Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

! and Marilyn screaming at each other. ' "Lots of nights," one neighbor recounted, "we could see Marilyn walking up and down the street alone. It was one a.m. or one-thirty ajm. One night I was parking my car and I saw her walking in the alley, . and tears were streaming down her cheeks. On Friday night, Marilyn had dinner at the home of Natasha Lytess, her dramatics coach. She cried all through dinner. Natasha understands Marilyn. It is she who is primarily responsible for any acting ability Marilyn may demonstrate. Marilyn confessed to her that she and Joe had been fighting for weeks. Natasha knew it all along. When Marilyn, without notifying her, married Joe, Natasha, the widow of the German novelist, Bruno Frank, confided to a friend, "This marriage cannot last unless Marilyn gives up her career. She and Joe have nothing in common. This girl, has an intellect. She hungers for the finer things in life; music, literature, art. The hunger is authentic and genuine and for years I have been trying to satisfy it. "I know Di Maggio dislikes me, and I | am sorry. But I am convinced this girl ; will not be satisfied lying on a sofa all j evening watching cowboy movies on tele| vision. She is in the process of growing ' intellectually. This marriage is a classic example of mismating. It cannot and it will not succeed." , On the night Marilyn confessed that she and Joe couldn't make a go of it, maybe Natasha remembered her prophecy. She tried to placate Marilyn, but Marilyn I was inconsolable, almost hysterical with grief. j Joe just didn't seem to understand her. He didn't want to understand. These dej mands on her time — rehearsals, voice I coaching, line-study, people she had to see were part of her work. It was expected of her. Worse yet, the marriage wasn't getting any better. There was no adjustment, only quarrels, increasingly bitter quarrels. While Marilyn was crying her heart out, I Joe moved into the Hollywood Knicker! bocker Hotel where he had stayed as a J single man. "W/~hen he came back his mind was made ™ up. He just couldn't be straight man for a rising movie queen. He told Marilyn to file for divorce. Jerry Giesler, the famous divorce lawyer, took the case. Marilyn had talked to Giesler previously. On Monday morning when Marilyn was due at the studio to continue work on The Seven Year Itch, she phoned Billy Wilder, the director, a little after eight. "I — I won't be able to come to work," she sobbed. "Why not?" Wilder asked. , "Joe and I have had a — " At this point Marilyn broke down. "I can't hear you," Wilder pressed. "Joe and I have split up," the actress finally managed. "I don't know when I'll show up." Wilder called Harry Brand and the studio publicity chief made the announceI ment to the press, offering as the official ! reason "^compatibility resulting from the conflicting demands of their careers." "What careers is the studio talking about?" one newsman asked. "There's only one career and that's Marilyn's." Marilyn Monroe's career is a big one, but it couldn't support two people spiritually. Undoubtedly she recognized that point. But she did nothing about it. Was there anything she could do? According to one of Di Maggio's relatives, "Sure, Marilyn could have done a ; lot, but it would've meant sacrifice. After I she finished No Business Like Show BusiI ness, why did she have to go into Seven 1 Year Itch? ; "Why couldn't she have gone off some where with Joe? I understand that Seven Year Itch cannot be released until 1956. What was the big hurry? Maybe she would've lost the part. So what? Maybe they would've had to make a new deal. Again, so what? "A man is entitled to some of his wife's time. All through Show Business, Marilyn came home tired and worn out. Joe is healthy and strong. I guess they started to quarrel even back then. I guess it's all for the best. There is no sense in living in misery. Why re-hash all the trouble?" /~iN Wednesday, October 6, Joe Di Maggio ^ packed his bags and left Marilyn and Hollywood. His friend Reno Barsocchini had driven down from San Francisco the night before, and as Joe left the Palm Drive residence, Reno took his bags and bounced them into the back seat. Joe then walked out into a crowd of sixty newspapermen. "Hello, fellows," he said. "I've got no comment." "But where are you going?" "San Francisco," Joe said lustily. "You ever coming back home?" Joe shook his head. "San Francisco," he announced, "is my home. It's always been my home." He took one final look at the three-ring circus on what used to be his front lawn. Then he dashed to the car. Approximately forty-five minutes later, Marilyn emerged from the same house, leaning on the arm of her attorney, Jerry Giesler. Reporters and cameramen swarmed down and Marilyn swayed uneasily as if she were about to faint. Her face, despite her heavy make-up, looked ashen and drawn. She was weeping as the newsreel cameras began to grind. Cedric Hardwicke, in Rome playing King Priam in Helen of Troy, told Art Buchwald that he wants to win an Academy Award someday so he could make this speech: "I am happy to receive this award which I so richly deserve and it means even more to me because I won it in spite of a bad director, a jealous, uncooperative cast, a group of unbelievably lazy technicians, and an unfortunate story which was turned into a tragic script with some of the most ridiculous lines an actor has ever had to say on the screen." Sidney Skolsky in The New York Post "Don't ask her any questions," Giesler said. The reporters paid him no attention. One said, "What picture are you in?" "I'm sorry," Marilyn sobbed. "I can't say anything." Giesler nodded. "Miss Monroe has nothing to say this morning," he announced. "As her attorney," he added, "this is what we can say is a conflict of careers. Anything else will be presented in the proper place at the proper time." Just why this press conference was called, no one can understand. Marilyn was certainly incapable of describing her domestic woes. She was so sick that when she reported to the studio, an hour later, she was sent home to bed. Two days later, however, she was back in front of the studio cameras. Attempts were made at questioning Marilyn's psychoanalyst. He had treated her on and off for three years, but naturally he did not discuss his patient. Some other psychiatrists talked. One claimed, "I doubt if Marilyn is capable of a lasting relationship with any man. When a woman becomes a big star, she has found a sure way to self-destruction." Said another, "In this case we have two people who are insecure, emotionally and intellectually. To have a workable marriage, a motion picture actress must find a very weak or a very eminent husband. The trouble with Marilyn is that she found a husband who used to be eminent. This is the one type of man she never should have married. Intellectually, however, she is incapable of judging character." Said Natasha Lytess, "The marriage was a big mistake from the very beginning. Marilyn has known this for a long time. People just don't have one argument and decide on a divorce. There have been many quarrels, many quarrels. "Why? Some people resent success in others. Mr. Di Maggio never could or never would consider Marilyn's feelings and sensitivities." XT ow about Joe's sensitivities? How long could a man brought up in a religious home watch his wife's sex appeal exploited? ' You say Joe knew all about Marilyn's calendar pictures when he married her? You say he knew what to expect from an actress whose major forte is her figure? He should have known. But he didn't. Joe thought that having reached the top, Marilyn would be content to taper off. He thought that perhaps he and his bride might work out the kind of relationship Laraine Day and Leo Durocher have, with Marilyn eventually doing only one picture a year. He practiced self-delusion, and that's understandable because Joe was in love with Marilyn. He thought, somehow, that with marriage, Marilyn would be given more conservative movie parts. When he visited her on the set of Show Business and saw how scanty her costume was for the "Heat Wave" number, he refused to pose. Nudity or near-nudity embarrasses him. There are millions of kids throughout America who still idolize Di Maggio as an upright, clean-living athlete. Joe didn't want them to see him posed beside a pinup— even if the pin-up was his own wife. In telling the judge why she was requesting divorce, Marilyn said, "Your Honor, my husband would give in to moods where he wouldn't speak to me for days. Five to even seven days. Sometimes as many as ten days. When I tried to appeal to him he'd say, 'Stop nagging me!' I was permitted to have no visitors at any time. I don't believe I asked more than three times in nine months for a visitor. On one occasion when I was sick he did allow someone but it was under terrific strain. I volunteered to give up my work but it didn't change his attitude at all. I hoped to have out of my marriage love, warmth, affection and understanding, but in our relationship there was only coldness and indifference." Jerry Geisler asked, "What effect did this situation have on your health?" Marilyn answered, "I was under the care of a doctor." She then stepped down from the witness stand and 'her testimony was corroborated by Inez Nelson, her business manager. A few minutes later the divorce was granted. Right or wrong, Di Maggio is stuck with his basic nature. He cannot change. To have saved her marriage, Marilyn would have had to give up The Seven Year Itch. She would have had to help Joe establish himself in a new career or some career allied to sports. She would have had to bolster his vanity. For a time she would have had to sacrifice her own career. She would have had to relinquish, at least temporarily, the limelight that placed her husband in the shadows. She tried to do this with words. She told interviewers that Joe was the greatest, the most considerate, the most understanding and the more truly famous. She claimed that her marriage came first. But' all the time she was working on her career, not on her marriage. END