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

by Cramer, Richard Ben

  On the road it was worse: Joe was on the roller coaster all by himself. More and more he chafed at his schedule—Air Force bases, naval stations, Army forts, and what the hell did he care? . . . Alaska to Florida, then over to Europe . . . that spring, Monette and Joe poked into Poland, and then they went to Moscow—because Monette wanted to see it. The only thing Joe wanted was the news from L.A. Of course, when he got it, his stomach would start to roil—every time he checked with another source, the news got more disturbing.

  He’d hear from Joe Jr.—the boy had called twice last Saturday, but no luck—Marilyn wasn’t home . . . .

  In May, the newspapers were reporting trouble on the set of Something’s Got to Give. Filming was delayed, as Marilyn Monroe failed to show—she was ill . . . .

  Marilyn was back at the Cal-Neva Lodge, where Sinatra kept her hidden away in the private bungalows. (That news came from an authoritative source: Sinatra’s partner in the Cal-Neva Lodge was Sam Giancana, who had brought in a manager—Paul “Skinny” D’Amato.) . . .

  Big news from New York! On May 19, fifteen thousand cheering Democrats filled Madison Square Garden (as Americans from coast to coast tuned in on TV) to celebrate the forty-fifth birthday of Jack Kennedy. And for the finale—to sing “Happy Birthday to You”—Peter Lawford introduced on stage . . . Miss Marilyn Monroe! Joe saw that even in Europe—couldn’t get away from those film clips anywhere. There she was, in a skin-colored, skintight gown—rhinestones sewn in, shining from strategic spots (just “skin and beads,” in the words of Adlai Stevenson) . . . and rubbing her hands up her thighs, across her belly, as she woozily breathed out her song—“making love to the president,” as Dorothy Kilgallen wrote, “in the direct view of forty million Americans.”

  That’s when Joe’s thrill ride hit bottom. In his view, she might as well have told him to his face: he was only in line for sloppy seconds. As it was, she’d told the whole rest of the world: treat her as a toy and she’d put on a show for you—but love her all your life, like Joe DiMaggio did . . . and she played him for a chump.

  He could count on one hand the times he’d given up—walked away from what was his. But he would walk away now. Enough was enough. In late May, on his last stop in Europe, Joe talked to Nunnally Johnson in London. Johnson’s script for Something’s Got to Give had by then been entirely rewritten, but his friends on the picture still fed him all the news—and Johnson said that Marilyn was in trouble. Most days, she didn’t show up, and when she did she looked like she was walking underwater. Her shrink had left town, and she was sick, depressed, stoned all the time. If Joe didn’t go to Hollywood to help her, Fox would shut that picture down. And Marilyn was going to be fired.

  But Joe said he couldn’t help. It wouldn’t do any good for him to go to Hollywood. He’d try to phone—that was all he could do.

  “I can’t help the girl,” Joe said. “I’ve tried.”

  But it wasn’t that simple. He couldn’t just will it to stop. If he could have walled away his heart, just by decision, it would have ended years before. But it never would end for Joe.

  Marilyn did a scene naked for her movie. (Of course, that made the papers worldwide.) But it didn’t help her. She got fired anyway. Fox shut down the picture and sued her for half a million dollars. Then the Fox publicity boys fed the papers on how she’d lost her marbles. Said the studio boss, on the AP wire: “She is mentally ill, perhaps seriously.” Hedda Hopper had the quotes from Marilyn’s director. “The poor dear has finally gone round the bend,” said George Cukor. “The sad thing is the little work she did was no good. I think it’s the end of her career.” And with that, Cukor made his own prediction come true. No one would bankroll (or insure) a picture for her now. Marilyn Monroe was finished.

  When Joe read those quotes in London, he caught a cab for the airport, he got on a plane—he flew straight to L.A. Picking up eight time zones, he could get there the same day. That was his chance. She was out of motion pictures. Joe went to Marilyn’s house. She wasn’t home. He waited . . . and when she came back, he told her: he would take her away. They’d get married. They could make a life! Now that movies were over for her—they could be happy.

  And she looked at him like he was from Mars.

  What was he talking about? No one was going to sink her! . . .

  And then it turned into a terrible fight. (Marilyn would appear at her plastic surgeon’s office the following day—she feared she had a broken nose.)

  Joe left town as soon as he could—by the next day, he’d ended up in New York. He went to work on the ache in his heart like he used to go at it—he went to Toots Shor’s. And as the regulars remembered that night, Joe wasn’t drinking tea.

  Toots didn’t see Joe much in those days—still, he knew when Daig was sore. Toots stayed with him belt for belt. In fact, Toots was way ahead. Those were hard times for Shor, too—now that sportswriters, as he said, “were home watchin’ TV and drinkin’ malteds.” Most nights, Toots was his own best customer. And that night, he had an excuse: his heart hurt for the Dago.

  Joe and Marilyn hadn’t talked since that fight. He couldn’t even get her on the phone. She might be off with the Kennedys—how would he know? And the hell of it was, he wouldn’t even care. He only wanted to tell her he was sorry. But, Jesus—she made him crazy . . . . Joe said, “What can you do with a girl like that?”

  And before he thought, Toots said to his drink:

  “Aw, whaddya do with any whore . . .”

  He was sorry before it was out. But who could he tell? Before Toots had drawn another breath, Joe was up, and on his way out the door. Toots ran after him, calling his name—calling, “Joe! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it—JOE!”

  But Toots would stay sorry. DiMaggio would never come back.

  IT WAS ALMOST two weeks before Joe and Marilyn did talk. But then, it was like a miracle for Joe. He apologized. He asked her forgiveness for his anger, for his failure of control. He hadn’t understood. And he promised to do better—if he could, if she would give him the chance—if she didn’t hate him.

  But she didn’t hate him. It wasn’t in her to hate him. She forgave him for the reason she always forgave him—and always came back to him—he cared so much, and never hid it. He couldn’t hide it. He was so real.

  She understood, he’d been mad. And God knows, she’d done some things to make him mad.

  It was like her answer to her friend Ralph Roberts, when he’d asked her, once, if Joe had ever hit her.

  “Yes,” she’d replied, “but not without cause.”

  And in that summer of ’62, she thought Joe was right about so many things—big things they used to argue about. Some answers she spoke in interviews in those weeks might just as easily have come out of Joe’s mouth. For instance, in her biggest interview, for Life magazine, she talked about fame:

  “Everybody,” she said, “is always tugging at you. They’d all like sort of a chunk of you. They kind of like to take a piece out of you.”

  On the topic of motion pictures, she was just as cool and world-weary: “ . . . It might be kind of a relief to be finished with movie-making. That kind of work is like a hundred yard dash and then you’re at the finish line, and you sigh and say you’ve made it. But you never have. There’s another scene and another film, and you have to start all over again.”

  To Joe, she said maybe it was time to start over again. She was ready to change her life now. She had made a lot of wrong turns—she knew. She was ready to have done with the creepy Mrs. Murray—and maybe Greenson, too. (He’d shown his true colors when he met with the studio brass to offer his services—to deliver Marilyn Monroe for their film.)

  Now, Marilyn told Joe, she knew who the people were who really cared for her. And Joe cared. She always knew that.

  So, he flew across the country again, to visit in her new house—and that was wonderful. He came in late June, then three times in July. And it was easy, friendly, and full of fun. Fox wanted her back now, but she sti
ll wasn’t working. They shopped. They went to the beach. They rode bicycles! At night, they’d bring in food and eat on her carpet—there still wasn’t furniture. And then, they’d stretch out together, right there on the floor . . . and she told him—showed him—he didn’t have to worry. In New York or Hollywood, picture or no picture, whatever else he might hear or fear, he was her guy.

  And that July, Joe did what he’d never done with her, what he never could do before in his life. He told her it didn’t matter what she wanted to do—about the pictures, or where they lived, or the shrink, or the pills, or the bills, or the . . . anything.

  He was her guy—and he would stay with her.

  He gambled with his life. He gave it to her. And he asked her to marry him again, and never leave him.

  And she said yes.

  JOE FLEW BACK east, the last week of July. He saw Val Monette in Virginia, and told him the news. He was quitting the business as of July 31—Joe was headed back to California. He and Marilyn were going to be married again.

  Marilyn flew into preparation for a new life. She was talking about a new movie—a musical with the songs of Jule Styne. (She made a date to talk with Styne in New York on August 9.) She shopped for furniture (Joe couldn’t sit on the floor forever), and she called her lawyer, Mickey Rudin—she wanted to make a new will. But Rudin stalled her. He later said, he wasn’t sure that she was of sound mind to make a will. But they agreed to meet on Monday, to talk about resumption of her contract with Fox for Something’s Got to Give.

  Joe had to fly back to New York and get his things from the Hotel Lexington suite. And he had to invite Georgie Solotaire for some “camping” next week in Los Angeles. Then Joe made preparations to fly west through San Francisco. He’d drop his stuff at the Marina house. And he had to make a charity ballgame appearance—on August 4, with Dom and Vince—a reunion of the famous baseball brothers.

  Marilyn called the atelier of her designer, Jean Louis. He had famously dressed her some three months before, with the skintight, skin-toned, naked-save-for-sequins gown of scandal in which she had sung “Happy Birthday” to JFK. Now, Marilyn had ordered a new gown, but this one would be for Joe—her wedding dress. Marilyn scheduled the final fitting for Monday, August 6.

  Joe called every night from the East Coast, and they planned the wedding for Wednesday, August 8—a true DiMaggionic affair: maybe fifteen guests in Marilyn’s backyard—just the real friends—and not a word in advance to anyone who might talk.

  Marilyn ordered new bushes and trees to be delivered Saturday, August 4. That day, she also talked to Ralph Roberts and invited him for supper, Sunday—they could barbecue steaks outside. She seemed fine to Ralph—a bit scattered, as always—she said they’d talk later to make firmer plans. But she spent all afternoon with Greenson, the shrink. And when Roberts called back after five P.M., it was Greenson who answered. When Ralph asked for Marilyn, Greenson said, “Not here,” and he slammed down the phone. Two calls from Joe DiMaggio, Jr., also got refused. But on the third try, he got her—just after seven P.M. They talked for ten or fifteen minutes—she didn’t mention his dad. It was Junior’s news they talked about: he had broken his engagement with Pamela, his girlfriend. And Marilyn was delighted—she said he’d done the right thing. It was sad, she knew. But he was so young, and sadness would pass. She told him happily: wait and see—good things would happen.

  When Big Joe showed up in San Francisco for that Saturday old-timers’ game, he was happy, too—and the exemplar of discretion. Of course, he had to be interviewed—the reunion of DiMaggios was a municipal event. But he said not a word about Marilyn Monroe. And when his old pal, sports editor Curly Grieve, asked the Clipper if he was going to stick around in San Francisco, Joe said, sure—“for a while.” What he meant was, he’d be leaving the next day. He’d told Marilyn they’d get together on Monday. He would fly into Los Angeles on Sunday night.

  So he played three innings in the old-timers’ game—took an oh-for-two—and took some razzing when Vince was the only DiMaggio to get a hit. But Joe took that fine. He was in good spirits all day . . . and through the night, into the wee hours of morning. Joe didn’t get home to call Marilyn that Saturday night. After the game, he and Lefty O’Doul, with O’Doul’s stepson, Jimmy, and a couple of Lefty’s pals, went out for dinner, and then turned up at Bimbo’s 365 Club—where they made a night of it amongst the showgirls, on Columbus Avenue—just like old times. Maybe Joe thought of that as his bachelor party . . . he could sleep in the next day, and still make the airport in plenty of time.

  But Joe would not sleep in. Before eight A.M., his phone was ringing in the house on Beach Street. He woke, stiff and sour, grabbed the phone on the fourth ring. He could already feel in his back that the day would be gray, cold, and damp. “Mr. DiMaggio? . . .”

  The voice was not familiar.

  “This is Dr. Hyman Engelberg . . .”

  Then he told Joe he was calling from Marilyn’s house. There had been “a terrible accident.” And the rest Joe heard in fragments, as his world fell apart.

  “ . . . pronounced her dead this morning,” the voice was saying.

  “ . . . overdose . . . toxicology.

  “ . . . claim the body . . . formalities.

  “ . . . when you arrive . . . . I’m sorry.”

  Engelberg had pronounced Marilyn dead many hours before. Her lifeless naked body had been discovered before midnight. But after that, no one knew what to do. (The cops weren’t even called until 4:25 A.M.) Meanwhile, Engelberg consulted with her lawyer, Mickey Rudin. But Rudin had never talked to Marilyn about “arrangements.” Rudin consulted with her other attorney, the New Yorker Aaron Frosch—but Frosch also had no idea what to do. The mother was no help, locked away in an asylum. The sister lived—where was it? Georgia? Florida? . . .

  Who in the hell else did Marilyn have in the world?

  As Rudin recalled:

  “We took the cowards’ way out. We called Joe DiMaggio.”

  UNITED AIRLINES AGREED to hold the nine A.M. plane. But Joe made the airport on time—and as the papers reported, “stooped by grief,” “ashen,” and “silent.”

  “Let’s go,” he said, on the steps to the plane. And then he didn’t make another sound till landing in Los Angeles, near eleven A.M.

  He would have to identify the body at the morgue. They slid her out of a drawer. She was nothing like his girl anymore. Her hair was thin and lank like an old woman’s. Her face was flattened, bloated, sagging—after a pathologist had snipped the facial muscles to remove her brain. DiMaggio made a noise in the back of his throat and turned away.

  She was gone. Everything he’d feared had come true.

  They’d made her into a piece of meat.

  They had killed his girl.

  Tight-lipped, Joe nodded. He signed a form for the body to be released to the Westwood Memorial Park. His words were quiet, to the point, contained. Harry Hall drove him to the Miramar Motel, where Joe rented a room, locked the door behind them, sat down on the bed. Then the noise came out of Joe—like a roar from inside him—animal pain, it wasn’t words at all. And he doubled over in tears.

  THEY STAYED IN that room all day. The front desk put through no calls. Telegrams piled up. Joe didn’t read them. He sent a wire of his own to Berniece Miracle, asking permission to make funeral arrangements. Ms. Miracle wasn’t home—and didn’t know Marilyn was gone—till late in the day. When she finally got the news, and the wire from Joe, she gave DiMaggio the power to bury his girl.

  News of the death hadn’t made the Sunday papers. But the story was all over the radio. Harry turned it on. Joe turned it off. Then he turned it on again. The announcers called it suicide—or probable suicide. Police had already put out the word about her sleeping pills—empty bottles on the table next to her bed.

  Even then, Joe knew that wasn’t true. That couldn’t be true. She had their life together to live for.

  They had killed her. And Joe told Harry who they were: �
��the fucking Kennedys,” as Harry quoted him. “Bobby Kennedy was the one Joe talked about. He hated him. And Sinatra—Joe cursed Sinatra, right that day, in the Miramar.”

  Even that Sunday, there were questions for police, for the newsmen and writers who’d flocked to the story. Mrs. Murray was quoted on the radio, saying she’d discovered Marilyn’s body near midnight. But then the housekeeper changed her story for police, to put the discovery after three A.M.—much closer to the time police were notified. There was also the mystery of the telephone receiver in Marilyn’s hand. To whom was she calling with her final breath? (As the L.A. Herald Examiner would headline, next day: “Silent Phone Holds Key to Marilyn Death.”) By that time the county coroner, Theodore Curphey, had acknowledged the questions and appointed a special “suicide team” to help determine a cause of death. Curphey appointed a psychiatrist and a psychologist from his staff to lead the inquiry. (He also assigned the deputy district attorney, John W. Miner, to secure an interview with Ralph Greenson—which was how Miner would come to hear Marilyn’s tapes.) To the news media Curphey vowed “a thorough psychiatric approach,” involving “all available evidence.” But in the days that followed Curphey would, for some reason, take a dive on the case and issue a preemptive finding of “probable suicide.” There would never even be a coroner’s inquest. And the mysteries would fester for forty years.

  Joe knew there was something wrong with that investigation within hours of his arrival in L.A. On that same Sunday, in the late afternoon—when he figured the newspapermen would have run for their offices to make deadline, and the gawkers would have gone home to dinner—Joe and Harry Hall went to Marilyn’s house on Fifth Helena Drive. There was a sign on the door, announcing that police would prosecute anybody who entered. But the cops were still on scene, and of course, they let DiMaggio in. Joe marched straight into Marilyn’s bedroom, barely glancing at the bed on which she’d been found. And he ignored the pill bottles that still littered the table. He went to her personal papers, which he flipped through hurriedly—but without avail. Later, he would complain to Harry that “her book” was missing. “It was her personal notes,” as Hall remembered. Joe asked the police if papers had been removed. But no—they’d been examined on scene, in the search for a suicide note—and all left in place. “Joe kept looking for her book,” Hall said. “But it was gone. He was hot about that.” And Joe searched, also in vain, for her pearls. He had given them to Marilyn in Japan—they were his wedding gift . . . now he’d lost them, too. Stolen, he concluded.