These latest extracts from Maurice Zolotow’s 1960 biography, first published in the Los Angeles Daily Mirror, reveal how Marilyn’s 1954 marriage to Joe DiMaggio was overshadowed by her burgeoning career.
Zolotow’s Marilyn: A Star Is Born
The latest extract from Maurice Zolotow’s Marilyn Monroe: An Uncensored Biography, first published in the Los Angeles Daily Mirror in December 1960, focus on Marilyn’s role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and her romance with Joe DiMaggio.
Marilyn’s Thanksgiving Recipe
Among other writings, Fragments includes several recipes, and the New York Times suggests Marilyn’s stuffing may be perfect for Thanksgiving:
The image of a bombshell cooking her way to nirvana may seem old-hat now, thanks to Nigella, Giada, Padma and the like. But back in the 1950s, a Hollywood starlet was not expected to squander her talents (or risk her manicure) chopping onions.
A new book, however, includes a recipe in Marilyn Monroe’s handwriting that suggests that she not only cooked, but cooked confidently and with flair.”
Although the editors of Fragments date this recipe to the late 1950s, these culinary experts suggest that Marilyn may have learned to cook this Italian-style stuffing during her marriage to Joe DiMaggio. (Marilyn and Joe spent time with his sister, Marie, in San Francisco, and she may have shared secrets of Italian cuisine with her famous sister-in-law.)
DiMaggio Lawyer Criticises Author
Morris Engelberg, former attorney to Joe DiMaggio and executor of his estate, has criticised Yale University Press for using a photo of DiMaggio with Marilyn Monroe on the cover of a forthcoming biography, Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil.
“It’s in poor taste with anybody who knows anything about Joe DiMaggio,” Engelberg said in a phone interview from his home in Florida last Monday. “It’s a cheap shot to sell books. I have no objection to what they use inside the book, but a cover of Joe and Marilyn is a cheap shot,” Engelberg said. “There’s no class. It’s a lack of respect and just shows that the author really has no knowledge of the real Joe DiMaggio.”
The photograph was taken while Monroe was filming River of No Return in Canada, a few months before her wedding to DiMaggio. It is part of a series by photographer John Vachon, published in another new book, August 1953: The Lost ‘Look’ Photos.
Yale University Press Director John Donatich said in an e-mail to the Yale Daily News that the YUP “intend[s] to use the photograph as planned in accordance with our First Amendment rights.”
Daniel J. Kevles, a history professor who teaches a course on intellectual property rights at the Law School and is a member of the content-focused YUP Publications Committee, which approves books for publication, said that the YUP’s use of the photograph was “a matter of academic freedom.”
However, Kevles said that he could see why Engelberg objects to the photo.
“I can understand [his] point because inside the book, the photo is simply Joe and Marilyn as just another feature or element in Joe’s life,” Kevles said. “One among many. To put it on the cover is to imply that Joe’s life was defined by his marriage to Marilyn.”
Engelberg, who met DiMaggio in 1983, became the baseball star’s executor after he died in 1999. In 2003, he published a memoir of his friend, DiMaggio: Setting the Record Straight.
However, Engelberg is himself a contentious figure, particularly since he allowed DiMaggio’s diaries to be auctioned in 2007, according to New York Daily News.
Jerome Charyn has published over fifty books, including a brief, but erudite life of Marilyn Monroe, The Last Goddess. Here is a synopsis of Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil, to be published in February 2011.
As the New York Yankees’ star centerfielder from 1936 to 1951, Joe DiMaggio is enshrined in America’s memory as the epitome in sports of grace, dignity, and that ineffable quality called “class.” But his career after retirement, starting with his nine-month marriage to Marilyn Monroe, was far less auspicious. Writers like Gay Talese and Richard Ben Cramer have painted the private DiMaggio as cruel or self-centered. Now, Jerome Charyn restores the image of this American icon, looking at DiMaggio’s life in a more sympathetic light.
DiMaggio was a man of extremes, superbly talented on the field but privately insecure, passive, and dysfunctional. He never understood that for Monroe, on her own complex and tragic journey, marriage was a career move; he remained passionately committed to her throughout his life. He allowed himself to be turned into a sports memorabilia money machine. In the end, unable to define any role for himself other than “Greatest Living Ballplayer,” he became trapped in “a horrible kind of minutia.” But where others have seen little that was human behind that minutia, Charyn in Joe DiMaggio presents the tragedy of one of American sports’ greatest figures.
Marilyn at Carnegie Hall
Bill Cunningham, best known as the ‘on-the-street’ photojournalist at the New York Times, has lived at Carnegie Hall for sixty years. This week, Cunningham and Carnegie’s four other remaining tenants are moving out as the legendary concert venue is set to become a music school.
In his latest slideshow, Cunningham talks about his bohemian home and the many famous names who have visited him there. During the 1950s, when Cunningham designed hats, Marilyn Monroe would pass through on her way home from the Actor’s Studio.
The image of Marilyn trying on hats in Cunningham’s studio apartment reminded me of some beautiful photographs of her taken by Carl Perutz, used by illustrator Jon Whitcomb for artwork in American Weekly. (Whitcomb’s painting was kept by her ex-husband, Joe DiMaggio, until his death.)
Although Cunningham was then a hatmaker – and not yet a photographer – at this time, I wonder if he might know the story behind these pictures?
Fascinating Marilyn at the NYC Fringe
“Exploring the dream world within relationships, Marilyn Monroe: Wouldn’t It Be Fascinating follows baseball great, Joe DiMaggio, and glamorous movie star, Marilyn Monroe as they fall out of love and begin to chase their own dream-lovers while on honeymoon in Tokyo.”
This new play by Eric Zambrano runs from August 13-29 at the NYC Fringe Festival.
A Walk with Joe and Marilyn
The history of the communities in Redington Beach, Florida, is the focus of an upcoming exhibit, Take a Walk With Marilyn and Joe, at Gulf Beaches Historical Museum on St. Petersburg Beach.
In March 1961, Marilyn took a holiday with ex-husband Joe DiMaggio in the area, sparking rumours of a reunion. They stayed at the Tides Motel, and spent their days in training with the Yankees, or relaxing by the sea.
Marilyn at San Francisco City Hall
Stunning photos over at the ‘architect design’ blog of San Francisco City Hall, where Marilyn married Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954.
Vintage news report from San Francisco Chronicle
Marilyn in Fort Lauderdale
In March 1961, while Marilyn was recovering from illness, ex-husband Joe DiMaggio invited her to join him for a relaxing break in Florida. According to today’s Orlando Sentinel, Marilyn visited the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel during her stay…
“The New York Yankees once made the hotel their home during spring training, and it is said that a chunk of the bar remains missing, where the former owner broke it off so Marilyn Monroe could sign it.”
Marilyn at Julien’s: Hawaii Airport, 1954
En route to a honeymoon in Japan with husband Joe DiMaggio…
These photos are among the items on offer in next week’s Hollywood Legends auction