January 14, 1954, 70 years ago: Joe DiMaggio marries Marilyn Monroe at City Hall in Joe's hometown of San Francisco.
Joe, the biggest baseball star of his generation, was 39 years old. Marilyn, one of the biggest actresses of the time, but not yet the biggest, was 27. Each became a much bigger public figure by marrying the other.
Each had been married once before. In 1937, after his great rookie season for the Yankees, DiMaggio was in demand, and was cast in the film Manhattan Merry-Go-Round. It was the only film in which he ever appeared. Also in it was a blonde actress named Dorothy Arnold. (I suppose you could say that Joe had a type.)
They got married in a Catholic ceremony in San Francisco in 1939, and their son Joe Jr. was born in 1941. The marriage began to fail during World War II, and when she left him, Joe enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was assigned to the Army Air Forces (the Air Force was not separated from the Army until 1947), and was still in the service in 1944 when the divorce was finalized.
Marilyn was born Norma Jeane Mortensen, in Los Angeles, but her family situation was every bit as messed-up as Joe's was stable. She grew up using her mother's maiden name for her last name, calling herself Norma Jeane Baker. At age 16, the family situation got worse, and she was threatened with being sent back to an orphanage. Rather than accept that, she married a 21-year-old neighbor, James Dougherty.
The Doughertys were not happy. Right after World War II ended, Marilyn got a modeling job offer, but was told they didn't accept married women. So she left him, and they were divorced in 1946. Jim Dougherty became a Los Angeles police officer, and later taught criminal justice at a college in Maine. He died in 2005, insisting to the end that if Marilyn had turned down the job offer and stayed married to him, she would have been happy.
She signed with Columbia Pictures, took her alliterative stage name, and, like the Mexican-American Margarita Cansino, a.k.a. Rita Hayworth, had her ordinary-blonde hair dyed platinum blonde. Her contract at Columbia was brief, and she moved on to 20th Century Fox. Her small roles in All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle led to bigger roles, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, pairing her up with a brunette with, to put it politely, a similar figure: Jane Russell. Jane had also married a sports legend, Los Angeles Rams quarterback Bob Waterfield. That marriage lasted from 1943 to 1968.
At first, Marilyn didn't want to meet Joe, thinking he would be just another arrogant athlete. But something clicked, and, since Joe was still recognized as married by the Roman Catholic Church, they had a civil ceremony at San Francisco's City Hall.
They honeymooned in Japan. While there, the USO asked Marilyn to make the short flight over to Korea, where, although the Korean War was over, there were still a lot of servicemen stationed. She went, and sang and posed for them. Upon returning to Tokyo, she told her husband, "Oh, Joe, you never heard such cheering!" Missing it, he sadly said, "Yes, I have."
They were a mismatch. She wanted to keep her star rising. He wanted her to stay at home and be a good little Italian housewife. (She was of Scandinavian descent.) The only thing they seemed to agree on was that they both wanted children. But Marilyn had endometriosis, and she couldn't carry a pregnancy to term.
On September 14, 1954, Marilyn stood in front of the Trans-Lux 52nd Street Theater (since demolished), and filmed a scene for the film The Seven Year Itch, in which she stood over a grate for the Lexington Avenue Subway, and a passing train billowed up her white dress. Director Billy Wilder, a known "dirty old man," filmed take after take, even though she got it right every time. Although what appeared on film turned out to be rather tame, especially by today's standards, the film poster was more revealing.
Joe was furious at this. But, rather than take his frustrations out on Wilder, he took them out on Marilyn. He took her into the lobby of the theater, and there was a shouting match. Depending on whose version of the story you believe, he may even have hit her. It has long been believed that he was physically abusive to her in private.
The following month, upon returning to Los Angeles, Marilyn filed for divorce. The following year, she began an affair with Arthur Miller, the playwright who wrote Death of a Salesman. They married in a Jewish ceremony in 1959, and Marilyn was 4 months pregnant when she filmed Some Like It Hot, also directed by Wilder, making her curvier and bouncier than ever: As Jack Lemmon said, in character, "Will you look at that! It's like Jell-O on springs!" But she lost the baby, and her marriage to Miller disintegrated.
They divorced in early 1961, and Marilyn was committed to a psychiatric clinic. Upon hearing this, Joe stepped back into her life, and got her out. They made some public appearances together, and it looked like they might remarry.
But on August 5, 1962, Marilyn was found dead in her Los Angeles house, only 36 years old. The cause was an overdose of barbiturates, though it is still debated as to whether it was intentional.
DiMaggio organized her funeral. He barred several of her friends from attending, including President John F. Kennedy, believing the rumor that Jack and Marilyn had had an affair. He also barred Frank Sinatra, although Marilyn always denied having fooled around with Frank.
Joe and Frank were not just the 2 most famous Americans of Italian descent, but had once been close friends. They even "raided" somebody's house, thinking that the owner was fooling around with Marilyn. They had the wrong house, and nearly got in legal trouble for what became known as "The Wrong Door Raid."
Joe ended their friendship over Marilyn. An attempt to reconcile them at a Los Angeles restaurant in 1995 fell through, and the feud lasted until Sinatra's death in 1998.
For 20 years, Joe left flowers at Marilyn's grave 3 times a week. He stopped when he found out they were being taken as souvenirs. When he attended sports memorabilia shows, the rules for getting Joe's autograph included not mentioning Marilyn or giving him anything to sign with her in it, even if the picture had both of them. At least once, when presented with such a picture, he got up and left without a word.
Despite having been linked with a few women over the years, including Miss Americas Lee Meriwether and Marian McKnight, actress Gloria DeHaven, and, as late as the 1980s, actress Morgan Fairchild, Joe DiMaggio never remarried after his divorce from Marilyn Monroe, or even publicly confirmed that he was dating anyone. Joe's last words prior to his death on March 8, 1999, according to his attorney Morris Engelberg, were, "I'll finally get to see Marilyn." Joe's brother Dom, himself a star center fielder, denied this.
Still, both Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe loom large in the American consciousness, partly due to their connection to each other. In 1989, with Joe still alive, Billy Joel wrote "We Didn't Start the Fire," rhyming "DiMaggio" with "Monroe." In 1990, Madonna did the same thing in her song "Vogue." Both songs hit Number 1. Madonna had previously copied Marilyn's performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes for the video for her hit "Material Girl."