Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love (43 page)

DiMaggio gave Marilyn a check for $15,000 and arranged to visit her in Los Angeles over Christmas and New Year’s. She flew back to California with Ralph Roberts. “
She felt happy she and Joe were going to share the holidays together,” Roberts recalled. “She called him her ‘best friend ever.’ ‘I love him and always will,’ she went on. ‘The problem with our marriage was that Joe formulated an image in his stubborn Italian mind of a traditional wife—one who would be faithful, do what he told her to do, and devote all her time to him. There was no way I could stop being Marilyn Monroe and suddenly become someone else, even if I’d wanted to. It didn’t take either of us very long to realize the situation and end our marriage. But it didn’t end our love for each other.’ ”

Marilyn told Roberts that they’d both changed. Joe was calmer, less pushy, more concerned with protecting her. And she was less ambitious, more concerned with finding happiness outside the motion picture business. She was even contemplating going to college and getting a degree. “Joe and I are both high school dropouts,” she remarked. “That’s a rather sad commentary, I must say.”

Eunice Murray encountered Joe DiMaggio for the first time in Marilyn’s apartment several days before Christmas. He was drinking tea that Marilyn had brewed for him. He struck Murray as cordial but quiet. That evening, the couple ate dinner at La Scala. The next day they visited Olvera Street, the block of Mexican shops in downtown Los Angeles, where they bought Christmas tree ornaments to decorate a small evergreen in Monroe’s living room. They did some quick gift shopping and then met with Whitey Snyder and his wife for drinks. They spent one day and one night at a rental cottage not far from the
Racquet Club in Palm Springs, and were back in Marilyn’s apartment for Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day they joined a half dozen couples at the Greensons’. The other male guests clustered around DiMaggio and asked him question after question about his playing days with the Bronx Bombers. Marilyn sat next to Joe and listened quietly. Joan Greenson later remarked that Joe and Marilyn reminded her “of an old married couple still very much in love.” On New Year’s Eve Joe and Marilyn entertained Joan Greenson and her boyfriend with champagne and caviar. They roasted chestnuts in Marilyn’s fireplace and danced. The next morning—January 1, 1962—Joe took off for San Francisco and the family restaurant. Marilyn sent him a telegram, which read,
“I love you, Joe. Happy New Year!”

Having heard that Joe and Marilyn had spent the holidays together, columnist Earl Wilson called Monroe and put it to her squarely.

“Are you and Joe going to get married?”

“I like my freedom,” Marilyn answered. “I like to play the field.”

“Particularly the outfield,” quipped Wilson.

“Frankly, I’d rather be the catcher,” laughed Marilyn. She spoke fondly of Joe, reiterating what she’d said many times before:

“We tried marriage once. Right now we’re the best of friends, and that’s not a bad place to be after so many years.”

T
HANK GOD FOR JOE, THANK
God,” Marilyn had proclaimed after he’d secured her release from the psychiatric ward at Payne Whitney. Joe DiMaggio had become Monroe’s voice of reason, her lifeline to the world of the living and sane. “Joe gives me hope for the future,” she told Lotte Goslar. “We’re closer now than we’ve ever been.”

Despite their apparent closeness, Joe and Marilyn were not—and never had been—totally candid with one another. DiMaggio did not, for example, reveal that Marilyn’s psychoanalyst, Dr. Greenson, had long been in communication with him, almost to the point where Joe had become a kind of junior colleague. In an incredible breach of medical ethics, Greenson not only divulged details of his diagnosis of Marilyn’s condition—he also shared with DiMaggio his views regarding many of Marilyn’s “friends,” including Frank Sinatra and Ralph Roberts, both of whom Greenson deemed detrimental to the cause. He also discussed the contents of some of the free-association tapes Marilyn had been preparing—her admission that she’d become multiorgasmic as well as her confessional fantasy of wanting to be debauched by her father, a father she didn’t know and had never met.

For her part, Marilyn kept secret from Joe news of a meeting she’d had in November 1961 with Twentieth Century–Fox to discuss her next film, the prophetically titled
Something’s Got to Give
, to be directed
by George Cukor (who’d previously directed her in
Let’s Make Love),
and to feature Monroe, Dean Martin, Cyd Charisse, Wally Cox, and Phil Silvers. Scheduled for preproduction in late April 1962, the script called for Marilyn to perform a lengthy nude scene. Looking ahead, she couldn’t imagine that Joe would be particularly receptive to the idea of her appearing in the buff for all to see.

Nudity per se meant little to Monroe. She had few inhibitions so far as her body was concerned. Kurt Lamprecht visited her while on a junket to Los Angeles. “I had a writer friend named Will Fowler, and he’d met Marilyn several times, so I invited him along when I went to see her. The apartment itself seemed sparsely decorated. We were in the living room. She had photos of her three stepchildren—Joe Jr. and the two Arthur Miller offspring—and she still communicated with all three, sending them gifts and loving notes. ‘Like me, they’re from broken homes,’ she remarked. There was a photograph of Marilyn on the wall that had been taken by famed cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and Marilyn said it had been Arthur Miller’s favorite portrait of her, but he’d simply left it behind in her New York apartment. Pretty sad, I thought. She didn’t have many positive things to say about Miller, though she seemed fond of his kids. Miller and Monroe were apparently sexually incompatible, and she constantly referred to him as ‘a mama’s boy.’ In any case, she had on a terry cloth bathrobe, and after a few minutes, she slipped out of it and started walking around in the nude. No explanation, nothing, and we certainly weren’t going to complain. The odd thing is there was nothing sexual about it. She might as well have been at a nudist colony. She wasn’t trying to entice or seduce anyone. She was simply enjoying the moment, walking around without any clothes on.”

Entertaining casual male guests in the nude wasn’t an activity Monroe would have likely talked about with DiMaggio. What she did discuss with him was her precarious
financial situation, particularly as she’d borrowed money from him several times. He perused her account books, compiled for her by her latest personal secretary, and discovered that, in 1961, Marilyn had spent $22,000 on clothes, $33,000 on doctors,
and something over $60,000 on lawyers, accountants, hairstylists, maids, secretaries, and publicists. Joe noticed that Hedda Rosten, who’d stopped working for Marilyn long before, was still on her payroll. Marjorie Stengel, Monroe’s New York secretary in 1961, had inadvertently been paid nearly twice her salary. And an assistant to Aaron Frosch, MM’s New York attorney, had apparently skimmed funds from Marilyn’s account. Because the IRS had audited Monroe on several occasions, DiMaggio recommended that she keep all bills, contracts, bank statements, and other pertinent documents in a filing cabinet. He likewise suggested that if Marilyn wanted greater independence from Eunice Murray, she would do well to hire her own car and driver to get her around town. Marilyn contacted a local limousine service, and they sent over Rudy Kautzky. Rudy became her regular driver, taking her on her daily rounds, from Jurgensen’s for groceries to Elizabeth Arden for makeup. Her most repeated stopover was Vicente Pharmacy, which supplied her with her voluminous storehouse of prescription drugs.

It was Dr. Greenson who suggested that she would be more comfortable in her own house in the Los Angeles area as opposed to her small North Doheny Drive apartment. Ralph Roberts saw Greenson’s suggestion as “an obvious attempt to nail Marilyn down so she couldn’t leave Hollywood and return to New York, which is what she wanted to do and should’ve probably done. Owning a house entails far more responsibility than renting an apartment. Although she had mixed feelings about it, once she bought the place, she became a virtual prisoner. Joe DiMaggio liked the house but didn’t like the underlying idea
behind
the house; Greenson tried to convince him that it would somehow solve all her psychological issues. Greenson apparently felt that owning her own home would be a suitable substitute for the baby and husband she didn’t have. A house could provide her with a sense of security. ‘It will save her from herself,’ said the shrink. As time would tell, he couldn’t have been more wrong.”

In an interview Alan Levy conducted with Monroe that was published in
Redbook
magazine in August 1962—the month she died—she
was quoted as saying, “I could never imagine buying a new home alone. But I’ve always been alone, so why couldn’t I imagine it?” In the same interview, she spoke about her second go-round with Joe DiMaggio: “I’ve always been able to count on Joe as a friend after that first bitterness of our parting ended. Believe me, there is no spark to be kindled. I just like being with him, and we have a better understanding than we’ve ever had.”

In addition to DiMaggio’s brief exposure to the rites of psychotherapy, he’d more recently attended a series of classes in anger management. Now able to contain his temper, a task made easier by his all but having given up alcohol (he still had an occasional glass of champagne), he was far more capable of harnessing his emotions. He no longer insisted that his present relationship with Marilyn need end at the altar. He happily accepted the role she thrust upon him, that of friend, mentor, and lover. When Marilyn told him—over a game of gin rummy—that Dr. Greenson wanted her to acquire a house in Los Angeles and “settle down,” he finally admitted that Greenson had discussed the matter with him. DiMaggio’s advice to her was to purchase a simple abode, nothing fancy or elaborate, and certainly not one of those garish movie star monstrosities to be found in Bel Air and sections of Beverly Hills.

It happened to be Eunice Murray who came across the “ideal” house for Marilyn. Located on one acre of sloping lawn at
12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, only a mile and a half (how convenient!) from Dr. Greenson’s Santa Monica home, the L-shaped 2,300-square-foot Spanish colonial hacienda featured dark beamed ceilings, arched doorways, adobe stucco walls, a wood-paneled dining room, and a sunken living room with fireplace. Built in 1929, the house contained three bedrooms and two baths. Marilyn’s bedroom, the largest of the three, had its own bathroom in addition to a fireplace; the room faced the front of the house. A kidney-shaped swimming pool, surrounded by tropical foliage, sat behind the residence. A red brick driveway led to a two-car garage and an attached guest cottage. Fifth Helena Drive was a
cul-de-sac, and the hacienda stood at the end of the street, guaranteeing Marilyn at least partial privacy. It was also conveniently located near San Vicente Boulevard, Brentwood’s main thoroughfare.

“I never owned a house before,” said Marilyn. “It’s a cozy place, not at all ostentatious. It was just for me and for a few friends.” Putting a positive spin on the purchase, Marilyn added, “It’s a fortress where I can feel safe from the world.”

Before closing on the deal, Marilyn called Joe DiMaggio in San Francisco and asked him to come look at the house. He flew down, and Eunice Murray drove the couple to the property. ‘You’d better duck down so nobody recognizes you,’ Murray warned DiMaggio. ‘They may get the wrong idea.’ ‘He can’t hide his nose,’ remarked Marilyn. DiMaggio laughed. Marilyn led him through the house, room by room. At the end of the tour, Joe admitted the place looked sturdy and had charm. He suggested she build a small apartment over the garage for either a household employee or extra guests. To maintain privacy, he advised her
not
to put her name on the mailbox at the edge of the driveway. Finally, he lent her another $15,000 to help her purchase the residence. She made a down payment of $42,500 and took a fifteen-year mortgage on the remainder, which cost her $320 per month. The total price of the house was $77,500.

Enthusiastic about the purchase, Marilyn busied herself decorating the new acquisition. She bought a Norman Norell–designed red fabric couch for the living room, which arrived only days before her death and remained encased in the guest cottage. From a local collector, she bought a bronze copy of a Rodin statue (
The Kiss
), the original of which she’d seen on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She acquired an oil painting of a bull by Poucette, an acclaimed contemporary French female artist. She transformed the smallest bedroom into a fitting room and began modernizing and refurbishing the kitchen and bathrooms as well as the two remaining bedrooms, the living room, and the guest cottage, selecting mostly dark, rustic wooden furniture and fabric in imitation of Dr. Greenson’s Spanish-style house. Like Greenson, she placed a low wooden coffee table in front of her living
room fireplace. She installed new lighting fixtures throughout. She created a sleeping nook for Maf in the guest cottage because he tended to bark at night, keeping the actress awake. She ordered a red carpet to be woven for the guest cottage and commissioned an artisan to hand-paint the rafters with flowers and leaves. She made plans to install a potted herb garden and bought a number of flowering plants and citrus trees from Frank’s, a nearby nursery. To further her interest in gardening, she subscribed to
Horticulture
magazine and hired a landscaper and a gardener to help develop the grounds. She hired two handymen—Eunice Murray’s son-in-law, Norman Jefferies, and his brother, Keith—to make new kitchen cabinets, refinish the floors, and do other odds and ends around the house.