Valmore Monette had an instinct for promotion. Two things he thought were top-of-the-line—and two things for which his company was known—were Joe DiMaggio, and Miss Americas. Monette employed as many formers as he could. (Joe got to meet them all.) And Monette promoted DiMaggio’s affiliation with the company by announcing that he paid the Yankee Clipper a hundred G’s a year. (Joe was happy to announce that, too.) . . . In point of fact—on the testimony of one pal who saw Joe’s pay stub—Joe’s wage worked out to about thirty-five grand. But Monette threw in a suite at the Lexington Hotel in New York, and picked up all the tabs when he and Joe were on the road. It worked out great. In fact, Joe stayed with the company for almost three years—and even when he left, that was pretty good publicity, because Monette told everybody that DiMaggio resigned to go back with Marilyn Monroe.
And that may well have been what Joe told him. But it was also true that Joe didn’t need to work anymore . . . because of a lamentable event in New Jersey. Longy Zwillman was found (alas, dead) hanging from the chandelier in his house. The cops in West Orange marked it down as suicide—poor Longy, the feds had hounded him to an early grave . . . .
(Actually, the cops put it on the logs as a suicide, before the body was even discovered. This was the kind of suicide that somebody phoned in. According to pals in New York, what happened was Longy had poached once too often. His boys had hijacked a truckload of beef that was destined for Petey Castellano, in Brooklyn. So Castellano got upset and sent three guys to West Orange, New Jersey, to hang Longy up like a side of beef. Problem was, Castellano’s guys forgot the meathook—so what could they do? . . . They strung Longy up from his chandelier instead.)
But meanwhile, there was Joe DiMaggio, with three of Longy’s “boxes”—and what was he to do with the cash? Take it to the cops, and say, “I found this?” . . . Probably not. Of course, he’d never paid any taxes on it, either—which also made it inconvenient to bring up. This was where his lifelong habitude of quiet came in handy. Joe kept the money in his storeroom at the Marina house, and never said a word about it, for years.
JOE JR.’S PROBLEM was, he couldn’t get his dad down to Lawrenceville, New Jersey, to visit at the new school—which would have done a lot to put Junior on the map. That was only one of Junior’s problems. Another was, the schoolwork was hard. (As he wrote to his mom: “Algebra . . . Whew!”) The major problem was, he was sixteen years old, and still not quite five feet seven, a bit of a butterball at one hundred sixty pounds. That put varsity football out of reach, for the moment—unless he could be the kicker . . . but in his first junior varsity game, Butch missed the extra point, and Lawrenceville lost 7–6. (“I guess you know how badly I felt . . .”) So, he explained in a letter home to mom, maybe it was better that “J.D.” hadn’t come to watch.
That’s how he often referred to his dad, or sometimes as “my father.” It gave his references to Big Joe a weary and adult air that probably mirrored Dorothy’s. As Junior noted in one letter home: “JD has tried to be charming in his miserable sort of way, but then I guess he’s doing better than what I expected, and he knows no different so we bless him and give him our love.”
In fact, in that fall of 1957, J.D. was trying to make the boy part of his life—which, in Big Joe’s case, meant bringing him in as one of the guys. Here, for example, is Junior’s happy recollection of Thanksgiving vacation in New York with J.D.
“Chuck Heller went with me because he is a long way from home and had no place to go.
“Wednesday—arrived in New York about 3:00. went to Toots Shors had dinner and Chuck and I went bowling. First game 109 second game 160. Then home went the two noble warriors. Asked J.D. for tickets to “My Fair Lady.” Wound up sitting in ‘house seats’ (second row center) . . . Wow!! It was a great show, but I guess you can imagine. After the show we went to Dinty Moore’s had a bite to eat then home. Bed.
“Thursday—after eating breakfast we watched the football games on T.V. Then over to Toots’s home for Thanksgiving dinner. It was really good!! After dinner We went to see a new musical called Rumple. It starred Eddie Foy Jr. and we enjoyed it very much. Back to Toots’s home where we met Frank Gifford, Charley Connerly, and Kyle Rote, the players on the NY Giants football team. Afterwards home again. Bed.
“Friday—slept most of the day. Met another boy from school and the three of us plus George Solotaire and Dad went to the Colony for dinner! Great! Then we went out on the town and met a bunch of kids from school. Finally home to bed.
“Saturday—up at 7:30. Caught train to Phila. on our way to the Army Navy Game. 7 in our party. There were J.D., Chuck, Eddie Arcaro’s son, Toots, his daughter, John Daly and myself. Sat in the rain. It was miserable but we had a great time, Lots of fun! Bad game! Home after the game. J.D. was feeling lousy because of the cold in his back so the two of us joined George Solotaire, his wife, son, son’s wife and mother-in-law for dinner. Afterward I took Chuck to see Around the World in 80 Days. He enjoyed it. So did I. Had a couple of Hamburgers at Hamburger Heaven after the show. then Home!
“Sunday—up late! Ate breakfast and then we went to the Giants 49ers football game! Had to leave at the half so we could get back to school in time. Score 17–7. Finally got back to school.”
He was very seldom alone with his dad, but it was more time than the boy could ever remember spending with Big Joe. And Junior loved it. He felt like he was becoming one of the guys—coming of age as a DiMaggio—though that wasn’t something he would write home to mom. Nor would he write what he did talk about with his father, one of their major points of contact: Junior was in touch with Mrs. Arthur Miller. Marilyn had never stopped caring for Joe Jr. (She did like him—that was all real.) Joe Jr. could always call her on the phone, just to talk. And that was one thing that put him on the map with his dad.
The sad part was, from the time Joe Jr. came east to prep school—through all his years at Lawrenceville, in fact—the news from Marilyn wasn’t often good. While Junior had that slap-up Thanksgiving with his dad, Marilyn was in slow and painful recovery from a miscarriage that plunged her into depression, and a suicide attempt that shook everyone around her. She wasn’t talking, in those days, about her dream of becoming a great stage actress—she didn’t talk about anything she was doing—and that first year Junior was in New Jersey, she didn’t even make one picture.
By his second year, she did go back to work (on a picture called Some Like It Hot) but in the middle of filming, she was once again hospitalized for “nervous exhaustion.” Everyone around her was exhausted by her—every scene was a million retakes, and sometimes, she wouldn’t appear on the set till late afternoon. The gossip columns were filled with her problems, and resentful reactions from her co-stars and crew. Everything Big Joe read in the papers just confirmed for him what he’d always said: those phonies around her were going to ruin her. And he’d ask Joe Jr.—had he talked to Marilyn lately? . . . And did she ask about his dad?
The good news (at least for Big Joe) was she did ask about him. She had never cast him out of her mind—never worked at forgetting him. (For example, the combination lock on her jewelry box was still, and always, 5-5-5.) And her thoughts always turned to Joe in times of trouble—she was in trouble, now. It wasn’t just career woes of the old sort. When Some Like It Hot finally did come out, it set box office records through the spring and summer of 1959—it would become the most successful comedy in Hollywood history. But Marilyn was in trouble with herself, in herself. All the dreams that were her life rafts had come apart as she clutched for them.
Her studies to become a stage actress had led precisely nowhere. That sent her back to Hollywood, for Some Like It Hot. Her role in that picture, and even its huge success, convinced her that the industry (and the public) only loved her as the ditzy blond bombshell (in this case, too dumb to see that Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis were men). But how would she ever escape that role, now? She had broken her partnership with Milton Greene, and Marilyn Monroe Productions was now no
thing more than a shell.
Another miscarriage convinced her that she could never be the wife and mother that Arthur Miller wanted. (His protests that the want of a child came from her, not him, did nothing to console her.) . . . Desperately, to show his love, Miller started writing a screenplay for her—The Misfits—that would finally give scope to her dramatic talents. But in practice, that only meant that Miller was squirreled away in his writing studio all day, every day—and Marilyn was left alone.
Now most of her days began around noon, in a lingering barbiturate haze. And even when she woke she would stay in her darkened room, drinking (first a stiff Bloody Mary, and then champagne all afternoon) . . . until she mustered courage to leave her bed. Her maids and attendants would hear Frank Sinatra on Marilyn’s record player . . .
All of me,
Why not take all of me?
Can’t you see,
I’m no good without you?
. . . as Marilyn made the trip across the room, to her closet, where, inside the door, there was a full-length picture of Joe DiMaggio.
NOW MARILYN’S LIFELINE was the telephone. And according to her New York maid, there were two callers who could always cheer Marilyn up—two men she’d loved and left: Frank Sinatra, and Joe DiMaggio.
She hadn’t told anybody when she started calling Joe again—except in the most cryptic way. She used to say: “I guess everybody I’ve ever loved, I still love a little bit.” And there was another unintended hint to her change of attitude. Once, when a friend asked how she could be so bitchy to Arthur Miller—she’d berate him, and order him around in public (fetch her purse, get her mink)—Marilyn shrugged, and blamed it on him: “Why didn’t he slap me? He should have slapped me.”
Joe didn’t talk about her calls, either—except to mention them happily to two or three fellows in the network. For one thing, she was still (nominally) Mrs. Arthur Miller. Joe didn’t want it said he’d interfered in that marriage. And the last thing he wanted was the papers finding out. He didn’t want any public pressure on their “friendship”—the way he saw it, that’s what turned things wrong the first time.
(In fact, all through 1960, when Joe and Marilyn’s conversations were more and more fond and frequent, the papers were nattering on about the new love of Marilyn’s life, Yves Montand. The Frenchman had been the co-star in her film that year, Let’s Make Love. She was said to be besotted with him—like a schoolgirl—that was Montand’s recollection. The only thing Marilyn said, publicly, was that she considered Montand a most attractive man. In private, she said why—she told friends he reminded her of Joe DiMaggio.)
The odd part was, Sinatra’s calls had to be secret, too—not only from Mr. Miller, but from Joe. He would have hit the roof. Since the Wrong-Door Raid, DiMaggio would have nothing to do with Sinatra. He thought Frank had set him up—so Sinatra could jump into bed with Marilyn. Sinatra, for his part, didn’t take DiMaggio that seriously. He didn’t even take Marilyn that seriously. That was one thing she liked about “Frankie.” He didn’t want to change her, fix her, rescue her. Frankie knew how to have a good time. In that, he was the perfect antidote to Mr. Miller.
Marilyn’s faithful reverence for her playwright husband was a thing of the past. Now her attitude toward him swung wildly from pole to pole—oftentimes all in the same day. She might contend one minute that whatever she did was unimportant, as long as she did not disturb Arthur, who must be allowed to write—his work was all that mattered. And next minute, she might be crying and demanding that he pay attention to her—he had coldly abandoned her! That might be followed by a bout of self-loathing, and pity for Arthur: she was barren both as his wife and his muse—poor man! And soon thereafter, she might be screaming her scorn for him—he had produced nothing, while she supported them. There were times she suspected him of forcing her back to Hollywood—and dumb-blondehood—all for money. And when he showed her the pages of his great love offering, The Misfits, she found her character, Roslyn, to be passive, preachy, and in spots, “just lousy.”
By the time The Misfits started filming, in the summer of 1960, Miller had been cowed into never-ending rewrites, night after night, on location in the Nevada desert. The script kept changing with his attitude toward his wife—and neither one was getting any better. It was apparent to everyone on location that this movie—which Miller had begun as an affirmation of his love—would end up putting paid to his marriage. Marilyn humiliated Miller at every turn, and at length exiled him from her hotel suite (she slept instead with her coach, Paula Strasberg).
But it was also clear that Marilyn’s problems weren’t likely to end with that marriage. Now, she wasn’t just afraid of the camera, late to the set, fuzzy on her lines. She was taking so many pills (and injections) that the cinematographer protested, he couldn’t photograph her. (He could see it through his lens—her eyes wouldn’t focus.) And once again, production was shut down, as Marilyn was hospitalized for a week. When The Misfits was finally finished, in November 1960—forty days and God knows how many dollars over budget—Marilyn was all but uninsurable as a motion picture star.
And after production the news got worse. One week later came the announcement that her marriage to Arthur Miller was over. (This time, she’d get a quickie divorce in Mexico.) A week after that, her co-star, Clark Gable, died of a heart attack. Marilyn and her maddening troubles were blamed for imposing too much stress on the King. By January 1961, the film had premiered—and was adjudged to be a dud. Marilyn was back in New York, in the East 57th Street apartment that she and Mr. Miller used to share. Now, he was gone (to their country house in Connecticut). Marilyn was alone with her staff, with her pills, and splits of champagne. She had no projects and no prospect of work—nothing to get her out of bed—except appointments with her psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris. Marilyn wasn’t sleeping well, or eating well—she wasn’t well in any way. So, on February 5, 1961, Dr. Kris drove her to the Cornell University medical center on New York’s East Side, where Marilyn checked herself in for a rest.
Immediately, she was taken to the Payne Whitney psychiatric division, where she was locked into a cell, on the ward for the truly psychotic patients. Her screams of protest, her demands to be released, were ignored (or taken as evidence of her sickness). When she broke the pane of glass in her (locked) bathroom door, she was threatened with restraint and watched day and night. And to whom could she appeal? Her doctor had betrayed her. For Marilyn this was the worst fear of her life come true—she was locked away like her mother—a prisoner in a loony bin. So, after three days, when she was finally permitted one call, she phoned to Florida. She called Joe DiMaggio.
He was there the next day, at the Payne Whitney reception desk—six feet one and a half inches tall, wide at the shoulders, glowering darkly, and in no mood for talk.
“I want my wife,” DiMaggio said.
No one pointed out to him that he and Marilyn Monroe had not been married for six years. Instead, they tried to tell him they had no authority to release Miss Monroe—to him or to anyone else.
“I want my wife,” DiMaggio said, with menacing precision. His large hands gripped the reception desk. “And if you do not release her to me, I will take this place apart—piece of wood, by piece . . . of . . . wood.”
Suddenly, the Payne Whitney staff discovered that Miss Monroe was free to go. Joe had Marilyn transferred crosstown, to another hospital, Columbia Presbyterian, where she could have a real rest—in a normal private room—which he would visit daily, and which he’d fill with roses.
* I told Yolande that I had always heard Joe’s “Louisville Slugger” ranked only second to the big schtick of Milton Berle. But on this subject Yolande was firm. “Oh, no,” she said. “Milton’s was never that big.”
IN NEW YORK, 1961.
BACK ALL THE WAY: TOGETHER IN FLORIDA, 1961.
AUGUST 8, 1962, WITH JOE JR. AT HIS SIDE.
CHAPTER 16
WHEN MARILYN EMERGED FROM HER HOSPITAL REST, in March 1961, Joe fle
w her to St. Petersburg, where he was coaching at the Yankees’ spring training camp. That was the first year Casey Stengel was gone—and the first time Joe had been paid the respect of an invitation. For DiMaggio that was vindication—a validation of all he’d meant to that club. His exile was over, he was back in pinstripes. And when Marilyn said she would meet him in Florida, then Joe was back all the way. He ran around for days before she arrived, getting things ready—as purposeful as a mama bird building a nest in the spring. He was in action again, and he hadn’t lost his moves: he told his pals he was going to be tied up; he told the press precisely nothing about Miss Monroe; he told the road secretary of the Yankees that he wanted two suites at the Soreno—in case anybody asked. (They did.)
But it wasn’t just the old moves. Joe was different, calmer about the little things. The old guys who’d come to camp noticed Daig didn’t mind taking meals in the dining room—he’d sit after dinner, talking with the kids on the team, even if some fans interrupted. A couple of the old writers, Joe asked them to breakfast—just for the hell of it, he didn’t have anything to prove. At that camp, he was a god, a Hall of Famer—and a relic. It wasn’t just the players seemed like boys to him, now. The manager who’d invited him was a kid, too: Joe had seen Ralph Houk break in, after the war. Joe wore his age and distance from the modern game with grace—never scolded, never compared these kids to his guys, his day, his Yankee winners—and never tried to make himself a force upon this jet-age club. He cultivated his remove, as he did the handsome gray in his hair—never had a conversation without some offhand joke about that. He was as elegant (and bygone) as private railroad cars.
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (Touchstone Book) Page 49