Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love

by C. David Heymann

  Doctors placed Marilyn’s injured leg in a walking cast, gave her a cane, a pair of crutches, and a wheelchair. DiMaggio became her health attendant, squiring her from their bungalow to medical offices and whisking her by waiting photographers. Marilyn convinced him to pose with her for a camera crew from Look magazine. After she recovered sufficiently to go back to work, DiMaggio and Solotaire spent their days fishing for salmon, canoeing, and golfing. Joe steered clear of Natasha Lytess, but he befriended eleven-year-old Tommy Rettig, a child actor in the film. Initially, Rettig, who later found fame playing Timmy on the television series Lassie, avoided Marilyn off the set (allegedly warned to keep away from her by his priest), but he couldn’t resist the urge to meet DiMaggio, and relations with Marilyn improved gradually. When the entire cast and crew moved from the bungalows they’d inhabited in Jasper National Park to the Mount Royal Hotel in Banff, Joe, George, Marilyn, and Robert Mitchum became permanent fixtures in the card room playing board games and gin rummy. When the picture ended, and Joe and Marilyn got back to Los Angeles, they occasionally socialized with Mitchum and his wife. Mitchum was one of the few Hollywood actors DiMaggio appeared not to resent. Mitchum, in turn, a true baseball fiend, held DiMaggio in high esteem. As for Marilyn, he termed her a “kind of child-woman, but a delightful one at that.”

  Whitey Snyder admired Joe DiMaggio as well and felt he was good for Marilyn. “My wife and I always had great affection for both Joe and Marilyn,” said Whitey. “Marilyn was enormously giving. I recall when somebody at Fox, a worker, needed money for an operation to save his kid’s eyesight, she immediately wrote a check for $1,000 and handed it to him. She always supported the underdog. Joe saw past her glittering façade and appreciated her for her fine inner qualities, which wasn’t the case with most of the men she knew. He could be difficult at times. He felt people exploited her and that she was gullible enough to let them step all over her, which in a way was true. But in trying to protect her, he went too far. He tried to control her, and of all the people in the world, she was the one person you couldn’t control, certainly not by force.”

  One day Whitey and his wife went on a train ride through the Canadian Rockies with Joe and Marilyn. “It was one of those tourist deals, two railroad cars and a caboose,” said Whitey. “The scenery was breathtaking. At a certain point I said to Marilyn, ‘Do you see those mountains, darling? If you and Joe went to the other side of those mountains and built a cabin and had some kids, you’d both live happily ever after.’ I meant it because I felt Marilyn truly loved Joe, and I didn’t think she felt all that fulfilled by the film business. She didn’t say anything right away. She didn’t want Joe to hear her. But then she leaned over and whispered in my ear. ‘I wish I could, Whitey,’ she said. ‘But I can’t do that. I just can’t.’ ”

  Although Monroe and Otto Preminger never resolved their differences, they managed to coexist long enough to complete River of No Return. Years later, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times asked Preminger if he would ever make another film with Monroe. “No,” he stated emphatically, “I would not—not for any amount of money.” Asked by the same journalist whether she’d ever agree to work with Preminger again, Marilyn responded, “I would, but only if he were the last director left in Hollywood. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t.”

  • • •

  Joe and Marilyn spent four days in New York in early September before heading back to Los Angeles. Their first night in town, Toots Shor gave a private reception for them in the party room over the tavern. One of the guests was Joe McCarthy, DiMaggio’s manager when he first joined the Yanks. McCarthy told Marilyn, “It’s a pity you never saw Joe play ball. You missed something. He was the best, the absolute best.” The next day the couple attended a ballgame at Yankee Stadium. There they met up with Paul Baer, a friend of Joe’s, and Paul’s brother, Rudy Baer. Born in Milan, Italy, Paul Baer owned a porcelain factory in Lower Manhattan and played golf with DiMaggio whenever the ballplayer happened to visit New York. He’d known DiMaggio since the days of his marriage to Dorothy Arnold. He also knew Joe Jr., who was the same age as his own son.

  “I hadn’t met Marilyn Monroe before,” said Paul Baer, “but I can vouch for her beauty. We were seated in the boxes directly behind the Yankee dugout. Rudy and I arrived first. Joe and Marilyn didn’t get there until the third inning. When they walked in, the stadium erupted like a volcano. The pandemonium didn’t cease until Joe and Marilyn both stood and acknowledged the crowd. And then for the duration of the game, many of the Yankee players would stand on the dugout steps facing the crowd for a better view of Marilyn. Not that Joe DiMaggio was exactly a slouch. Here’s a guy who floated across the baseball diamond like a butterfly. One season he struck out only seven times. Can you fathom that? That’s almost as astounding as his fifty-six-consecutive-game hitting streak. Bob Feller, the great Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame pitcher, used to autograph baseballs by signing his name under the phrase ‘I struck out Joe DiMaggio.’ Joe and the blonde made some kind of team. Never mind that Marilyn didn’t seem to understand the finer points of the game. I think she tried to please Joe, but she just couldn’t get into baseball the way he would’ve wanted her to.”

  As the game progressed, random kids, mostly young boys, kept drifting over for Joe’s autograph. “Joe was very accommodating,” said Baer. “He was always nice with kids, always patient, always gave them a smile and a pat on the back. His problem in life was that he couldn’t do the same for his own kid. I never understood it. He was wonderful to all his little fans, but on a more personal level, he was the worst father God ever created. And to be honest, Joey Jr.’s mother wasn’t much better.”

  While in New York, Joe met with Bernie Kamber. He told Bernie he loved his son and was concerned because Dorothy Arnold had a new man in tow every other week. He felt Joey would be hurt and confused by her carousel of lovers. “I told him,” said Bernie, “Joey would be less confused if he could spend more time with his father. In fact, Joey was in New York at that time visiting with a friend of his from military school. His school didn’t start until mid-September. On their last afternoon in the city, Joe and Marilyn took the boy to Rumpelmayer’s, a fancy pastry shop on Central Park South. Joe was too cheap to buy Joey an ice cream soda. He wanted to go to a regular coffee shop. So Marilyn slipped the kid a twenty-dollar bill. Joe saw the transaction and told Marilyn off. She didn’t know the value of money and so forth. When I heard the story, I took a deep breath. ‘What a pisser!’ I thought.”

  Every October Black-Foxe Military Institute sponsored an annual Parents Day, when the parents of students visited the campus and sat in on classes. “Everyone came,” said Joe Jr. “I saw Jerry Lewis and Dorothy Lamour, whose sons attended the academy. Neither my father nor mother ever showed up for that particular event. It bothered me.”

  After Marilyn Monroe entered the picture, Dorothy Arnold, perhaps out of guilt, perhaps out of jealousy, made a bit of an effort to see her son, even if she didn’t visit him on Parents Day. She and Lillian Millman, her agent’s wife, would occasionally take Joey and George along on overnight trips to Baja California. “My mother had some friends down there,” said Joey, “and at night they’d all go out drinking. My mother would come back roaring drunk. She’d get loud. She’d start singing, telling stupid jokes, and begin flirting with any man who passed her way. Back home in LA, she’d continue to drink. She’d show off, do handstands in front of my friends. But she wouldn’t be wearing any panties. She’d be naked from the waist down. It was humiliating. I couldn’t figure out if my mother was trying in some fashion to compete with Marilyn Monroe. It was ironic. Here was Marilyn, sex symbol of the century, and by comparison to my mother, she seemed demure and innocent. I hate to admit it, but my mother was little more than a tramp.”

  Chapter 7

  IN THE SPRING OF 1953, Michael Chekhov, Marilyn Monroe’s most recent drama coach, introduced her to Lotte Goslar, a mime and movement teacher from Dresden, Germany, who conducted priv
ate and group classes at the Turnabout Theatre in Hollywood, where she also performed. Chekhov thought Marilyn could benefit from taking Goslar’s course. Goslar placed her in a class with ten other students and tutored her individually as well, working with her on River of No Return and on many of her subsequent films. In addition to being an instructor, Goslar took on the twin roles of friend and confidante.

  “Marilyn seemed to enjoy my class,” said Goslar. “She wore no makeup, only a touch of lipstick. She was usually late but always managed to show up. She had considerable ability and was serious about her craft, but she was insecure with regard to her skill and even regarding her beauty. She didn’t think she was pretty and needed constant reassurance. She was eager to learn and grateful whenever anyone took the trouble to help her develop her talent. She also had a wonderful little giggle, and when she didn’t know what to say, she giggled. Michael Chekhov had recommended that she read The Thinking Body, an important book on movement by Mabel Elsworth Todd, and she carried it with her at all times. One evening after class, I went for coffee with her. She revealed to me what she’d previously told Michael, that she hoped to become a bona fide actress, not a dilettante or even a so-called Hollywood star. ‘Blond hair and breasts,’ she said, ‘that’s how I started. I couldn’t act.’ Now she wanted to learn how to express her inner feelings through gestures and body movement. I assured her I would do my utmost to teach her how to use her body as an instrument of expression as well as a thing of beauty.”

  Goslar recalled being introduced to Joe DiMaggio following one of the group sessions, which met twice weekly. “He would sometimes collect Marilyn after class,” said Goslar. “On one occasion, my car had broken down so Marilyn offered to have DiMaggio drive me home when he picked her up. She told me he’d just returned from Washington, DC, having been a guest at a White House dinner party given by President Dwight Eisenhower. Joe struck me as soft spoken and polite, not what I expected of a former baseball player, though Marilyn let me know he wasn’t always that gentle. She later told me he was prone to insane bouts of jealousy, such as the time they bumped into her onetime lover at a party, and DiMaggio ‘accidentally on purpose’ spilled a drink on him and then, an hour later, ‘accidentally’ stepped on his foot. Still, there was a certain mystique about the ballplayer, a quality Marilyn shared. It set them apart as a couple. They were both extremely good-looking. He didn’t have traditional movie star good looks, but he had a certain masculine quality that stood out, a kind of craggy Gary Cooper–like appearance that can only be described as sexy. They had much in common, but there were also major differences. For one thing, DiMaggio was always punctual, and Marilyn was never on time. Except for his fits of jealousy, he appeared to be very sure of himself, Marilyn much less so. He was interested in Marilyn but not in her career, other than to insist that everyone in Hollywood was corrupt and out to use her. He completely underestimated the degree to which Marilyn valued her career. She defined herself as an actress. She and Joe had different priorities and interests. He’d had his fill of public adoration, and she pursued it with a passion. He didn’t like books, and she was a compulsive reader. He seemed set in his ways, whereas Marilyn constantly altered her persona in an effort to expand her vistas. All in all, I wouldn’t say it was a match made in heaven, though they appeared to be bonded in some curious, indefinable fashion.”

  Following her return to Los Angeles in the fall of 1953, Marilyn resumed classes with Goslar. She and DiMaggio were living together at the apartment on North Doheny. In the early morning, while Marilyn luxuriated in her bathtub, Joe would buy coffee and doughnuts at a local bakery and meet up with Whitey Snyder, who would return home with Joe to share breakfast with the couple.

  Whitey remembered that when Joe wasn’t around, Marilyn would listen to and sing along with Les Brown’s popular recording of a song (written by Ben Homer and Alan Courtney, published in 1941) called “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio,” the lyrics of which included the refrain “He’ll live in baseball’s Hall of Fame / He got there blow by blow / Our kids will tell their kids his name / Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio.”

  Whitey asked Marilyn if she’d ever performed her little number for Joe, and she said she hadn’t. She thought it might offend him. “No it won’t,” responded Snyder. “He’ll appreciate it.” So after breakfast one morning, with Whitey Snyder present, Marilyn played the record and went into her song-and-dance routine. “Joe got a big bang out of it,” said Whitey. “He couldn’t stop laughing. It really was cute. Marilyn in one of her half dozen terry cloth robes doing this jig and singing along with the recording. I never forgot that scene of joy.”

  Whitey Snyder acknowledged Marilyn’s comedic skills. “She was a wonderful mimic and very funny, a bit on the risqué side,” he said. “Discussing her romance with Joe DiMaggio, she once described herself as ‘the ballplayer’s ball player.’ And I recall Truman Capote telling me about a conversation he had with Marilyn during which he admitted to her he’d gone to bed with actor Errol Flynn. ‘Flynn zigzags,’ answered Marilyn. ‘He’s bisexual.’ She mentioned a Hollywood party she attended at which Flynn played ‘You Are My Sunshine’ on the piano with his penis. She then added that had it been Joe DiMaggio’s penis, he probably would’ve played something a lot more substantial.”

  Lotte Goslar remembered a less humorous moment. Marilyn called one night and asked her to come over. She sounded concerned. Whitey Snyder and Joe DiMaggio were both there with Marilyn when Goslar arrived. So was Sidney Skolsky. They were later joined by DiMaggio’s attorney Loyd Wright, currently working for Monroe as well. Riding the success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, Marilyn had expected to be offered a role in The Egyptian, scheduled to start shooting in early 1954. “As Marilyn explained it that evening, not only had Darryl Zanuck bypassed her for that film, the role he offered her was that of a prim, angrily virtuous schoolteacher who becomes a ‘hoochy-koochy’ saloon dancer in a motion picture called The Girl in Pink Tights, costarring Frank Sinatra.” The film was a remake of a 1947 Betty Grable picture called Mother Wore Tights.

  “The script, which the studio at first refused to send her, was full of breathy suggestive lines. Marilyn wrote the word ‘trash’ across the title page and sent it back. The studio’s jocular in-house response was, ‘Well, that never stopped her before.’ Marilyn notified Twentieth Century–Fox that she had no intention of reporting for the first day of rehearsals on December 15, eliciting a predictable reply from Zanuck reminding her that she was under contract and had no choice in the matter. If she refused the role, she risked being placed on suspension and possibly having her contract terminated.

  “The question was what to do? Should Marilyn simply refuse to accept the role and risk everything, or should she agree to appear in the movie and use it as a bargaining chip for a future film of her choice and a more lucrative contract? Joe DiMaggio had no intention of allowing her to appear in yet another film that exploited her sexuality. ‘You have to play hardball with those bastards if you want to win,’ he remarked. He said he received demeaning endorsement offers all the time, most recently from a men’s hair-coloring firm and another from a denture cream manufacturer, and he routinely turned them down. He advised Marilyn to do the same. Sidney Skolsky agreed. ‘It’s called show business,’ he pointed out, ‘with the emphasis on business. Tell them to go fuck themselves.’

  “The Pink Tights offer was a slap in the face, a debasement,” said Goslar, “the more so because Marilyn had become one of the highest grossing and most popular actresses in the industry. She was caught in the cruel and relentless treadmill of fame and stardom. She had so much more to offer than her looks. I think it was earlier that year the Italian film industry gave her an award for one of her pictures. I don’t recall which one. I happened to be at the ceremony in Hollywood, and when they announced Marilyn’s name, Anna Magnani, seated in the audience, shouted ‘Putana!’—whore. Hollywood refused to grant her the respect she deserved. And that more than a
nything is what she sought.”

  Lotte Goslar advised Marilyn to turn down the film and hold out for a more challenging role. Loyd Wright felt that while they would probably suspend Marilyn, they would just as quickly reinstate her. Whitey Snyder made it unanimous. “Why don’t you and Joe get married,” he said, “and see what happens? I guarantee Zanuck will come crawling.”

  Zanuck came crawling well before Joe and Marilyn became husband and wife. He dispatched members of his staff to Doheny Drive to try to convince Marilyn to sign on for Pink Tights. An irate Joe DiMaggio intercepted Zanuck’s emissaries at the front door. Under no circumstances, he informed them, would Marilyn do the film. That was her final decision.

  • • •

  Although Twentieth Century–Fox didn’t officially suspend Marilyn until early January, both she and DiMaggio realized the letter would arrive and that her weekly payroll checks would stop coming. Joe told her she needn’t worry—they would get married, and he would take care of her. They could live in the house on Beach Street in San Francisco, have a boatload of babies, and grow old together. In fact, he was prepared to fly with her to Reno and get married immediately. In September 1953 she agreed to become Joe’s wife, but she wasn’t ready to set a date.

  “As much as she loved him—and she did love him—Marilyn didn’t seem overjoyed at the prospect of becoming Mrs. DiMaggio,” said Lotte Goslar. “She foresaw problems. She realized he had contempt for Hollywood and everything related to it, and while she herself disliked aspects of her profession, she knew full well she couldn’t just walk away from it and become a full-time housewife. As she put it, ‘I’m not Dorothy Arnold,’ a reference to his first wife, who did just that. And that’s what Joe wanted. He wanted her to become his housewife, and it just wasn’t going to happen, not the way he wanted it and certainly not without a number of concessions on both sides. And neither of them was very willing to compromise. He convinced himself that it was his responsibility to save her from a lifetime of servitude to the devils that controlled the evil empire called Hollywood. He wanted as little to do with Hollywood as possible.