Marilyn and Joe

One of the effects that makes certain music performers so electric is the interaction between the performer and the audience. In a live concert, both parties feed off each other, and the result is like a thunderhead that rises higher and higher in the sky. A similar phenomenon can happen when two very public personalities meet and fall in love. A resonance builds up between the general public and the couple, creating a frenzy of vicarious empathy.

Take Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. One was a film star and the other, a baseball legend, two very different and unique people from two very different and unique backgrounds, who nonetheless married in 1954. What did they have in common other than physical talent and charisma? We can never know exactly, but their union caused a media and audience explosion.

Sports columnist Jerry Izenberg was in Tokyo when Marilyn and Joe arrived for their honeymoon. Marilyn turned to Joe and said, ‘Do you hear that? All those people calling my name?’ According to Izenberg, Joe’s attitude was slightly annoyed as if to say: ‘This might be new to you, kid, but this is not new to me.’

In that brief moment, we are aware of two egocentric figures (particularly in Marilyn’s case) at the pinnacle of fame and fortune who likely didn’t fully comprehend why and how they had achieved such heights, let alone what had brought them together and the effect on the global population. The frenzied firestorm of attention that they generated was beyond anything seen before. Perhaps privately, they understood how they got to where they were as individuals and then, as married partners, but if they did, that awareness was insufficient to sustain their marriage, which failed after 274 days. Nonetheless, despite the split, they remained close confidantes long after their divorce. According to a Vanity Fair article, when Joe died years later at the age of 84, his last words were, “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn.”1

Their individual achievements, their picture-perfect union, as well as the hopes and dreams of all who observed them, created a focus of attention like a convex lens focusing rays of sunlight to make a fire. The power of that energy was intense—too intense for anyone individually, let alone two people—one secure and one less so—to endure for long. Their union created something akin to nuclear fusion, and the energy released, enhanced by the dreams and wishes of an entranced public, was like the building up of a thunderhead to the stratosphere.

How long could such a structure endure?

Not long, and yet their relationship managed to endure, but at a more subdued level. They always remained close and would talk on the telephone. Such a storybook union and disunion is not a simple story that is easily understood by either of them, let alone by the millions that vicariously took part, gazing with rapture at their beginning and sighing in sorrow when it ended. The intensity was all too much, too soon, too fast, and yet for almost a year, their romance enchanted and enlivened the lives of millions around the world and helped define and underscore a point in time from all that came before and all that followed after.

Miller, D. (2016, January 14). #TBT to the day Marilyn married Joltin’ Jo. MLB.TV. Retrieved March 18, 2025, from https://www.mlb.com/news/joe-dimaggio-marilyn-monroe-married-in-1954-c161844094?partnerID=web_article-share