He’s Her Joe DiMaggio!
Will Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio be the Big Romance of 1952?
The pin-up girl and the Yankee Clipper met this spring exactly two weeks before he had to report in New York as a TV commentator. During those two weeks, however, they saw each other every night at the little out-of-the-way restaurants that cater to a romantic clientele with violins and candlelight.
“We talked a lot about baseball, believe it or not,” Marilyn says. “Joe explained it to me.”
It could be he wanted her to appreciate the fine points of his game the night he played for the benefit of crippled children. And obviously she did. For she says, “He was wonderful!”
He has refused to discuss her with anyone. And the whistles he drew after she appeared on the cover of Life with a story and photograph of her as the now famous calendar girl inside did not please him.
However, George Solitaire, Joe’s close friend and roommate, who reflects his sentiments on all subjects, has warmth and enthusiasm for Marilyn. “She’s a real down-to-earth girl,” he says. “She has plenty of heart. She has not gone Hollywood.”
Joe, after his TV debut, called Marilyn on the telephone. “He was very nervous about it,” she explains. “He’s really a shy guy. That’s why I have to be so careful what I say about him.”
She admits, however, that they frequently call each other long distance and that she hopes to see Joe in New York in June or “maybe before.”
In the meantime, Marilyn has been finishing “Monkey Business,” which will follow “Clash by Night” and “Don’t Bother to Knock.” Significantly, Joe’s friends no longer speak of any possibility of reconciliation with his former wife, Dorothy Arnold.
Moreover, since Joe left Hollywood Marilyn has been seen with no one else. Asked why, she answers enigmatically, “It just happens I like Joe—so much better than I like most actors.”
It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE JULY 1952