Marilyn Marries Joe DiMaggio

Marilyn Monroe’s wedding to baseball star Joe DiMaggio was one of the biggest events in celebrity news in 1954. Much like the Kardashian-Humphry’s wedding, it was very much short lived.

In 1952, DiMaggio mustered up the courage to ask super star Marilyn Monroe on a dinner date. Marilyn was a hot commodity as her movies Monkey Business and Don’t Bother to Knock had just been released. Marilyn accepted DiMaggio’s dinner invitation and the press went bonkers. Every news article was filled with speculations of the couple’s new found love. This was Hollywood’s dream come true.

After a few years of dating, Joe asked for Marilyn’s hand in marriage. She accepted and they married in January of 1954. While on their honeymoon, Marilyn was asked to visit the soldiers in Korea as soon as she returned. It seemed as though she couldn’t wait to leave her new husband behind in the states while she flew to Korea. It goes needless to say that Joe was not a happy man.

Once Marilyn returned back to the states, she filmed one of her most famous films, Some Like it Hot. In this film, Marilyn walks over a vent which blows air right up her dress. This created the famous scene of her skirt flying up for the whole city to see her under garments. While shooting this scene, Marilyn was asked to reshoot it multiple times. A crowd formed around the set all while it was being recorded. Each time she stood over the air vent a bigger crowd surrounded her. Joe became irate at the sex symbol his wife was becoming.

In October of 1954, Joe and Marilyn were divorced. Marilyn claimed Joe mentally abused her frequently.

Marilyn’s First Magazine: PLAYBOY

Marilyn was the very first playmate of the month which started in December or 1953. Wiki explains it best saying, “Playboy’s editor Hugh Hefner chose what he deemed the “sexiest” image, a previously unused nude study of Marilyn stretched with an upraised arm on a red velvet background from 1949.The heavy promotion centered around Marilyn’s nudity on the already famous calendar, together with the tease marketing, made the new Playboy magazine a success.”

In December 1953, 27-year-old Hugh Hefner published the very first Playboy magazine. This first edition of Playboy was 44-pages long and had no date on its cover because Hefner wasn’t sure there would be a second edition. In that first run, Hefner sold 54,175 copies of Playboy magazine at 50 cents each.  The first edition sold so well because Marilyn Monroe was the “Sweetheart of the Month” (which was thereafter termed “playmate”).

On the front cover of the first edition of Playboy,  Marilyn Monroe appeared waving her hand. Inside, Marilyn Monroe bared it all in the centerfold.  (Monroe did not pose nude specifically for Playboy; Hefner had purchased the picture from a local printer who made calendars.)

This first edition of the magazine is also the only Playboy that does not have Hugh Hefner’s name inside.

On the first page, Hefner humorously wrote, “We want to make it clear from the very start, we aren’t a ‘family magazine.’ If you’re somebody’s sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion.”

 

Info from About.com