Marilyn Monroe Marries Joe DiMaggio
On this day · 14 January 1954
Hollywood's brightest star and baseball's quiet legend wed in a tiny civil ceremony that the whole world tried to crash.
On January 14, 1954, film star Marilyn Monroe married retired baseball great Joe DiMaggio in a small civil ceremony at San Francisco City Hall. DiMaggio’s friend Reno Barsocchini arranged the wedding, and aside from the couple and the judge, only Barsocchini and DiMaggio’s former Seals manager Lefty O’Doul and his wife stood as witnesses.
The “out of the spotlight” plan collapsed instantly. Someone tipped the press, and roughly one hundred reporters, photographers and fans swarmed the corridors outside Judge Charles S. Peery’s chambers.
When Monroe and her beau of two years showed up at San Francisco City Hall, chaos ensued.
It was a second marriage for both, pairing two of the most famous Americans alive. The romance proved as combustible as the crowd outside: the couple split after just 274 days, divorcing in October of that same year. Yet the bond outlasted the marriage. After Monroe’s death in 1962, DiMaggio arranged her funeral and, for two decades, had roses delivered to her grave.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
