Goodbye Norma Jean

On January 14, 1954, Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe in a small civil ceremony at San Francisco's City Hall. Other than the couple and the judge, only three people were in attendance - DiMaggio's friend Reno Barsocchini, and his old manager from the San Francisco Seals, Lefty O'Doul, along with Lefty's wife.

If you know much about either of these two icons, then you probably know the iconic stories of their short-lived marriage. On their honeymoon, they went to Japan, and while there, Marilyn was asked to entertain troops in Korea on a USO tour. She went against Joe's wishes and performed for 60,000 salivating G.I.'s. Upon her return, she told DiMag, "oh Joe, the applause, you've never heard anything like it." His reply - "Yes I have, dear, yes I have."

And such was the crux of the issue - Joe, the retired ballplayer who'd never been much in love with the spotlight in the first place, and Marilyn, more in love with the spotlight than she was with life itself. Nine months after the wedding, the marriage was on the rocks, and when Joe witnessed Marilyn filming the infamous skirt-blowing scene for The Seven-Year Itch, he blew his top. Two weeks later Monroe filed for divorce, citing mental cruelty.

Evidently, they never stopped being in love. DiMaggio worshiped her memory, having fresh red roses delivered to her grave three times a week until his death. And in Richard Ben Cramer's book about the Clipper, A Hero's Life, he reports a scene where a drunken Marilyn rued the loss of DiMaggio and his cock, which was evidently enormous. "I miss Joe," she slurred. "He had a big bat and he could really hit home runs."

There were unsubstantiated rumors that the two were going to remarry around the time of Marilyn's death. DiMaggio loathed Sinatra's Rat Pack crowd and the Kennedy brothers ever afterward, believing it was their sordid influence on her life that killed her. In his brilliant 1966 Esquire piece on Joe D, "The Silent Season of a Hero," Gay Talese recounts the scene at Mickey Mantle's retirement ceremony in September of '65. It was at Yankee Stadium, and DiMaggio was there to introduce his successor in center, the Mighty Mick. While Joe was making the introduction, Bobby Kennedy appeared in the Yankee dugout to the great surprise of all the ballplayers. Later on, Kennedy was introduced and came out onto the field to congratulate Mantle. Talese writes,

"DiMaggio saw him coming down the line, and at the last second he backed away, casually, hardly anybody noticing it, and Kennedy seemed not to notice it either, just swept past shaking more hands."