It lasted 9 months. Marilyn wasn't about to give up the spotlight that she had waited for her whole life, and for as famous and successful as Joe was then, he was always going to be "Mr. Marilyn." "It's no fun being married to an electric light." During her time with DiMaggio, she had to endure the jealousy and resentment of her lesbian acting coach Natasha Lytess (whom MM had placed on the Fox payroll). Marilyn just wanted an acting mentor not another possessive lover. She told Natasha, "Don't love me. Teach me!"
As the couple was heading into divorce proceedings, Joe DiMaggio was having MM followed by a detective to try to catch her being adulterous. On November 5, 1954, DiMaggio, his buddy Frank Sinatra, and the private detective barged into the 8112 Waring Ave building that they heard Marilyn was visiting.
Instead they raided the wrong apartment (Marilyn was visiting friend Sheila Stewart in another unit) and a horrified tenant named Florence Kotz pressed charges. Flo eventually settled for $7500 in damages.
"Dogs never bite me. Just humans."
The next year, MM left Hollywood to study acting in Manhattan with Lee Strasberg who became a parental figure (along with his yenta wife Paula).
MM formed her own production company in search of better roles and married superstar playwright Arthur Miller in 1956. Marilyn said Arthur reminded her of Abraham Lincoln (part of an idolatry fetish she had for the 16th President). For a few years they were happy and "the beauty and the brain" hoped to have many children but it was not to be. MM suffered a second miscarriage during the shooting of Some Like It Hot (1959). The marriage unraveled on the set of The Misfits (her final completed film), where MM lost her marbles and Miller found his sanity in set photographer Inge Morath - who would become his next wife.
Joe DiMaggio had come to Marilyn's rescue on her final Christmas of 1961 and they met up in Florida that February 1962. ("Thank God for Joe, thank God", she told friends).
Marilyn also rebounded from the painful Miller divorce with the help of pals Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and an affair with Peter's brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy. The pair met frequently at Lawford's ocean front home.
MM was enamored with the womanizing JFK to say the least. ("I think I make his back feel better," she told pals.) MM sang "Happy Birthday" to the President at his 1962 Madison Square Garden birthday gala (staged and directed by William Asher). To attend the JFK event, MM had defied the studio and skipped town and her film production of Something's Got to Give.
"I've been on calendars but never on time."
Fox was hemorrhaging money that year with Liz Taylor's Cleopatra and they were also fed up with Marilyn's tardiness. Something had to give, and it was Marilyn (not Liz). Fox informed Marilyn that she was fired and they shut down the production.
Summer 1962, found the unemployed MM living in her newly purchased, sparsely furnished Brentwood home (phone number 476-1890) that she was in the process of remodeling. Her closest companions were all on her payroll: publicist Pat Newcomb; business manager: Inez Melson; physician Dr. Hyman Engleberg; psychiatrist: Dr Ralph Greenson and his brother in law, MM's attorney Milton Rudin; and Dr Greenson's patient babysitter Mrs. Eunice Murray as MM's new housekeeper.
The only companion around the house she wasn't paying was her small white poodle from Sinatra named "Maf"
(short for Mafia).
On June 2, the day after her 36th birthday, Marilyn had an emotional breakdown. Dr. Greenson's son and daughter were summoned to cheer her. Marilyn said she felt old, unwanted and used by people. She declared that her life wasn't worth living.
In one of the better MM books (Barbara Leaming's "Marilyn Monroe") the author had access to Dr. Greenson's personal correspondence, and he diagnosed Marilyn as "borderline paranoid addict." All summer Marilyn was eating less, drinking more champagne, and totally reliant on pills for insomnia.
On Friday August 3rd, Marilyn's LIFE Magazine interview and pictorial was published. MM appeared gaunt and tired in the photos, and the interview focused on her now troubled career.
That weekend was also the 5th anniversary of her first miscarriage with Arthur Miller. To make things more upsetting for MM, Miller's new wife Inge was due to have their baby (daughter Rebecca) within a few weeks.
Marilyn had plenty of reasons to be depressed. Dr. Greenson spent the day with her after she had complained about a miserable sleepless night.
She was distraught and emotional and appeared to Greenson as "somewhat drugged and unsteady." She wanted to go walk on the Santa Monica pier but Dr. Greenson talked her out of it. She decided to stay home with housekeeper Mrs. Murray.
Marilyn spoke to former step-son Joe DiMaggio Jr. by phone that day.
She also reportedly spoke with hairstylist Sidney Guilaroff and told him: "I'm very depressed."
"Wha