Marilyn Monroe has recently become the target of a lawsuit from ex-husband and New York Yankees great Joe DiMaggio. In spite of the fact that both celebrities are now deceased, DiMaggio's attorney is moving to block the use of a photo depicting the couple together on the jacket of a new biography entitled Marilyn Monroe: The Long Vigil.
"We will not authorize any photo of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe...to be on the jacket of any book. This was a no-no in Mr. DiMaggio's lifetime. We have respected Mr. DiMaggio's wishes that there be no commercial or other venture depicting (DiMaggio and Monroe)," said Morris Engleberg, executor of the DiMaggio estate, in a statement.
Monroe and DiMaggiomet in 1952. TheYankee great had become fascinated with her after seeing a picture she had taken with some Chicago White Sox players. DiMaggio told Arthur Richman, the Yankees PR man, that the marriage, whichtook place on Jan. 14,1954,"went wrong" early when the sex symbol performedat a USO show forfour days of their honeymoon.
The two got a divorce in 1956, butreconnected in February 1961 when Monroe contacted DiMaggio from the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, where she was a patient. Following her death in 1962, DiMaggio claimed the body. For the next 20 years,he sent 18 roses to her crypt every week.
