Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love (16 page)

I
N 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 private 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 anything 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.

“In early November, for example, DiMaggio refused to escort Marilyn to the Los Angeles premiere of
How to Marry a Millionaire
. Marilyn reacted by demanding that he remove his clothes from her apartment, but he apologized, and once again, as she’d done so often, she forgave him. As retribution, however, she made him take her to the Hollywood opening of the play
Call Me Madam
. And after the play, he treated her to a late supper at Chasen’s. You might say they were kindred spirits with opposing points of view.”

On November 25,
Joe’s thirty-ninth birthday, Marilyn gave him a gold medallion upon which she had ordered a jeweler to inscribe a line from
The Little Prince
, the fable by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “True love is visible not to the eye but to the heart for eyes may be deceived.” “I like it,” said DiMaggio, “but what the hell does it mean?”

Joe and Marilyn traveled to San Francisco together to spend Thanksgiving with his family and friends. They had their holiday meal at Joe’s house and were joined by (among others) Frank “Lefty” O’Doul, his former manager with the San Francisco Seals. O’Doul had been a star outfielder during the 1920s and 1930s; his .349 lifetime batting average remains the fourth best in baseball history—and 24 points higher than DiMaggio’s. Reno Barsocchini, a former bartender at the DiMaggio
family restaurant, was there too. Lefty and Reno were like family to DiMaggio; both had opened North Beach bistros of their own. Reno’s establishment, on Post Street next door to the Ambassador Health Club, had become Joe’s West Coast version of Toots Shor’s.

After carving the turkey, which had been prepared by Marie, Joe announced that he and Marilyn were planning to tie the knot. Reno stood and raised his glass of wine. “Here’s to Joe and Marilyn,” he said. “At least there’ll be one looker in the DiMaggio household.” After dinner, “the looker” helped Marie with the dishes. When an Associated Press reporter, having heard of the possible nuptials, asked Marilyn if she intended to get married to the Yankee Clipper, she said, “It could be. I intend to remain in pictures, but I’ll eventually become a housewife, too.”

Back in Los Angeles, following Thanksgiving, Marilyn and Joe had brunch with Inez Melson, Monroe’s new business manager. DiMaggio had given Inez his stamp of approval, largely because Melson shared his negative opinion of Natasha Lytess. In any event, she was undoubtedly preferable to Doc Goddard, who’d fulfilled the same function until Melson took over. Not that Doc had been dishonest, but he was, after all, the man who’d sexually abused Marilyn as a child, although that story too seemed to change with every telling.