to be . . . . He’s more understanding now, and he’s eager for a home again.”

  But Joe’s new understanding, his plans, his willingness to see and be seen, all rested on his confidence that Marilyn was safe and at home. When Marilyn suggested that she and Berniece could go out at night with him, Joe wanted no part of that.

  “When she proposes the idea to Joe,” Berniece would write, “he shakes his head determinedly. ‘You’d be mobbed. Absolutely not.’ ”

  During her two-week stay, Berniece and Joe got along fine. She found him “unpretentious . . . full of common sense and concern for Marilyn.” Before Berniece went back to Florida, Joe even surprised her with a gift—an eight-by-ten glossy photo of himself in Yankee pinstripes—which he signed: “To Marilyn’s lovely sister, Berniece—whose pleasant company was appreciated . . .” Ms. Miracle would save that photo ever after.

  But she had only come to New York to help Marilyn—with anything, from changing bandages to walking Marilyn’s new poodle pup . . . it seemed to Berniece that her sister had “so many problems!” And it wasn’t long before Berniece discovered that one of Marilyn’s problems was Joe.

  “Dropping his second tea bag into the kitchen trash can one night, Joe spies a discarded bill and idly fishes it out. He scans over the list of household supplies and wines that have been delivered in the afternoon.

  “He grumbles loudly, ‘This bill is not right! It’s added up nearly double! Doesn’t someone check these things when they are delivered?’

  “ ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ Marilyn hisses, taking the bill from Joe.”

  Not long after that, Marilyn clued Berniece in on a couple of secrets. Number one was about that poodle puppy. The name was not Mop (as Berniece had first heard it)—though that name might have fit the shaggy ball of white fur . . . . But the dog was a gift from Frank Sinatra (no one was supposed to know that). And its name was Maf—which was Marilyn’s joke about Frankie’s menacing Italian friends.

  The second secret, Marilyn said, was bigger. As soon as Berniece (and Joe) left town, Marilyn was going to Los Angeles—where she would be a guest in Frank Sinatra’s house.

  “ . . . To Berniece,” as Ms. Miracle would write in her memoir, “this trip seems one of Marilyn’s more tangible problems. Marilyn seems filled with apprehension because of Joe’s jealousy, yet eager to go. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone,’ she confides to Berniece. ‘Especially Joe. I am going, nevertheless, because I need some total privacy.’ ”

  As Ms. Miracle would also note: “Marilyn’s desire to avoid Joe’s jealousy and her desire to hold his precious friendship place her on a tightrope of her own devising . . . .”

  Of course, Berniece didn’t know Frankie and his friends. If she had, she might have seen that Marilyn was walking on a tightrope with no net.

  AS SOON AS Joe went on the road for the Monette Company—in August 1961—Marilyn flew out to L.A. Her scar from the operation had healed, her strength was returning, she looked wonderful. She said she felt better than she had in years—and now, she was eager to work. She was happy to be back in Sinatra’s to
wn (“Frankie won’t let me be lonely,” she said) and even happier to be back with her psychiatrist, Ralph Greenson (she never had found another shrink she liked in New York). She had the air of a woman who was returning to her real life . . . and she was in trouble from the minute she landed.

  She fell into the embrace of Sinatra and drugs with equal abandon. Just after she arrived, Sinatra took her out for a weekend cruise aboard his yacht. But Marilyn was becalmed on her own murky sea. In Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, Anthony Summers quoted Dean Martin’s wife, Jeanne, who was also aboard that weekend:

  “ ‘I remember going up to Frank’s house before we got on the boat. And he said, “Will you please go in and get Marilyn dressed, so we can get in the limo and go.” She couldn’t get herself organized.’ . . .

  “Jeanne Martin remembers Marilyn ‘wandering around the dock, pitifully trying to find more pills. She’d be unable to sleep, and go lurching around half-dressed, trying to find someone who could give her “reds” at three o’clock in the morning.’ ”

  By that time, it wasn’t just reds—the sleeping pill, Seconal—but also Nembutal and phenobarbital (two other addictive barbiturates), or the knockout drug chloral hydrate (what detective writers called “a Mickey Finn”), the tranquilizers Valium and Librium, or some combination of the above, recommended by one of her pals in pharmacopoeia—Sidney Skolsky, Monty Clift, or some other knowledgeable user. For quick action, Marilyn preferred to have her L.A. physician, Hyman Engelberg, administer a hypodermic “cocktail” of sedatives . . . or some days, it was a shot of tranquilizers mixed with speed to “revive Marilyn’s energy.” (Those were referred to as “vitamin shots.”) Or if Engelberg wasn’t around, there was Greenson, the psychiatrist, to offer more pills—Marilyn would poke the capsules with a pin to hasten the onset of oblivion.

  Her relationship with Greenson had taken a turn away from standard Freudian therapy to something closer, messier, and more dependent. She saw him every day (phoned him day or night)—and not at his office—their sessions took place in his home. Greenson would depute his daughter, Joan, to take walks and talk with Marilyn before appointments. And afterward, Marilyn didn’t go home, but stayed with the Greenson family for champagne, or dinner, or sometimes all night. For Marilyn, this was the caboose on the long train of older men who took her in and cast themselves as protectors. Greenson was the most dangerous of all—a trained psychological manipulator whom Marilyn obeyed as a patient, and revered for his degrees, his mastery of jargon, and his ready prescription pad.