Marilyn Monroe (28 page)

More rehearsals centred on the film’s songs, and Marilyn found herself in the company of Hal Schaefer, who was once
again acting as her vocal coach. Hal was a sensitive, quiet man and the two had much in common, not least of which was their desire to get the best out of her performance. For now the relationship was platonic, but it was not long before Hal had become extremely fond of his student, and when things started unravelling at home, Marilyn began to see him as someone more than a vocal coach.

For now, filming continued in earnest, but as with all her film appearances, Marilyn began turning up late on a regular basis, and she was still suffering with anaemia and bronchial problems. George Chakiris was witness to her punctuality problems: ‘She was a wonderfully talented artist, but during the filming of “Lazy”, she kept Mitzi [Gaynor] and Donald [O’Connor] waiting until 3 p.m. Her lateness was never malicious – she was a truly kind human being. But nobody likes to be kept waiting, which is why certain actors have said things about her.’

Disturbingly, she also began turning up with bruises on her arms. ‘I bite myself in my sleep,’ she joked, but no one thought it was funny. Rumours began to surface of problems at home, which were not helped when DiMaggio told Fox he would not tolerate any invasion of their privacy. Also notable was his absence from the set, but he eventually decided to visit during the filming of the ‘Heat Wave’ number, which – with Marilyn’s revealing costume and sexy performance – wasn’t the best time to arrive. DiMaggio was not pleased and refused to be photographed with his wife, which caused even more problems at home.

Things were not helped when fans began turning up at North Palm Drive and ringing the doorbell, which Marilyn admitted bothered Joe no end. ‘Joe wanted a wife, not a star,’ his friend Mark Scott later told reporters. ‘Marilyn would come home at night too tired for anything but sleep. That would leave Joe looking at the television.’

In a rather telling interview during the making of
There’s No Business Like Show Business,
Marilyn told a reporter that she’d like to make Joe proud of her. ‘He’s not proud of you?’ asked
the bemused reporter. ‘I mean more so,’ she corrected. ‘Proud of me as a performer. It makes no difference to him whether I work or not. Joe knows he comes first, before everything.’

What went on inside 508 North Palm Drive will forever remain a mystery, but several clues are provided by a letter written to DiMaggio by Marilyn herself, after an argument between the couple. In the note she admitted she was wrong to say the things she did; that she said them because she was hurt; and urged him never to be angry with ‘his baby’. Marilyn then went on to apologize to her husband, and signed it ‘your wife, (for life), Mrs J.P. DiMaggio’.

Later she explained her philosophy on how to treat her husband: ‘When I sense there’s something wrong, I ask “What’s the matter? Sorry if I did something.” If Joe doesn’t answer I don’t push it. There are some men who when they have trouble, become silent. You have to respect that.’

In public, both DiMaggio and Marilyn tried to squelch the rumours of discord, with various comments in the media. DiMaggio declared that while he didn’t interfere in her work, he was definitely interested in it: ‘I think it’s entirely possible for two people to have careers and live a happily married life. It’s going on around us every day,’ he said.

Meanwhile Marilyn told reporters that, ‘Marriage has given me roots. Joe is so strong and vital, so stable and understanding. With him beside me I have nothing to fear.’

Friends also got in on the act, with hairdresser Gladys Whitten declaring that Marilyn had never been more bubbly and effervescent, and Sidney Skolsky writing a long article about Marilyn’s life as a housewife, and saying that DiMaggio had invited him to drop in any time to watch the TV and have dinner. ‘Make this your home away from Schwabs [Drug Store],’ he was quoted as saying.

Skolsky became quite a confidant during the disturbances within the marriage, and Marilyn would often visit him at Schwabs or Googies, the restaurant next door. The manager of Googies, Steve Hayes, wrote in his book,
Googies: Coffeeshop to
the Stars,
that she became an occasional ‘night owl’ at his restaurant, often wearing a disguise and sitting with Skolsky in a booth in the hope of no one recognizing her. Hayes knew Marilyn when they were both struggling actors and remembers one evening in 1954 when she telephoned him out of the blue: ‘She had called me from a public phone outside Googies, saying she couldn’t reach Sidney [Skolsky] and could I drive her home? I started to say no, that I couldn’t just leave the coffee shop, but when I went out and saw how desperate and bedraggled and dazed she looked, I changed my mind. Telling one of the waitresses to take over for me at the cash register, I put Marilyn in my car and drove off.’

During the journey Marilyn began talking about how miserable she felt and that she didn’t know how much longer she could go on living ‘like this’. She became so emotional that Hayes genuinely became concerned that she might be planning to do something to herself; he asked her but she remained silent. ‘When she didn’t answer, I pressed her on the subject and finally she began sobbing and said that she could never kill herself; it was against her religious beliefs. I gently reminded her that reportedly she had already tried to commit suicide on more than one occasion. I must have hit a sore spot because she suddenly lost her temper and said shrilly that she had matured since those mistakes and was trying to be a better person . . . It was the first time I felt that Marilyn was a human being and my heart went out to her.’

In spite of everything that was going on in private, Marilyn still wanted things to work out between Joe DiMaggio and herself. She cooled her friendship with Schaefer, and shockingly he responded by trying to commit suicide. ‘I did it because I didn’t see any way out,’ he remembered, ‘I thought my career was finished and my relationship with Marilyn was over. I thought there was no solution.’

On hearing of Schaefer’s suicide attempt, Marilyn raced to the hospital to lend her support. This did not help matters at home, especially when Schaefer’s hospitalization hit the
headlines and it was reported that Marilyn had never been far from his hospital bed.

On 30 August, Marilyn and her co-star Ethel Merman filled in on Drew Pearsons’ syndicated column while he was away. In it she gave a glimpse into her private life, by admitting, ‘I work hard and study hard and have little time even for my husband. But I do divorce my private life from my career as an actress and that is why you never see Joe and me posing together around Hollywood.’

Finally,
There’s No Business Like Show Business
was over, and she immediately went into production on
The Seven Year Itch,
flying to New York on 9 September with an entourage that included Natasha Lytess. On her arrival at Idlewild Airport, a reporter asked, ‘No Joe?’ to which she replied, ‘Isn’t that a shame?’ and nervously giggled. When asked about a rumour that Joe was spending a large amount of time away from home, playing poker with his friends, she denied it completely, adding that it was hard enough to get him out of the house – he much preferred pottering around, taking a swim in the pool and lounging in the armchair.

The cracks in the marriage were very definitely beginning to reveal themselves to the media. Columnist Hedda Hopper recalled that on her way to the airport en route to New York, Marilyn had called into her house for a quick interview. Joe had sat outside in the limousine until finally he knocked on the door to hurry Marilyn along. Hedda commented to the baseball star that his wife looked wonderful, while Joe barely gave his wife a glance before retorting, ‘She looks nice.’ Hopper asked Joe why he was not accompanying his wife to New York, only to be told by DiMaggio that he had hives that were bound to flare up on the plane. On 11 September she wrote in her column, ‘I could be wrong but I got the feeling they’re fooling,’ and years later recalled, ‘I knew then that the marriage was over.’

Marilyn’s role as ‘The Girl’ in
The Seven Year Itch
was to be a landmark in her career. Her co-star was Tom Ewell, who had originated the role of Richard on Broadway and had beaten
Walter Matthau to the film role. The story itself centred on Richard, a happily married man whose wife and son have gone to the country for the summer. He is alone with his fantasies until the girl upstairs (Monroe) drops a tomato plant from her balcony, and a sordid affair develops within the confines of Richard’s fertile imagination. The play revolved around Richard actually having a real-life affair with the girl upstairs, but because of worries over censorship, this part of the script was taken out of the film, which makes his advances all the more humorous.

After a bout of stomach illness, an exterior scene involving Marilyn waving out of an apartment window was shot outside a real-life apartment. One person lucky enough to witness the shoot was Joe Coudert, who was assigned to take photos of the star: ‘I was taking photos of Marilyn in her brownstone with the rest of the photographers and had to take a break to reload my camera. When I returned, I was all alone with Ms Monroe! I asked her if I could continue photographing her, she said “Yes” and I shot several rolls of film. She was very friendly and talkative. The “girl next door”, though a little overused, is an appropriate description and she was a real professional with the camera. She was highly relaxed posing and she knew exactly how to make my camera fall in love with her, over and over.

‘She asked me a lot of questions about my wife and my photography – she seemed genuinely interested in learning more about my family. She also talked a lot about the events surrounding the filming and her concerns about the New York crowds that followed her every move . . . she was nervous about the fans and the press stationed outside her windows. She was very anxious; her fans would go to great lengths to touch her as she passed. It was impossible for her to accommodate them all, and she was concerned about being mobbed.’

One scene in the film featured The Girl and Richard walking down the street after an innocent trip to the cinema. As she walks over a subway grating, her skirt flies into the air; ‘Isn’t it delicious?!’ she exclaims, as the wind bellows around her
thighs. The scene was shot in the early hours of 15 September, in front of a crowd of thousands. Unfortunately, Joe DiMaggio had arrived just in time to witness the spectacle and was not pleased, especially when he saw the fans ogling his wife in her white panties.

As it turned out, the scene was unusable due to sound problems, and had to be re-shot on a soundstage in Hollywood, but the damage was done. When the couple returned to their hotel, they had a huge argument and other guests later claimed to hear a fearsome row coming from the DiMaggio room. Friend Amy Greene also later claimed that when she and her husband Milton met the couple for dinner shortly after, she saw bruises on Marilyn’s back. Whatever happened that night will forever be shrouded in mystery, but it certainly caused irretrievable damage and by the time they left New York on 16 September 1954, the marriage was over.

The day after her arrival in Los Angeles, Marilyn called in sick at the studio, and her doctor confined her to bed with flu. DiMaggio returned to San Francisco, where he met up with friend Reno Barsocchini. He confided that he would be travelling back to Los Angeles to see Marilyn, before heading back East for the World Series, but showed no sign of any marriage troubles. ‘I’m sure everything was OK,’ Barsocchini later commented, when asked by reporters.

But things were obviously not OK, and Marilyn spent some time crying on the shoulder of Fred Karger’s mother, Anne, and her close friend Hal Schaefer. She decided that while she still loved DiMaggio, divorce was the only option, and when she phoned lawyer Jerry Giesler, she struck him as a confused woman who was still in love with the person she wanted to leave. Giesler spent time speaking with the actress, trying to determine what was best, but Marilyn was adamant – she wanted a divorce, with no request for alimony or property.

Hal Schaefer was privy to Marilyn’s very personal thoughts at this time, and to him she confided much: ‘DiMaggio had got physical with her and although she didn’t have a great deal
of self-esteem, she did finally have enough and picked up and left. She was very serious about divorcing him, which is why she hired Jerry Giesler – she wanted to get away from Joe. Marilyn was a super-sensitive woman and had a real artistic thirst to grow; she loved the arts, but Joe was into none of these things. Marilyn didn’t want any part of him – she was hurt and emotionally fragile and turned to me.’

By this time, DiMaggio was back in Los Angeles and living on the ground floor of North Palm Drive, while Marilyn spent her time upstairs. When Jerry Giesler arrived at the property on 4 October, he found DiMaggio sitting in the living room where, after talking to him for some time, he served the divorce papers.

At 2.45 p.m., Giesler and Fox publicity chief Harry Brand left the DiMaggio home, and gave a statement to the press (who were rumoured to have been tipped off by the Fox publicity department), informing them that the charges would be mental cruelty and that neither Joe or Marilyn would make any comment. He also said that both parties were still friendly and that the separation had nothing to do with the skirt-blowing scene. To quash any rumours before they began, he added, ‘She is not pregnant.’

The next day DiMaggio left the home, announcing that he would never be back, while Marilyn departed shortly after, leaning on the arm of her lawyer, with friend Sidney Skolsky close by. Although she tried to speak to the press, she was too upset to do so, and was quickly shuttled to a waiting car, which took her away from the North Palm Drive home forever.

Moving into an apartment at 8338 Delongpre Avenue, she continued her friendship with Schaefer, visiting him at Apartment 203, at 1327 North Vista. It quickly developed into a physical relationship: ‘We became lovers and were going to get married,’ said Schaefer. ‘She wanted to convert to Judaism because I was a Jew. She was still legally married to DiMaggio but had already moved out and had started divorce proceedings.’