Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love

by C. David Heymann

  “In early November, for example, DiMaggio refused to escort Marilyn to the Los Angeles premiere of How to Marry a Millionaire. Marilyn reacted by demanding that he remove his clothes from her apartment, but he apologized, and once again, as she’d done so often, she forgave him. As retribution, however, she made him take her to the Hollywood opening of the play Call Me Madam. And after the play, he treated her to a late supper at Chasen’s. You might say they were kindred spirits with opposing points of view.”

  On November 25, Joe’s thirty-ninth birthday, Marilyn gave him a gold medallion upon which she had ordered a jeweler to inscribe a line from The Little Prince, the fable by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “True love is visible not to the eye but to the heart for eyes may be deceived.” “I like it,” said DiMaggio, “but what the hell does it mean?”

  Joe and Marilyn traveled to San Francisco together to spend Thanksgiving with his family and friends. They had their holiday meal at Joe’s house and were joined by (among others) Frank “Lefty” O’Doul, his former manager with the San Francisco Seals. O’Doul had been a star outfielder during the 1920s and 1930s; his .349 lifetime batting average remains the fourth best in baseball history—and 24 points higher than DiMaggio’s. Reno Barsocchini, a former bartender at the DiMaggio family restaurant, was there too. Lefty and Reno were like family to DiMaggio; both had opened North Beach bistros of their own. Reno’s establishment, on Post Street next door to the Ambassador Health Club, had become Joe’s West Coast version of Toots Shor’s.

  After carving the turkey, which had been prepared by Marie, Joe announced that he and Marilyn were planning to tie the knot. Reno stood and raised his glass of wine. “Here’s to Joe and Marilyn,” he said. “At least there’ll be one looker in the DiMaggio household.” After dinner, “the looker” helped Marie with the dishes. When an Associated Press reporter, having heard of the possible nuptials, asked Marilyn if she intended to get married to the Yankee Clipper, she said, “It could be. I intend to remain in pictures, but I’ll eventually become a housewife, too.”

  Back in Los Angeles, following Thanksgiving, Marilyn and Joe had brunch with Inez Melson, Monroe’s new business manager. DiMaggio had given Inez his stamp of approval, largely because Melson shared his negative opinion of Natasha Lytess. In any event, she was undoubtedly preferable to Doc Goddard, who’d fulfilled the same function until Melson took over. Not that Doc had been dishonest, but he was, after all, the man who’d sexually abused Marilyn as a child, although that story too seemed to change with every telling.

  Soon after assuming her new position, Inez convinced Marilyn to appoint her as Gladys Baker’s guardian. As such, she made frequent trips to visit Marilyn’s mother at Rockhaven and made certain her needs were met. One day, the three of them—Monroe, DiMaggio, and Melson—set out on a drive to Rockhaven to spend the afternoon with Gladys. As Joe later reported to George Solotaire, “Mrs. Baker seemed quite pleased to see her daughter and even more pleased when Marilyn told her we were going to be married. On the other hand, she didn’t seem to remember that Marilyn had been married once before.”

  Lotte Goslar remembered visiting Joe and Marilyn at home during this period. “Marilyn seemed unusually triste,” she said. “I thought it might be related to their recent trip to Rockhaven.” As they sat and chatted, the reason for Monroe’s sudden mood shift became evident. Seeing her mother again had reminded the actress of her birth father. “I hadn’t heard the name Stanley Gifford before,” said Goslar, “and apparently Joe hadn’t either.”

  In bits and pieces Marilyn revealed how, in 1945, while still married to Jim Dougherty, she’d telephoned Gifford and said, “This is Norma Jeane, Gladys’s daughter.” He hung up on her. Then, in 1951, she learned that he’d gotten married and moved to a farm in the town of Hemet on the outskirts of Palm Springs. She decided to confront him. With Natasha Lytess along for moral support, Marilyn drove from Hollywood in the direction of Palm Springs. When they reached Riverside, she pulled into a gas station and called Gifford from a pay phone to announce that she was on her way. Gifford’s wife answered the phone and said, “He refuses to see you. He suggests you contact his lawyer in Los Angeles if you have any questions. Do you want his number?”

  Marilyn’s revelation startled Lotte Goslar as well as Joe, and in some strange sense explained the actress’s attachment to Natasha Lytess. Even if she wasn’t the consummate drama coach, she had been there for her when Marilyn most needed her. It didn’t diminish DiMaggio’s dispassion for the woman, but he now understood the reason behind Marilyn’s excessive loyalty to her.

  In late November 1953 Lytess asked Monroe for $5,000 to help pay for surgery she’d undergone to correct a back problem, and this time Marilyn flatly refused to help, suggesting instead that she turn to Twentieth Century–Fox for the money. Although she was no longer on Fox’s payroll, the studio had continued to absorb a portion of Natasha’s living expenses. DiMaggio used Lytess’s request to distance Marilyn even further from the drama coach. When Marilyn stopped just short of firing her, Joe lashed out at her. “Either she goes, or I go!” he yelled. “Don’t threaten me, Joe,” Marilyn countered.

  Natasha would tell Lotte Goslar that if Marilyn married DiMaggio, she would live to regret it. “It can’t possibly succeed,” she said. “He becomes infuriated if you’re a minute late for an appointment, and Marilyn’s usually hours behind schedule. And then he’s jealous of every man who even looks at Marilyn. She gets five thousand fan letters a week, including mail from Arab sultans and Texas oil barons, and he reads them all to see if anyone’s coming on to her. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

  As early as 1950, Hugh Hefner, a native of Chicago and a copywriter at Esquire, envisioned the framework—tastefully photographed nudes amid well-written articles and short fiction—for the men’s magazine he eventually called Playboy. With borrowed funds and whatever savings he could scrape together, Hefner launched his trend-setting magazine in December 1953. For the front cover of Playboy’s first issue and as its first centerfold, he chose none other than Marilyn Monroe.

  Displayed prominently in the (originally titled) “Sweetheart of the Month” section of the publication was Marilyn’s nude calendar shot. Within days of its initial appearance, the magazine sold out. The “Sweetheart of the Month” feature soon became known as the “Playmate of the Month.”

  “Like every other full-blooded American male,” said Hugh Hefner, “I was well aware of the Tom Kelley nude calendar spread of Marilyn Monroe. It had never been published in a magazine, so I contacted John Baumgarth, owner of the calendar company that controlled the rights to the photo, and made an appointment to see him. He lived in Chicago, as did I, so I drove to his office and told him what I wanted and acquired the publication rights for five hundred dollars. I acquired another Monroe shot or two from him as well for an additional thousand dollars. It was the best investment I ever made, because by the end of 1953, when Playboy first materialized, Marilyn had become a major star. That nude calendar shot emerged as the most famous pinup of the twentieth century. Marilyn became the woman most women in the world want to resemble in terms of sex appeal.”

  The irony of Hugh Hefner’s connection to Marilyn Monroe is that they never met. His brother studied acting with her in New York in the mid-1950s at the Actors Studio. Joe DiMaggio visited the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles on several occasions after Monroe’s death, indicating that he harbored no resentment against Hefner for his use of her nude image in the magazine. But the Monroe-Hefner connection doesn’t end there. When he heard that the burial vault next to Marilyn’s at Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery was still available, Hefner purchased it. “It just seems fitting,” he observed, “that I should spend an eternity with Marilyn, given her tremendous contribution to the magazine’s success.

  • • •

  “Late in 1953,” noted Lotte Goslar, “Marilyn reaffirmed her commitment to Joe DiMaggio. She called me at three in the morning—not an unusual time for her�
��and told me how sweet, kind, and gentlemanly he could be. On the other side, she added, there were moments when he bored her to death, particularly when he talked about baseball and nothing else. Yet when he wasn’t around, she missed him. She even missed their arguments. She’d grown accustomed to his paternalistic guidance and the protective side of his personality. She imagined that if she had a father, he’d be protective of her in the same way as Joe. And here was a father figure with whom she could have sex. And the sex was pretty damn good, if she had to say so herself. In essence, Joe DiMaggio filled a dual role in Marilyn’s life, that of father and lover, a dangerous combination, especially considering that he seemed to be obsessed with her at times.”

  When the couple arrived in San Francisco to celebrate Christmas and bring in the New Year with Joe’s family, Marilyn seemed nervous and run down. She hadn’t shown up on the Pink Tights set on December 15, and the shoot had been put on hold. Her suspension would take effect on January 4, 1954, cutting her off from a studio system that seemed almost parental in its all-encompassing sweep. Although material possessions—furs, jewels, and clothes—generally meant little to Marilyn, her mood brightened a bit when, on Christmas Eve, Joe gave her a pair of diamond earrings, similar to a set he’d once bought for Dorothy Arnold.

  On New Year’s Eve the couple dined at the DiMaggio restaurant with Tom, Dom, and Reno Barsocchini. Later that night, Joe reportedly told Marilyn he wanted to marry her within the next two weeks. They’d talked about it for months now, and nothing had happened. She kept putting it off. If they didn’t marry now, they’d never marry. He wanted to establish a definitive date. It should be a discreet, quiet ceremony—just a few friends and family members. No press, no publicity. Coming from DiMaggio, it sounded more like an ultimatum than a marriage proposal, which was just as well. The one thing Marilyn couldn’t afford at this delicate juncture was to lose the only person she could depend on to be there for her no matter what. She agreed. They located a 1954 calendar and chose Thursday, January 14, as their wedding date.

  Joe returned to Los Angeles with Marilyn to attend a film industry function at the Ambassador Hotel and a day later went back to San Francisco to make wedding arrangements. Marilyn remained in her apartment at North Doheny Drive. Approached by the press, she denied that she and Joe had a wedding date in mind. Marie, Joe’s sister, told a San Francisco reporter named Alice Hoffman, “Marilyn Monroe’s plain and honest and warm and shy, just like Joe. They were made for each other.”

  In his autobiography, movie director Elia Kazan remembered calling Marilyn in 1954. He had not spoken with her in several months; the two had carried on an informal but lengthy affair that began soon after their first meeting on the Fox lot in December 1950, within days of Johnny Hyde’s death. Glad to hear Kazan’s voice, Marilyn said she had some “wonderful news” and wanted to tell him in person. He invited her over. She showed up in his room at the Bel Air Hotel late at night.

  “I’m going to get married,” she announced. “I wanted to tell you first, because I’m not going to see you again.”

  “Who is it? Who are you talking about?” asked Kazan.

  “Joe DiMaggio,” she said. “He wants to marry me, and I really like him. He’s not like these movie people. He’s dignified.” She went on about Joe for well over an hour, and Kazan could see she really did care for DiMaggio. “It was nice to see someone so happy and so hopeful,” he wrote. And then, without another word, she took off her dress and climbed into bed with Kazan. “We made love,” he remarked. “Congratulations and farewell.”

  What was probably most significant about Marilyn’s liaison with Elia Kazan was that when she met him in late 1950, he was with a friend, a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman named Arthur Miller who, at age thirty-five, had already established himself as one of America’s leading playwrights, having won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for All My Sons (1947) and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Death of a Salesman (1949).

  Kazan and Miller were both staying at agent Charles Feldman’s house. Later that week, Feldman gave a party honoring Arthur Miller. Among others, he invited Marilyn Monroe. She wore a dress that, according to Kazan, barely contained her. Describing Marilyn as “the most womanly woman I ever met,” Miller spent most of the evening seated next to her on a couch, chatting away while massaging her feet, intermittently holding on to one of her toes. After the party, Marilyn called Natasha Lytess and said, “I met a man tonight . . . It was bam! It was like running into a tree. You know, like a cool drink when you’ve got a fever.”

  There were obstacles that stood in the way of a complete relationship in 1950, not the least of which was Miller’s ten-year marriage to Mary Slattery, whom he’d met while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. They had two children, Jane and Robert, who at that time were nine and six years old, respectively. Though Miller’s marriage was in trouble—he and his wife were in therapy together—he wasn’t ready to walk away from it.

  Miller returned to New York, and Marilyn contented herself by sleeping with Kazan and corresponding with Arthur, whose first letter to her began: “Bewitch them with this image they ask for, but I hope and almost pray you won’t be hurt in this game.” He recommended that she purchase a copy of Carl Sandburg’s biography of Abraham Lincoln. She bought both the book and a portrait of the former president and amused Miller by writing him that in junior high school she’d penned a paper on Lincoln that had won her a prize. She bought and read Death of a Salesman, and everything else Miller had ever written. She kept Miller’s photo on a shelf behind her bed. But though he maintained an intense interest in her career and continued to correspond with her (often sending her wild love letters), it was Joe DiMaggio who came along and swooped her up.

  On January 7, 1954, the day after she made love to Elia Kazan for the last time, Marilyn sent Arthur Miller a short note: “As you probably read in the press, I am going to marry Joe DiMaggio next week. Wish us luck. God knows we’ll need it.”

  Chapter 8

  JOE DIMAGGIO WANTED TO HAVE a Roman Catholic priest conduct the marriage ceremony and to have it take place in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, where fifteen years earlier he had married Dorothy Arnold. Marilyn had no objection to being married by a priest. But John J. Mitty, the archbishop of San Francisco, saw it otherwise. He informed DiMaggio by letter that the church refused to recognize the validity of his divorce from Dorothy, and if he remarried, the archbishop would have no choice but to have DiMaggio excommunicated. DiMaggio reacted to the archbishop’s dire warning by telling George Solotaire, “I’d rather head for hell in due course than give up my Garden of Eden. In other words, let them excommunicate me.”

  Marilyn remained in Los Angeles while Joe, in San Francisco, worked out the final details of a wedding ceremony he hoped would remain as discreet and private as possible, particularly considering that it involved two of the most watched and talked-about personages in America. He and Marilyn spoke constantly by phone. She asked him if his son knew about their plans. He didn’t, said Joe. Eager to tell Joe Jr. that she and his father were going to be married, Marilyn visited Black-Foxe Military Institute. She stood on the sidelines with other parents watching the Friday afternoon student parade, and when it ended, she stretched out her arms and started shouting his name over and over until he ran to her for a smothering embrace. “She looked great,” said Joey, “her hair golden in the sunlight, her warm smile, the incredible figure. The older guys, the ones in high school, couldn’t stop staring at her. But she ignored them. She was there for me and let everyone know it.”

  They went out to dinner that night, the two of them, and over dinner Marilyn told Joey about the impending marriage. He slept over in her apartment. “She gave me the bedroom,” he recalled, “and she slept on the couch in the living room.” The next evening she took Joey to a movie. “It was a World War II flick,” he continued. “Can you imagine sitting there in the dark, sharing a box of popcorn and a Coke with Marilyn Monr
oe, knowing that in a week or so she’s going to be your stepmother? How cool is that?” It seemed almost implausible that no one in the press had learned of Joe and Marilyn’s wedding plans. The closest anyone came was Hollywood scribe Louella Parsons, who posited, “If marriage is Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe’s ultimate goal, and I hear it’s just around the bend, they must resign themselves to the fact that it can’t ever be a completely normal union. Marilyn will remain in show business and Joe will not be able to take it.”

  “Marilyn resented the column,” said Lotte Goslar, “while Joe DiMaggio dismissed it as ‘a bunch of newspaper talk.’ For myself, I believed Marilyn had finally overcome her reluctance to get married. Having made up her mind to go forward, she was determined to have a family and simultaneously continue her acting career. Or as she put it, ‘It’s not like I’m giving up my career; I’m simply starting a new one.’ ”

  A day after the column appeared, Marilyn received a telephone call from Harry Brand, head of publicity at Fox, wanting to know if the couple had a date in mind. Marilyn trusted Brand and asked him to keep the news under lock and key until after the wedding took place. She divulged the date, and he more or less kept his end of the bargain. He notified the press but waited until the morning of the fourteenth. As a publicist, he must have wondered if being married might damage Marilyn’s status as a sex symbol. Such an eventuality would certainly have been problematic for Twentieth Century–Fox.