The Press: Out at Home

When Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio nine months ago, many newspapers went slightly gaga, and some even disregarded history and hailed it as the “Romance of the Century.” The calendar girl who rose to fame “in a birthday suit,” crooned the Los Angeles Herald & Express had found bliss with a man who achieved success “in a baseball suit.” Last week U.S. dailies figured they had an even bigger story about Marilyn and Joe.

Bannered the Chicago Sun-Times: MARILYN TELLS JOE: YOU’RE OUT AT HOME. Cried the New York Journal American atop Page One: JOE FANNED ON JEALOUSY. Reporting the news, the tabloid New York Mirror breathed heavily: “Shock waves swept around the world.”

The shock waves, in Hollywood fashion, were set in motion by the press boss of 20th Century-Fox, Marilyn’s studio. Fast-talking Harry Brand, an ex-newsman with a reputation as one of the smartest press-agents in Hollywood, had carefully prepared for the event. At the time of the marriage he had foresightedly extracted a promise from Marilyn that, if the marriage broke up, she would tell him first. Last week, when she phoned and sobbed out the news. Brand was ready. Quickly, he mobilized his troops. He called in five assistants while he dashed off a short release that the breakup was the result of “conflicting demands of their careers.” Then the staff deployed to their phones, notified four Los Angeles dailies, the wire services and such top columnists as Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, so that each would be the “first” to know. In only seven minutes, Hollywood’s 20 top news outlets had the word.

Virus & Soup. Close to a hundred reporters promptly hustled out to Joe and Marilyn’s rented (at $750 a month) Beverly Hills home. But no one got in. As the newsmen sprawled on the lawn, trampled down rose bushes or broke branches from trees to get unobstructed views for their cameras, a crowd lined the street. From Marilyn’s lawyer, Jerry Giesler, newsmen picked up bits, reported that Marilyn was upstairs sick in bed “with a virus” while Joe “brewed a pot of soup for his ailing wife.” When a reporter asked why Joe didn’t move out of the house, Giesler replied that he “wouldn’t be surprised if Joe stayed until the lease ran out.”

Recipe for Happiness. Columnist Sidney Skolsky, who often escorted Marilyn to Hollywood premieres, managed to get through to her, reported “exclusively,” “There is no other man.” Since no other reporters could interview the principals, the newsmen did the next best thing; they interviewed each other, tracked down friends of Marilyn’s and Joe’s, dug back in their memories and files, and wrote stories under such headlines as NIGHTS WERE

DULL AT JOE AND MARILYN’S.

U.P.’s Aline Mosby, who once took off all her own clothes to report a nudist convention, wrote that Marilyn had once given her the recipe for “happiness.” It was to “serve Joe dinner in his chair while he watched TV,” and let him wear the-pants in the family. Marilyn, according to Aline, also bought a “king-size, eight-foot bed,” because she did not approve of separate bedrooms, and “often in bed you think of something you want to say, and you’re not going to chase down the hall to another room.”

Not to be outdone, modish, sexy Columnist Sheilah Graham wrote: “Both parties were ‘bored right to the ears’ with each other . . . Marilyn confided to friends: ‘Joe’s idea of a good time is to stay home night after night looking at television.’ [He] objected heatedly to the fanfare of sexy photos.” Many another reporter wrote that Joe was particularly miffed by the publicity photos taken on a New York street a month ago, showing Marilyn’s skirt billowing up over her backside. At the time, Joe was reported to have said angrily: “What the hell’s going on here?”

Home to Frisco. After Marilyn and Joe were inaccessible for two days, Lawyer Giesler announced that Marilyn would hold a “silent” press conference; she would pose for pictures but would not talk. While the press waited outside the house, Joe came out with his bags, mumbled that he was going “home” to San Francisco, drove off in his blue Cadillac convertible.

Shortly after, Marilyn walked out in a black, form-fitting dress. As reporters crowded around in what was called “a mob scene like something from the French Revolution,” Marilyn burst into tears. She was hustled away in a car with Lawyer Giesler. Said the A.P.: “An exit worthy of an Academy Award.”

All-American. Guessing that she had headed for the studio, reporters made straight for Pressagent Brand’s office to wait for the next bulletin. Brand had his script ready. “We’re all sorry at the studio that it happened,” he began. “It was a wonderful kind of legend, Joe and Marilyn. Everybody loves ’em both. Everybody thinks it’s Romeo and Juliet. It’s the All-American Boy divorcing the All-American Girl.” Asked a hard-bitten Hollywood reporter: “But who gets custody of the Wheaties?”

Next day Hollywood almost returned to normal. Marilyn was back on the set of The Seven Year Itch in pink pajamas, going through “one of the funniest scenes in the movie” with Actor Tom Ewell. Despite her heartbreak, said a studio pressagent, “the show must go on.” “Why?” asked a newsman. Answered the pressagent: “We’re $50,000 and three days behind production on the picture already.”