Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio

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written by Surftofind | views: 4578

Joe DiMaggio met Marilyn Monroe in 1952, he was thirty-seven, she was twenty-five. He was the original, Broadway Joe the dominant force in the New York Yankees dynasty and the most famous star in Baseball history. Marilyn Monroe would become the most famous star in Hollywood history, but when she met Joe, he was the star.

Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe On January 14, 1954, and it was the dawn of the most touching love story in American history. Unfortunately, the zeal to assassinate the character of President John F. Kennedy effectively buried the truth about the genuine love that Marilyn and Joe shared. According to popular misconception, it was the President, not Joe DiMaggio who was supposed to be Marilyn Monroe's love interest on the day she died.

The reason behind the depth of the love between Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe is succinctly captured by Richard Ben Cramer. According to the author of Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life:

Joe and Marilyn had one thing big in common. Both were living inside the vast personages that the hero machine had created for them. And inside those personages, those enormous idols for the nation, Marilyn and Joe were only small and struggling, fearful to be seen and alone always. They were like kids left in a giant house, who must not be discovered, or it would all come crashing down. In their loneliness they might have been brother and sister, it was Joe's insistence, made them husband and wife.

Joe wanted to meet Marilyn as soon as he saw a cute photo of her in a short-skirted baseball outfit and the attraction proved to be mutual. They were destined to meet for the sheer publicity of it all. He was a folk hero, she was the most publicized, swiftly rising movie star in the world, and an appearance with Joe DiMaggio was just business. Romance and marriage was personal, and their initial introduction at an Italian restaurant on Sunset Boulevard turned personal, because in the words of Marilyn Monroe:

I was surprised to be so crazy about Joe. I expected a flashy New York sports type, and instead I met this reserved guy who didn't make a pass at me right away. I had dinner with him almost every night for two weeks. He treated me like something special. Joe is a very decent man, and he makes other people feel decent, too. "I don't know if I'm in love with him yet," Marilyn said, "but I know I like him more than any man I've ever met."

The flame of the passionate romance that was ignited shortly after they met was never extinguished. It predictably dampened once or twice, but it was never extinguished. Joe was the one that Marilyn always called whenever she needed him and Joe never let Marilyn down.

Read more Marilyn Monroe quotes

DiMaggio was the dago who failed to tame the dame during their official marriage, but when they divorced and Marilyn married Arthur Miller, she turned nostalgic for Joe. Compared to Joe, Arthur Miller was the wimp who took her abuse and refused to slug her, because --in her own words, "Joe never beat me without a good reason." Marilyn did not miss the physical abuse, but Joe learned to control his anger, and that made it acceptable to be nostalgic about being slapped around by Joe. If Marilyn Monroe tormented Arthur Miller, it was payback for his arrogance. The manifestation of Miller's arrogance was persistent, psychological abuse that smothered love and made divorce a necessary escape.

The divorce from Miller was an escape, the divorce from Joe, was a pause. Joe and Marilyn were not just divorced after nine turbulent months of marriage, as widely reported. A marriage is an affair of the heart, and the Yankee Clipper and Marilyn Monroe acted like husband and wife because they wanted to, not because they were married. When Marilyn died, it was Joe who organized Monroe’s funeral and had white roses delivered to her grave twice a week. The divorce was rather meaningless because on August 8, 1962, Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio would marry again, her death, just days earlier, was not the predictable consequence of her inner-turmoil, as is popularly assumed. Character assassination-based, rumor and innuendo delayed the opportunity to understand the genuine nature of the relationship between Joe and Marilyn, affirming the authority of Mark Twain's adage, "a lie will travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."