Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

why joe let her go! (Continued from page 27) conversation is that it was directed at a studio employee who has besn important in Marilyn's career. Any other girl would have phoned her mother, her uncle, her roommate, an old school friend. It is sad and pitiful that Marilyn had no one in the whole world she wanted to notify about one of the happiest events in her life. No one but Harry Brand. It was Harry who notified the rest of the world, and in this notification Joe Di Maggio encountered the first of his disillusionments. Joe had wanted a quiet wedding. "Just for the family," he said. He had planned everything with precision and meticulous care. He had spoken to Reno Barsocchini who manages the Di Maggio restaurant at Fisherman's Wharf. He had called Judge Charles Peery, an old friend from the Municipal Court, and during lunch at the restaurant, he had asked the judge if he'd perform the ceremony "very quietly, very quickly, nothing fancy." You all know what happened. The wedding became a Roman holiday — photographers, flash bulbs, reporters, questions. Judge Peery had to clear everyone out of his chambers except the principals. After the ceremony, the mob, clamoring and congratulating, closed in. Joe's brother Tom and Lefty O'Doul, his old friend, had to form a flying wedge before the newlyweds could get out. In the meantime, Marilyn's studio made every attempt to find out where Joe and their blonde were going on their honeymoon. Joe refused to tell anyone. He was fed up with publicity. Marilyn never has liked to disclose the WHO'S ON YOUR MIND? We want to know which stars you want to read abo'jt, what you like and what you don't like in MODERN SCREEN. We want to know all about you, because your opinions are carefully tabulated to direct all our future plans. 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THE STARS I WANT TO READ ABOUT THE MOST ARE: MALE THE THREE FEATURES I LIKED BEST IN □ Louella Parsons in Hollywood □ Why Joe Let Her Go (Marilyn Monroe) □ The Truth About Jimmy Stewart □ It Just Happened (Audrey HepburnMel Ferrer) □ My Heart Sings (Pier AngeliVic Damone) '□ Minding His Business (Robert Wagner) □ The Duke Goes West (John Wayne) □ Jack Lemmon □ To Janet With Love (Janet LeighTony Curtis) □ Ty and Linda Call It Quits (Tyrone Power) □ Hold My Hand (Doris Day) THIS ISSUE ARE: Iplace a check < V > in the box next to your favorites) □ Design For Loving ( Rory CalhounLita Baron) □ Sunday and Always (Esther Williams) □ Magic With Figures □ Young Men in a Hurry □ The Casual Touch (Perry Como) □ Shadow and Substance (Jock Mahoney) □ Ingrid Bergman After Five Years with Rossellini □ Ladies' Man (Garry Moore) □ The Inside Story □ TV Talk □ New Movies □ Modern Screen Fashions THE STORY I LEAST LIKED IN THIS ISSUE IS: AGE OCCUPATION NAME ADDRESS .(street) ■ city and state) lit***. ONE WHOLE YEAR OF MODERN SCREEN FOR ONLY $1.00! H you would like to get this omazinq reader-participation subscription — each issue for less than half the newsstand price of $2.40, enclose one dollar when you mail us this questionnaire and you will receive 12 issues, postaqe free, for only $1.00 instead of the regular subscription price of $2.00. You don't have to miss this wonderful offer if you ore already a subscriber. We'll start your new subscription when your old one expires The offer is limited to the continental United States and Canada PLEASE SEND ME A SPECIAL YEAR'S SUBSCRIPTION □ RENEWAL □ MY DOLLAR IS ENCLOSED. □ NEW SUBSCRIPTION MAIL TO: READER POLL DEPARTMENT, MODERN SCREEN BOX 125, MURRAY HILL STATION, NEW YORK 16, N. Y. exact location of her honeymoon retreat. If you ask her today where she and Joe spent the two happiest weeks of their marriage, she will say, "Idyllwild, a lovely place in the mountains about fifty miles from Palm Springs." She will tell you about "the lovely cabin we had . . . long walks in the snow . . . people and studios seemed so far away . . . Joe and I talked a lot . . . really got to know each other." But she will not tell whose cabin it was. It was her lawyer's cabin, the lawyer who had helped her in her various studio negotiations. Always the studio, always the career, even though she was on suspension during the honeymoon. There are many who say that if Marilyn had renounced her movie career after marrying Joe, they would still be living together today. This may be true, but would Joe Di Maggio ever have married Marilyn if she had not been a star? If she had been plain Norma Jean Dougherty working in an aircraft factory, would he ever have given her a second look? Would he ever have seen her? In all fairness to_ Marilyn, she never intended to renounce her career. In fact, if Joe had made career abandonment one requisite for marriage, Marilyn would have walked out on him. No matter what she may have said in other ecstatic moments, career is the primary force in Marilyn Monroe's life. She has given her career everything she possesses. ' Under the circumstances, who would ask her to abandon it? Certainly not Joe. He kidded himself into believing that coexistence was possible. ■3 "3af /IT5*, A s Marilyn said in New York, "I'm just a pretty girl, but Joe is one of the all-time greats." She knew then that the marriage was coming apart and she tried desperately to stop the deterioration. But by then it was too late. Joe was convinced that he would have to play second fiddle to her profession. He knew in his soul that her career was everything to her. This realization is what caused him such anguish while he was trying to cover the World Series for a Los Angeles syndicate. One of the sportswriters who accompanied Joe to Cleveland and New York says, "Joe was tense and morose practically all the time. We were sure something was wrong with the marriage, and whenever we asked, he gave us the brush-off. "After a while it got so that he would turn up at the ball park just a few minutes before" the game got underway. He didn't want to talk to anyone. The only one who really knew the inside story was George Solotaire, the New York ticket broker. Joe slept in George's suite in New York, and George later flew out to Cleveland with Joe and listened to his tale of woe. "Matter of fact, Joe wouldn't even stay until the last game of the World Series was over. He left at the eighth inning, went back to his hotel, got his bag, and flew back to Marilyn. "Stories that he received some anonymous letter telling him that Marilyn was on the loose and that he'd best hurry back are a bunch of junk in my opinion. "Joe just happened to realize that in ■Marilyn he didn't have a wife, he had a kind of public utility. I think he became convinced of that when he saw the mobs in New York that gathered to watch her work on location." To date, Di Maggio has refused to discuss his private life in public, and it is doubtful if anyone, without his version, can reconstruct the immediate events that led to the marital rupture. It is known that when Joe returned to the house on Palm Drive in Beverly Hills, a violent argument ensued. Neighbors said that they could hear Joe