Credits: www.themarilynmonroecollection.com
Writing a post about Marilyn is a bit difficult. We know almost everything about her, from her difficult childhood, with a mother suffering from schizophrenia, to the constant trips to friends, foster families and orphanages, about her work in an ammunition factory, where she met the photographer, who launched her as a model.
Her love life has been quite turbulent, but what seems to be certain is that she always had the feeling she was not really loved, that she suffered from depression and anxiety and abused substances which – this is the controversial official version – led her to a very early death in 1962.
I’m so sorry about that, I liked her so much. In the last few years, a couple of exhibitions have been set up in my city. Some of her personal belongings were shown and seeing them personally gave me a very deep emotion.
Marilyn has been married three times. The first time, she was still called Norma Jeane Mortenson Baker and she married James (Jim) Dougherty when she was just sixteen.
At that time she was living with her aunt Ana Lower, to whom she was very fond, but due to Ana’s health problems, she had to move in with her niece, Grace Goddard and her husband Doc. Jim Dougherty lived next to the Goddards. When Doc Goddard was offered an interesting job in Virginia, Norma Jeane was still under the guardianship of the judge and could not leave. Thus it was that, to avoid returning to the orphanage, the idea of marriage with Jim came up. The marriage lasted four years.
Then it was the turn of the legendary New York Yankees baseball player Joe Di Maggio, and finally she married the playwright Arthur Miller.
In the photos with Dougherty, there are no rings whatsoever. In those of the Miller period, Marilyn was wearing a simple wedding band.
The most interesting phase, as far as rings are concerned, is in my opinion the central one, during the marriage with Joe Di Maggio.
The beginning of their romance is legendary: while his usual barber is intent on cutting his beard, Joe flips through the National Enquirer magazine and stumbles upon a photo shoot featuring the Chicago White Sox baseball team and a bubbly blonde dressed as a batter, described as the “godmother” of the club. Joe is thunderstruck. With the help of the colleague Gus Zernial of the White Sox, who had posed with Marilyn for the photo shoot, he manages to obtain the phone number of the rising Hollywood star. In fact, she was not a planetary diva yet, while Joe, on the contrary, was the hero of America, the son of Sicilian emigrants who had achieved success and glory. At the time, Joe was heading into his final season as a pro, both for reasons of age, but also because he had severe pain in his hands caused by arthritis.
The two began exchanging long phone calls, until one evening they managed to organize a dinner at the “Villa Capri” restaurant in Los Angeles. It is said that Marilyn was rather reluctant to meet Joe, whom she imagined as the classic arrogant and braggart athlete. However, when she realized that Joe was a good, kind, reserved and respectful man, she fell in love without reservation. Actually, Joe was quite a rough person, but with Marilyn became softer and more patient.
Paparazzis followed them everywhere (also because Joe had not yet obtained the divorce from his first wife) and the Di Maggio family – in particular his brother Dominic – tried several times to dissuade him from continuing this love affair with Marilyn. Joe went straight on his way, in love more than ever and, after a couple of years of dating, while on vacation in San Francisco to visit his family, he suddenly asked Marilyn to marry him. It is said that Joe did not plan the proposal and that he asked for Marilyn’s hand in a spontaneous, unexpected way, so much so that he did not even have any ring with him.
Two days after the proposal, on January 14th, 1954, the couple went to the Town Hall for the civil function, thinking it would be a secret ceremony. On the contrary it transpired and photographers, journalists and fans had gathered outside. Marilyn was very elegant, in a simple chocolate brown dress and an ermine collar. Joe chose the same tie he had worn on their first date.
The team of the website “The Marilyn Monroe Collection” carefully and thoroughly checked the photos taken during that day and noticed that the ring that Joe put on Marilyn’s finger is not a typical wedding band, but it seems to be an ancient and elaborate ring, apparently studded with small gemstones. Since it is believed that this jewel has not been shown in several other public circumstances, the team has expressed the theory that the ring could be a jewel of the Di Maggio family lent to the couple in order to be able to celebrate this hasty wedding.
Credits: @Bettmann Archive / www.dailymail.co.uk
At some point during their relationship, but no one knows when, where or how, Joe replaced the wedding ring with the most well-known and elegant eternity band that you can admire in the below famous shot by Milton Greene, which portrays Marilyn during a make-up session:
Credits: www.themarilynmonroecollection.com
Unfortunately it was a stormy marriage. Within a few months, she hit the box office with two movies (possibly thanks to the free publicity due to her marriage) and became a star. He was an old-fashioned man, who would have preferred her at home, divided between stoves and babies. They loved each other, but they didn’t understand each other. According to the legend, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the iconic scene from Billy Wilder’s movie “The Seven Year Itch”, in which Marilyn’s dress is lifted near the manhole on a sidewalk, uncovering her beautiful legs:
Credits: www.mymovies.it
Ironically the most famous scene of Marilyn’s career brought her marriage to an end.
Quarrels, discussions followed, maybe beatings, it is also rumored. Joe was very jealous. He was convinced she was cheating on him with the diction teacher Hal Schaefer and had her tailed by a private investigator, as per his friend Frank Sinatra’s suggestion (who, perhaps, had been himself a lover of Marilyn).
After less than a year, Marilyn filed for divorce for Joe’s “mental cruelty”.
Marilyn was overwhelmed by a spiral of depression due to which she was forced to spend periods of time in psychiatric hospitals, she lived turbulent loves (including the third unfortunate marriage with Arthur Miller) and impossible affairs (with the Kennedys), between various social events and dangerous acquaintances.
Despite the turbulent separation, they never said goodbye: they soon began to get in touch and call each other again, they confided to each other, Joe was always close to her with affection and without intrusiveness, doing everything he could to keep her safe.
I don’t know if, as some people say, he intended to remarry her. It is certain that Marilyn’s death was devastating for him. Joe organized Marilyn’s funeral in Westwood Cemetery. When I see the expression on his face, captured by the photos taken during the funeral, it really breaks my heart.
Joe lived to be 84 and never remarried again. For all the 37 years without Marilyn, he invariably had a bouquet of red roses delivered to the diva’s grave every week.
It is said that his last words before he died were: “I will finally see Marilyn again”.
The eternity band was auctioned by Christie’s in New York in 1999, along with other personal belongings of Marilyn. Although a diamond was missing, the ring sold for a whopping $ 772,500, despite the starting price was established between $ 30,000 – 50,000.
NEVER EVER EVER I will accept or justify a man who beats or uses violence against a woman and I sincerely hope that Joe has never beaten Marilyn. I hope Joe was just an old-fashioned man, but not a violent one.
Honestly, every time I think about the intrinsic value of an eternity ring, Joe always comes to my mind, together with his impossible feelings, misunderstood by everybody, yet patient and tenacious. He softened for the love of Marilyn and married her despite everyone advised him otherwise, but above all he – after the separation – kept on loving her from a distance, as a sincere and trusted friend. After all, isn’t friendship a platonic version of love? And doesn’t love also have an indispensable component of friendship and sharing?
Joe’s love and devotion to Marilyn really give a meaning to the word “eternity” and to the elegant and classic ring he gave her … until death do them together…
Sources:
www.theadventurine.com
www.vogue.com.uk
www.gazzetta.it
www.repubblica.it
www.marieclaire.com
www.marilynmonroe.altervista.org