“I don’t like men in loud clothes,” I said, “with checked suits and big muscles and pink ties. I get nervous.”
But I went to join a small party with whom Joe DiMaggio was having dinner in Chasen’s Restaurant.
31
a gentleman from center field
It was a balmy night, and I was late as usual.
When the dinner host said, “Miss Monroe, this is Joe DiMaggio,” I was quite surprised. Mr. Joe DiMaggio was unexpected.
I had thought I was going to meet a loud, sporty fellow. Instead I found myself smiling at a reserved gentleman in a gray suit, with a gray tie and a sprinkle of gray in his hair. There were a few blue polka dots in his tie. If I hadn’t been told he was some sort of a ball player, I would have guessed he was either a steel magnate or a congressman.
He said, “I’m glad to meet you,” and then fell silent for the whole rest of the evening. We sat next to each other at the table. I addressed only one remark to him.
“There’s a blue polka dot exactly in the middle of your tie knot,” I said. “Did it take you long to fix it like that?”
Mr. DiMaggio shook his head. I could see right away he was not a man to waste words. Acting mysterious and far away while in company was my own sort of specialty. I didn’t see how it was going to work on somebody who was busy being mysterious and far away himself.
I learned during the next year that I was mistaken about this baseball idol. Joe wasn’t putting on an act when he was silent, and he was the least far away man I had ever known. It was just his way of being on the ball.
But to return to my first meal with Mr. DiMaggio—he didn’t try to impress me or anybody else. The other men talked and threw their personalities around. Mr. DiMaggio just sat there. Yet somehow he was the most exciting man at the table. The excitement was in his eyes. They were sharp and alert.
Then I became aware of something odd. The men at the table weren’t showing off for me or telling their stories for my attention. It was Mr. DiMaggio they were wooing. This was a novelty. No woman had ever put me so much in the shade before.
But as far as I was concerned, Mr. DiMaggio was all novelty. In Hollywood, the more important a man is the more he talks. The better he is at his job the more he brags. By these Hollywood standards of male greatness my dinner companion was a nobody. Yet I had never met any man in Hollywood who got so much respect and attention at a dinner table. Sitting next to Mr. DiMaggio was like sitting next to a peacock with its tail spread—that’s how noticeable you were.
I had been dead tired when I arrived. Now suddenly I wasn’t tired anymore. There was no denying I felt attracted. But I couldn’t figure out by what. I was always able to tell what it was about a man that attracted me. Except this time with Mr. DiMaggio.
My feelings for this silent smiling man began to disturb me. What was the use of buzzing all over for a man who was like somebody sitting alone in the Observation Car?
Then I began to understand something. His silence wasn’t an act. It was his way of being himself. And I thought, “You learn to be silent and smiling like that from having millions of people look at you with love and excitement while you stand alone getting ready to do something.”
Only I wished I knew what it was Mr. DiMaggio did. I tried to remember what the football players did the time Jim Dougherty took me to a football game. I couldn’t recall anything interesting.
I had never seen a baseball game; so there was no use trying to figure out what a baseball player did that was important. But I was sure now it was something. After one hour all the men at the table were still talking for Mr. DiMaggio’s benefit.
Men are a lot different than women in this respect. They are always full of hero worship for a champion of their sex. It’s hard to imagine a table full of women sitting for a whole hour flattering and wooing another woman if she were three champions.
Since my remark about the blue polka dot there had been no further conversation between my dinner partner and me. Even though I was attracted I couldn’t help thinking, “I wonder if he knows I’m an actress? Probably not. And I’ll probably never find out. He’s the kind of egomaniac who would rather cut off an arm than express some curiosity about somebody else. The whole thing is a waste of time. The thing to do is to go home—and forget him—and without delay.”
I told the host I was tired and had a hard day ahead at the studio. It was the truth. I was playing in a movie called Don’t Bother to Knock.
Mr. DiMaggio stood up when I did.
“May I see you to the door?” he asked.
I didn’t discourage him.
At the door he broke his silence again.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.
When we got to my car he made an even longer speech.
“I don’t live very far from here, and I haven’t any transportation,” he said. “Would you mind dropping me at my hotel?”
I said I would be happy to.
I drove for five minutes and began to feel depressed. I didn’t want Mr. DiMaggio to step out of the car and out of my life in another two minutes, which was going to happen as soon as we reached his hotel. I slowed down to a crawl as we approached the place.
In the nick of time Mr. DiMaggio spoke up again.
“I don’t feel like turning in,” he said. “Would you mind driving around a little while?”
Would I mind! My heart jumped, and I felt full of happiness. But all I did was nod mysteriously and answer, “It’s a lovely night for a drive.”
We rode around for three hours. After the first hour I began to find out things about Joe DiMaggio. He was a baseball player and had belonged to the Yankee Ball Club of the American League in New York. And he always worried when he went out with a girl. He didn’t mind going out once with her. It was the second time he didn’t like. As for the third time, that very seldom happened. He had a loyal friend named George Solotaire who ran interference for him and pried the girl loose.
“Is Mr. Solotaire in Hollywood with you?” I asked.
He said he was.
“I’ll try not to make him too much trouble when he starts prying me loose,” I said.
“I don’t think I will have use for Mr. Solotaire’s services this trip,” he replied.
After that we didn’t talk for another half hour, but I didn’t mind. I had an instinct that compliments from Mr. DiMaggio were going to be few and far between, so I was content to sit in silence and enjoy the one he had just paid me.
Then he spoke up again.
“I saw your picture the other day,” he said.
“Which movie was it?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a movie,” he answered. “It was a photograph of you on the sports page.”
I remembered the one. The Studio had sent me out on a publicity stunt to Pasadena where some team from Chicago called The Sox was clowning around getting ready for the eastern baseball season. I wore rather abbreviated shorts and a bra, and the ball players took turns lifting me up on their shoulders and playing piggyback with me while the publicity men took photographs.
“I imagine you must have had your picture taken doing publicity stunts like that a thousand times,” I said.
“Not quite,” Mr. DiMaggio answered. “The best I ever got was Ethel Barrymore or General MacArthur. You’re prettier.”
The admission had an odd effect on me. I had read reams on reams of writing about my good looks, and scores of men had told me I was beautiful. But this was the first time my heart had jumped to hear it. I knew what that meant, and I began to mope. Something was starting between Mr. DiMaggio and me. It was always nice when it started, always exciting. But it always ended up in dullness.