Authors: Barbara Leaming
Shaw had become friendly with Joe when he and Jimmy Cannon collaborated on a DiMaggio documentary. Currently, he was doing the still photographs for
The Seven Year Itch.
Knowledgeable, well-read, up on all the latest cultural phenomena, he had a reputation as a man with good ideas. When he talked, Feldman, Skouras, and many others in Hollywood listened intently. When Shaw first read the script of
The Seven Year Itch
, Feldman’s ears had perked up at something he said. In 1941, Shaw had photographed some sailors with their girls at the Steeplechase in Coney Island for
Friday
magazine; the cover showed one
of the girls, her skirt caught in a gust of wind. Shaw suggested replicating the image in
The Seven Year Itch.
No one could have suspected that the picture of Marilyn cooling herself over a subway grating would become famous long before the movie opened. Even less could they have suspected that filming it would trigger the breakup of her marriage.
Joe was at Shor’s with George Solotaire and Jimmy Cannon when the columnist Walter Winchell came up to Table One and announced that he was going over to Lexington Avenue to watch Billy Wilder shoot. Tongue in cheek, Winchell said he’d heard there was this girl named Marilyn Monroe in the picture. Did Joe want to tag along?
Pictures and stories about Marilyn had dominated the New York papers for days. On Monday, midtown traffic had been held up for hours as the actress, wearing a scanty slip, filmed a street scene at an East 61st Street townhouse. The
Daily News
dubbed her “a roadblock named Marilyn Monroe.” The
Journal-American
announced that Marilyn would be filming late on Wednesday night outside the Trans-Lux, 52nd Street Theater: “There won’t be any admission charge when Marilyn appears for the shooting of street sequences for her new film
The Seven Year Itch.
Miss Monroe’s costume is expected to be more revealing than the one she wore yesterday to stop the traffic.”
About fifteen hundred fans filled klieg-lit Lexington Avenue at an hour when it was usually deserted. Others watched from rooftops. There were police barricades everywhere. DiMaggio, unable to see his wife, was about to turn back, but Winchell insisted on asking a policeman for help. No sooner did the cop spot DiMaggio than a contingent of police cleared a path for the baseball god. “Higher! Higher!” the crowd roared. The cops led DiMaggio to the front, where flashbulbs popped incessantly as photographers took stills of Marilyn. She wore a sheer white, billowy, sleeveless, backless dress and stood over a grating. The actor Tom Ewell was nearby.
“Roll ’em!” called Billy Wilder. As a train passed beneath—actually a wind-blowing machine manned by special effects people—Marilyn’s skirts flew up to her shoulders. She wore no stockings. A dark patch of pubic hair was visible through two pairs of sheer white nylon panties. “More, more, Marilyn!” onlookers shouted. “Let’s see more!” There was oddly little pretense of keeping people quiet. On the contrary, the numerous takes seemed calculated to work up the crowd and to guarantee that magazines and newspapers would print a great many pictures
of Marilyn in her panties. The entire evening was a spectacular publicity stunt. At length, the sequence would be reshot in the studio.
For DiMaggio, the night was intensely real. He’d never expected anything like this. The gift of anticipation, apparently, had abandoned him. He saw Marilyn’s skirt fly up again and again. He listened to men hoot and whistle at his wife. He watched the camera seem to focus on her crotch. He heard one wag exclaim that he thought she was a real blonde. Finally Dead Pan Joe could hide his feelings no more. Turbulent emotions overcame his ever-present fear of embarrassing himself. “I’ve had it!” Joe hollered as he turned on his heel and walked off. Winchell followed.
Marilyn, no doubt anticipating a terrible scene later, was frantic. She confronted Wilder. “I hope all these extra takes are not for your Hollywood friends to enjoy at a private party.”
The filming went on for five hours.
Jimmy Cannon once observed that Toots Shor always seemed to be a customer in his own store; he guzzled more booze, had more laughs, and stayed up later than any regular. Toots was still there when DiMaggio came in. The gargantuan proprietor trudged across the saloon to Table One and ordered a round. His voice was loud and obnoxious. Unfortunately, when Joe disclosed what had happened, Toots said exactly the wrong thing. “Aww, Joe,” he growled affectionately. “What can you expect when you marry a whore?”
That remark ended the close friendship of Joe DiMaggio and Toots Shor. Joe, seething, marched back to the St. Regis. In the pre-dawn hours, angry shouts issued from Suite 1105–1106. Other guests on the floor were prevented from sleeping. Marilyn knew that her marriage had ended that night.
Scheduled to return to the studio on Friday, Marilyn flew home with Joe immediately. Dressed in black, her hair tousled, she slept most of the way. At Los Angeles International Airport, she refused photographers’ requests to remove her sunglasses. Marilyn put up a good front in public, but when she and Joe reached the cottage, she exiled him from the upstairs bedroom. Joe sheepishly took up residence on the ground floor.
Hardly was Marilyn back when the telephone rang. Feldman was desperate to talk to her before she saw a news item announcing that Mankiewicz had cast Vivian Blaine in
Guys and Dolls;
Blaine had played
Miss Adelaide on Broadway. Feldman assured Marilyn he’d done everything to get her the part. He promised there would be other terrific roles. He’d heard great things from Billy Wilder and knew
The Seven Year Itch
was going to be a triumph for her.
Marilyn wasn’t really listening anymore. The conversation had spelled Feldman’s doom. The moment he said he’d lost
Guys and Dolls
, he was finished. Marilyn was ready to clean house. As far as she was concerned, Feldman, like DiMaggio, was on his way out of her life. The only difference was that Marilyn needed to maintain the semblance of a cordial relationship with Feldman, who, after all, was the producer of her current film.
Eleven days later, Joe was due back in New York for the World Series. He didn’t want to lose Marilyn. Struggling to patch things up, he admitted he was wrong to be the way he was. “I regret it but I cannot help it,” said Joe, stiffly. He was devastated when Marilyn told him she wanted a divorce. She had made up her mind and that was that. She planned to see a lawyer while he was away.
In New York, Joe stayed with George Solotaire at the Hotel Madison. Covering the World Series, he gave no hint that he was in turmoil. Now and then an associate would ask about the missus, and Joe matter-of-factly indicated that she was fine. He was no more curt or taciturn than usual. Jimmy Cannon did, however, notice that when the Series moved to Cleveland, Joe seemed in a hurry to get home. Frantic to talk to Marilyn, he caught the first flight out.
As DiMaggio came up the driveway on the morning of October 2, only the messy black Cadillac convertible was outside. But when he let himself in, he discovered little Sidney Skolsky having breakfast with Marilyn in the dining room. The hypochondriacal newspaper columnist, who claimed to know every doctor in town, shared her passion for pills. At Schwab’s, Marilyn was notorious for the number of doctors who, apparently unaware of each other, signed her prescriptions. At the moment, however, endometriosis was causing her pain so severe that no quantity of pills seemed to help.
Both Marilyn and Sidney were surprised. Joe wasn’t expected until the following day. Sidney was famous in Hollywood for having spanked Shirley Temple after she damaged his new hat, and for having bitten Louella Parsons on the arm during a professional dispute at Chasen’s
restaurant. But he was terrified of DiMaggio, especially of being given a good going-over with those big hands.
Joe greeted him. Instead of asking to be left alone with his wife, Joe inquired if he could do anything to change her mind about the divorce. Skolsky, eager to stay out of the dispute, said no. Jerry Giesler, a Hollywood attorney known for his ability to grab headlines, was scheduled to come to the house the next day. It was probably no accident that the media-savvy attorney waited until after the World Series—when baseball was off the front pages—to announce the divorce.
Marilyn, in constant pain, closed herself in the master bedroom. Joe was prohibited from going upstairs. At one point that evening, he did enter the room. In contrast to his violent mood in New York, he was penitential. He promised to change if only Marilyn would take him back.
On Monday, November 4, Giesler, accompanied by the Fox publicity director, Harry Brand, met about one hundred reporters on the lawn outside the cottage. Marilyn remained in the upstairs bedroom, Joe in the living room.
“The divorce action will be filed Tuesday in Santa Monica Superior Court,” said Giesler. “The charges will be gentle—just mental cruelty.”
“Marilyn still has a lot of work to finish on her picture,” Brand chimed in. “She’s due at the studio in the morning. I don’t know if she’ll make it.”
“Is there any chance of reconciliation?” a reporter shouted.
“I discussed reconciliation,” said Giesler. “None is possible.”
The next day, Giesler served the divorce papers to DiMaggio, still in residence on the ground floor. Then he went upstairs to rehearse Marilyn and Sidney for Wednesday. It was said of Giesler that he worked like a movie director, meticulously rehearsing and choreographing his clients. Marilyn’s first meeting with the reporters camped outside her house had to be carefully stage managed. DiMaggio remained immensely popular. His reputation was stately. The very qualities that had made him the man to be seen with at the time of the nude calendar scandal made him hard to get rid of now without making Marilyn appear unsympathetic. She, after all, was divorcing him. She had publicly humiliated him in New York; his upset over the skirt-blowing scene had been widely
reported. America’s sympathies were likely to be with Joe. Nobody wanted to see the Big Guy get hurt.
Giesler detailed the scene he expected Marilyn to play the following day. Though Marilyn had initiated the divorce, she must appear to be as devastated as Joe. There was to be no trace of her steely determination to get rid of him. Giesler instructed Marilyn to hold his arm for support. Suddenly, she was to stumble on the winding brick path. That was Sidney’s cue. He was to break out of the crowd and rush to Marilyn. Giesler, however, would ignore Sidney. The huge attorney would grip Marilyn and steer her to the car. Throughout, she was to appear as if she were being torn apart.
On the morning of October 6, Marilyn, in the upstairs bedroom, prepared to meet the press. An assistant did her makeup. Marilyn slipped into a clinging black jersey dress, fastened by a wide leather belt with a rhinestone buckle. She decided whether to wear a pair of short white gloves or to hold them in one hand. Meanwhile, downstairs, Reno Barsocchini slung a bag of gold-plated golf clubs over his shoulder, picked up a pair of leather suitcases and walked outside. He was still loading the trunk of DiMaggio’s car when the cottage door opened again. “Hello, fellas,” said Joe.
He wore a gray suit, a white shirt, and a tie. His lips curled into a tense smile. He walked briskly, snapping “No comment” as reporters shouted questions all at once. His bearing called to mind Toots Shor’s remark that DiMaggio even looked good striking out. Joe faltered only once, putting out a massive hand to steady himself as he brushed past Marilyn’s black convertible.
“Where are you going?” someone called.
“I’m going to San Francisco,” said Joe, about to enter the passenger seat of his own car.
“Are you coming back home?”
“San Francisco’s my home. It’s always been my home.” He closed the door, Reno started the engine, and the blue Cadillac with “JOE D” plates rolled down the driveway.
Fifty minutes later the cottage door opened again. Marilyn seemed disoriented as flashbulbs exploded en masse. She appeared to feel faint. She clutched Jerry Giesler’s arm.
“I’m sorry, I can’t say anything, I’m sorry,” Marilyn whispered as
microphones were thrust in front of her face.
She gripped the white gloves in one hand, wiping her eyes with the handkerchief clutched in the other. She chewed her lower lip, and kept her head down. She seemed on the verge of collapse. When a reporter asked what DiMaggio had done to her, Marilyn burst into tears.
“Miss Monroe will have nothing to say this morning,” said Giesler. “As her attorney I am speaking for her and can only say that the conflict of careers has brought about this regretable necessity.”
Marilyn stumbled on the brick path. Sidney Skolsky broke out of the crowd to assist her. Giesler, ignoring him, held Marilyn tightly and steered her to his car.
Joe had until Friday, October 15. If he did not contest the divorce complaint, Giesler would move for a default hearing. Meanwhile, the only person to speak out was Natasha Lytess, who relished the opportunity to vent her wrath at Joe: “The marriage was a big mistake for Marilyn and I feel she has known it for a long time.” Natasha had never forgiven Joe for the night he refused to put her through on the phone. She blamed him for Marilyn’s subsequent coolness toward her, refusing to come to terms with the fact that, in Marilyn’s eyes, the dramatic coach had betrayed her. She seemed to believe that without Joe, things would return to what they had been. “Now this is all behind her,” Natasha exulted.
Hours before the deadline, DiMaggio arrived in Los Angeles and checked into his former quarters at the Knickerbocker Hotel. Asked why he was in town, Joe said cryptically: “To take care of what I have to take care of.” In the end, however, he did not contest the divorce complaint. He didn’t even hire his own lawyer. Instead, he chose to permit Giesler to handle everything. Marilyn was granted a divorce on October 27, 1954. It would be final a year later.
Soon afterward, Sidney Skolsky was shocked to learn that DiMaggio wanted to reach him. Full of trepidation, he called the Knickerbocker. Joe summoned him to his room the following day, ominously declining a suggestion that they meet in a restaurant. He needed to see Sidney alone.