Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love (9 page)

It didn’t seem to bother Dorothy that her moment of glory was owed almost exclusively to the renown of the stone-faced man who awaited her at the altar. Nor did it matter to her that she had been brought up Protestant and, in order to marry Joe, had been forced to convert to Catholicism. In her Dorothy Arnold biography, Joyce Hadley describes the groom, North Beach’s favorite son, as “tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, rich, and fabulously famous.” He was also “uneducated, very insecure, painfully shy, wary of strangers, and practically inarticulate.” But Dorothy, Joyce insists, was “going to fix all that.”

Joe’s parents, his brothers and sisters, Dorothy’s parents and sisters, and assorted uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and cousins representing both families, to say nothing of friends and associates—nearly five hundred guests in all—gathered for the postceremony reception at the Grotto, an Italian restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf owned and operated by the DiMaggios. (For commercial reasons, the name of the establishment would eventually be changed to Joe DiMaggio’s Grotto). Three four-foot-tall ice sculptures of baseball players in midswing celebrated Vince, Joe, and Dom, the ballplaying brothers, all of whom had invested money in the restaurant. The guests consumed twelve turkeys, fifteen chickens, six capons, eight hams, five sides of beef, six pounds of
caviar, multiple cases of scotch, bourbon, gin, wine, and champagne. Dessert consisted of gallons of ice cream and six wedding cakes circled by friezes of crossed miniature baseball bats to signify Joe’s success with the Yankees.

Dorothy had gone to great lengths to endear herself to Joe’s parents, learning Italian so she could converse with them and spending hours with his mother learning how to prepare his favorite food. Joe, on the other hand, showed no such consideration for his parents-in-law. During his single premarital visit to Duluth, he reportedly barely spoke to them. A family friend accused him of being rude to the Olsons, who seemed to the friend to be unsure of what to make of their future son-in-law.

In late February 1940 the newlyweds drove cross-country from San Francisco to Yankees spring training camp in St. Petersburg, Florida, stopping briefly in Duluth for a visit with Dorothy’s parents. “On this occasion,” recalled an Olson family friend, “DiMaggio seemed totally hostile toward the Olsons. They were all having drinks in the living room when he suddenly rose and bolted out of the house, after telling Dorothy he’d wait for her in the car. As far as I know, he never offered an explanation, never said a word.”

Regardless of his personal demons, DiMaggio’s cosmos had certain undeniable advantages, and Dorothy Arnold managed to fit in. She never missed a game and was quickly accepted by the coterie of veteran wives who each day sat in the section of Yankee Stadium reserved for the families of players. Her closest ally was June Gomez, Lefty’s bride, but she soon also befriended Vi Dickey, the wife of catcher Bill Dickey, and Pauline Ruffing, pitcher Red Ruffing’s wife. In a
New York Daily Mirror
profile of Dorothy, the reporter wrote: “Being Joe DiMaggio’s wife carries a responsibility all its own. No one in baseball ever demonstrated more grace than Joe. No one ever looked as good in a uniform, his fitting him as if it were a Savile Row suit. In public he is a man of great dignity. He is proud, possessive, and a trifle old-fashioned. In Dorothy Arnold, a former actress and model, he has found the perfect companion.”

What the profile didn’t say, and what Dorothy Arnold came to see, is that under the public posture there lurked an entire catalogue of less admirable traits, several of which Joyce Hadley had already noticed. Joe DiMaggio exhibited unaccountable moments of anger and distrust, black moods, idiosyncratic behavior, parsimony, self-adulation, indifference, egocentricity, and an overwhelming urge to control the actions of others.

Several months into the marriage, it became apparent that Joe and Dorothy didn’t see domestic life in quite the same way. Whereas she enjoyed playing the effervescent hostess to family and friends, Joe’s notion of fun hadn’t changed appreciably from what it had been throughout the duration of his days (and nights) as a “gay” bachelor. He would leave home around ten each morning to work out at the stadium before the game. At game’s end, he would wend his way to Toots Shor’s for drinks and a steak dinner with his pals, a clique that most often included George Solotaire, Walter Winchell, Jimmy Cannon, Walter “Red” Smith, Jackie Gleason (on occasion), and even Toots himself. The group would gather at “Joe’s table”—table number one—to pick apart the day’s action or to commiserate with DiMaggio on those infrequent occasions when the Yankees lost or Joe happened to go hitless. Attractive women were a welcome addition to the scene but were discouraged from contibuting anything to it other than their looks. Joe would usually return home long after his lonely wife had gone to bed. To add to their growing inventory of problems, he held it against her when she made her own plans for the evening. Dorothy had several friends in the entertainment field, including Bud Abbott and Lou Costello (Abbott and Costello), and whenever she invited them over or went out with them to a movie or for a drink, he became surly. He resented all her friendships, but especially those with men. He encouraged her to appear in a print media ad for Swift’s Premium Franks but only because it brought in money with a minimum of exposure.

Such were the vagaries of being married to baseball’s leading participant. A fairly inattentive suitor to begin with, Joe was an even worse
husband. On those evenings he chose to remain at home, he would gobble down a quick dinner with Dorothy and then affix himself to the television or radio set for a night of cowboys and Indians, detectives and anything else, in which Dorothy took no interest. He would chat with Dorothy only when their talk concerned his profession. Once, for instance, he asked her whether she’d noticed any subtle changes in his swing. She had, in fact, seen something and, being a good athlete in her own right, proceeded to demonstrate the slight shift she’d discerned in his batting stance. He made the adjustment.

Yankees right fielder Tommy Henrich, Bill Dickey, and Bill’s wife, Vi, accompanied Joe and Dorothy to dinner one night. “I remember the occasion very clearly,” said Henrich, “because it was one of the few, if not the only time I socialized with DiMaggio. He simply wasn’t one of the guys. Except for Lefty Gomez, he kept pretty much to himself. I didn’t know him that well on a personal basis, only as a ballplayer, and as a ballplayer he was in a league by himself, very likely the best all-around player in the game. I never knew him to make a mental mistake on the field. To err is human, not to err is divine. Mr. DiMaggio was divine. That, at any rate, was his baseball persona. As a human being—well, that was something else again. The night we all went to dinner—we dined at a small Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village—he behaved like a real prick, particularly toward his wife. I mean, he totally ignored Dorothy—didn’t look at her, didn’t talk to her, didn’t interact with her in any way. Somehow she managed to keep the conversation flowing. She told several amusing stories about her experiences as an actress. Bill and Vi laughed, and I tossed in an occasional aside. DiMaggio looked the other way, never so much as cracked a smile. It made for one hell of an uncomfortable evening.”

Henrich recalled an anecdote related to him by Lefty Gomez. That same summer, during an off day when the Yanks weren’t playing, Joe and his wife went to Jones Beach with Lefty and June Gomez. They drove out to Long Island in Joe’s car. They’d packed a picnic lunch prepared by the ladies. They spread out their beach blankets, and
Dorothy removed her skirt and blouse, under which she wore a black-and-white-striped two-piece bathing suit. DiMaggio took one look at his wife and exploded.

“You can’t be serious!” he yelled. “You’re not going to walk around in that goddamn bathing suit, are you?”

“But I just bought it,” said Dorothy. “It’s French, and it was expensive.”

“I don’t give a damn,” answered DiMaggio. “Your midriff’s showing. Put on your blouse.”

June Gomez came to her friend’s defense. “Joe,” she remarked, “stop being so puritanical. There’s nothing wrong with it. A lot of women are wearing them this summer.”

“She’s not wearing it without a blouse,” DiMaggio thundered.

With tears welling in her eyes, Dorothy slipped the blouse over her shoulders. But it was too late. Still seething, DiMaggio stood, grabbed his belongings, returned to the parking lot, and drove off, leaving all three to ponder how they were going to get back to New York.

The more Mrs. DiMaggio tried to please her husband, the more distant he became. Dorothy went along with the Yankees on a road trip to Chicago, where she’d arranged to meet for dinner at the
Del Prado Hotel with her sisters, Irene and Joyce, and Joyce’s husband, Les Hadley. Although Joe had promised to join them for dinner, he never showed up. Dorothy carried on without him, but Joyce discerned her sibling’s underlying disappointment at what had clearly become an undeniable pattern in a marriage that seemed destined for failure.

Convinced that having a baby might provide a solution to their troubles, Dorothy underwent a delicate gynecological procedure in mid-October 1940.
They spent Christmas in Duluth with her family. Les Hadley’s boss and a coworker, devout baseball fans, wanted to meet DiMaggio. Les invited them over for cocktails. More aloof than ever, Joe mumbled a few words and after several minutes rose and left the house without excusing himself. Dorothy tried to cover for his rudeness by explaining that he hadn’t felt well of late. Les later found him alone
in a bar. Joe said, “They were not my friends. They seemed perfectly happy to be entertained by Dottie.”

The remainder of their stay went smoothly enough. The town had a minor-league baseball team, and Joe was asked to attend a meeting of the team’s owners to discuss their plans to build a new stadium. The manager of the team invited Joe and Dorothy to go ice fishing at a nearby frozen lake. Otherwise the couple played cards and took long drives into the surrounding countryside. One evening the family went bowling, and Dorothy outscored everyone, including Joe. Though not pleased with the results, he managed a good-natured smile. She also trounced him at billiards and ping-pong. On their next-to-last day, Dorothy’s mother took her aside and complained that the entire household could hear her and Joe making love at night. “Well, Mom,” Dorothy responded, “you know how that works. You get to the point where you don’t care. If the bed squeaks and bangs, that’s just the way it has to be. We’re sorry if we disturbed anyone’s sleep. Aside from everything else, we’re trying to have a baby.”

In April 1941 Joe and Dorothy moved into a penthouse apartment at 400 West End Avenue at Seventy-Ninth Street in Manhattan, three blocks from Lefty and June Gomez’s apartment. Graced by a wraparound terrace, which Dorothy covered with houseplants, tubs of flowers, and gilded garden furniture, the three-bedroom flat had a view of the Hudson River, the Palisades of New Jersey, the West Side Highway, and, in the distance, the George Washington Bridge. Dorothy installed a grand piano in the wood-paneled living room. Learning that she was pregnant, she transformed one of the bedrooms into a nursery, purchasing a complete set of matching baby furniture and installing wallpaper adorned with nursery rhymes.

For a while, the couple seemed to get along better than they had in the past. During his wife’s pregnancy, DiMaggio spent more time at home and less at Toots Shor’s. In the evening, the couple would stroll hand in hand along Riverside Drive. They went to the movies and took in several Broadway plays. They sponsored a party for thirty-five kids
from the poorer neighborhoods of New York at which they served ice cream and chocolate cake; Joe was particularly attentive to the children, signing and handing out baseballs and bats that had been donated by the New York Yankees. Dorothy must have begun to believe that having a baby with Joe was indeed the right way to go. He certainly seemed more cheerful than usual. How could he not be? It was the year he hit safely in fifty-six consecutive games, finishing the season with a .357 batting average and leading the ball club to a resounding World Series victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers.

On October 22, 1941, Dorothy entered Doctors Hospital and the following day gave birth to a baby boy, Joseph Paul DiMaggio III (Joey Jr.)—seven pounds, eleven ounces—who, even as a newborn, bore a striking resemblance to his father. Joe celebrated his son’s arrival by handing out cigars at Toots Shor’s and belting down a couple of drinks with the boys. “Hey, Daig,” said Tootsie, proposing a toast, “here’s to a second slugger in the house.” Photographs of the proud, beaming parents cuddling their two-month-old infant appeared in every major American newspaper. What Dorothy hadn’t counted on was that once the initial thrill wore off, her husband would revert back to his former indifferent self.

Emerald Duffy, whose mother Bertha Dorothy had hired as a live-in baby nurse, recalled the events of those days. “We needed the money,” she said, “so my mother hired herself out as a nanny. She and I shared a bedroom in the DiMaggio apartment on West End Avenue. I was fourteen. Domestic life in the apartment was anything but peaceful. Little Joey was a crier, and this disturbed the baby’s father no end. He claimed he couldn’t sleep with the infant wailing away half the night, so he insisted on having the nursery soundproofed. This in turn upset his wife. ‘He’s a baby, he’s supposed to cry,’ she told him. ‘That’s what babies do.’ I never saw Joe DiMaggio hold the baby, no less change a diaper. Once when the baby got sick, he checked into a hotel. He couldn’t deal with any of the difficulties associated with fatherhood. He had zero parenting skills. The same can be said for his shortcomings as a
husband. When his wife did or said something that displeased him, he’d shut down—he wouldn’t talk to her for days on end. Or if she started to argue with him about something or other, he’d tell her if she didn’t like it, she could move out.”

Nothing had changed. With his old-fashioned Victorian view of family and marriage, Joe wanted Dorothy to be his personal cheerleader, his admirer and supporter. He encouraged her to root for him at home games, pack his bags when the team went on the road, cook for him when he felt like eating dinner with her, be his sex partner when he wasn’t in bed with someone else, run his errands, manage the household, and look after the kid. It didn’t seem to occur to him that Dorothy might have her own list of needs. DiMaggio wanted a hausfrau, an obedient pinup, a mate who would perform on cue and do whatever he asked of her. Instead, he found an intelligent, high-spirited woman who expected him to be a full-time husband and father, whereas he expected her to wait around for him at home while he gallivanted about town and partied with select members of New York’s café society. As sportswriter
Roger Kahn put it: “The marriage never had a chance.”