Why Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight Wasn’t in the Ring

 

Muhammad Ali under arrest after refusing to step forward for induction into the Army in 1967.

Note—This was originally posted after the death of The Champ ten years ago.

On April 28, 1967 the Boxing Heavy Weight Champion of the World, Muhammad Ali, three times refused a direct order to step forward and accept induction into the Armed Forces at an Induction Center in Houston, Texas.  He was arrested and charged with Draft evasion, a Federal crime punishable by five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.  Within hours the New York State Boxing Commission suspended his license to fight and stripped him of his title.  Other boxing commissions rapidly fell into line. 

In just a few short years The Champ had fallen from being Cassius Clay, a national hero as an Olympic Gold Medal winner and the pretty boy poet who electrified the boxing world with his speed and power to a reviled pariah.  His slide, at least in the eyes of many White fans, began when Malcolm X recruited Clay into the controversial Nation of Islam. 

As a 1960 Olympic Gold Medalist, young Cassius Clay of Kentucky was an over-night American Hero.

The announcement was made just after the fighter became the youngest man ever to take the Belt away from a reigning champion.  He beat the powerful Sonny Liston in one of the most watched fights in history in Miami on February 25, 1964.  Within days Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, gave him the name Muhammad Ali.  Ali had to struggle to get the press, public, and opponents to accept both his new religion and new name. 

Over the next three years he repeatedly defended his title, including a rematch with Liston, and a defeat of former champ Floyd Patterson.  But many of the fights were against lightly regarded white hopes across North America and Europe.  Ali dominated them all and continued to entertain with his poetry and boasting of being The Greatest. 

He also became a public face of the Nation of Islam and a huge recruitment lure for them in the Black community.  He spoke out more frequently on race relations and endorsed the militant Black separatism espoused by Malcolm X. 

He finally had a truly tough opponent to face when he went against Ernie Terrell on February 6, 1967 at the Astro Dome in Houston.  Terrell had taunted Ali in the press and at the weigh in refusing to call him by his new name.  Enraged, Ali pounded him for 15 rounds taunting him with “What’s my name, Uncle Tom…What’s my name.”  Many observers believed that Ali could have knocked Terrell out early in the fight but carried him just to do more damage.  White fans were even more enraged by Ali than ever. 

About this time the Selective Service System began reviewing the Champ’s draft status.  Although they always denied that the review was anything but routine, almost no one believed them after Ali began to make public statements against the Vietnam War. 

In 1964 the young Clay was called up but rejected for failing the Armed Forces qualifying test because of poor reading and writing scores.  By 1967, with the need for large numbers of fresh draftees for Vietnam, the standards for those tests were significantly lowered and Ali was declared eligible for the draft. 

When he was called up again, he refused to step forward on two grounds.  The first was that he was called as Cassius Clay and he no longer would answer to his slave name.  The second was on the religious grounds that he could not fight in any war that was not declared holy and just by Elijah Muhammad.  He based what he considered a good faith claim of conscientious objection on this belief. 

Publicly, he also questioned the Vietnam War itself.  “No Viet Cong ever called me Nigger,” he famously told an interviewer.  The press was almost unanimous in mocking the notion that a professional fighter could be a C.O. 

On June 27, 1968, a jury convicted him after deliberating only 28 minutes.  He immediately appealed and the case slowly wended through the courts.  A Court of Appeals upheld the verdict, and the case was sent to the Supreme Court. 

There was open gloating in the press--along with a flat refusal to use his chosen name--when Ali was convicted,

While awaiting a decision on his appeal, Ali boxed in Europe and spoke frequently on college campuses.  The war dragged on and became more unpopular with broader and broader segments of society.  Public support began to shift somewhat to Ali.  He was finally allowed to fight in Georgia in October 1970 crushing Jerry Quarry in three rounds.  Shortly after the fight the New York Supreme Court ruled that Ali had been unjustly stripped of his license by the Boxing Commission. 

He was able to fight again in Madison Square Garden in December beating top contender Oscar Bonavena in a tough fight.  That set up a bout against undefeated and undisputed Heavy Weight Champion Joe Frazier at the Garden the following March.  The much-hyped Fight of the Century ended with a unanimous decision for Frazier after an epic 15 round battle. 

                                                            At least some of the press sang a different song when Ali's conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.

Ali got better news when the Supreme Court finally heard his appeal.  On June 28 the Court unanimously overturned Ali’s conviction without ruling on the substance of his Conscience Objection claim.  The court ruled procedurally that the indictment failed to say which of Ali’s claims of exemption were rejected and for what reason. 

With the war winding down and unpopular, the Government declined to re-try the case.  Muhammad Ali was free. 

He returned to his quest to regain the Championship.  Ken Norton handed him his second defeat and was then beaten by Ali in a re-match.  A re-match with Frazier, by this time himself dethroned by George Forman, resulted in a unanimous decision for Ali setting up a title match with Forman. 

                                        Ali's rematch with George Foreman--The Rumble in the Jungle drew the largest world wide audience to date.

The Rumble in the Jungle resulted in Ali reclaiming the title in a match in Zaire which claimed an unprecedented worldwide audience.  Ali went on to numerous title defenses against opponents worthy and not. He beat Forman again in Thrila in Manila, Norton twice more, and up and comers Alfredo Evangelista and Ernie Shavers before youthful Olympic Champion Leon Spinks finally beat him in February 1978. 

The following September he won the WBA half of the now divided championship back for a record third time by beating Spinks in a rematch.  Afterwards, he retired undefeated. 

He came out of retirement to try and win the Championship for the fourth time from Larry Homes, but Homes hammered him and he was unable to come out for the 11th round.  After one more fight and loss he permanently retired in 1981 with a lifetime professional record of 61 fights, 57 victories, 37 wins by knock out and only five losses. 

In the years since his retirement the controversy over his draft resistance subsided as Ali’s stature grew and the public affection for him deepened. 

Abandoning the Nation of Islam and its separatism in 1975 in favor of mainstream orthodox Sunni Islam helped ease his acceptance.  So did his many acts of charity and community service. 

But it was his grace and courage in coping with increasing disability due to Parkinson’s Disease, probably the result of repeated head trauma as a boxer that endeared him to many. 

Ali received many awards and accolades.  He was called the most famous man in the world, the greatest athlete of the 20th Century, and the greatest boxer of all time.  He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and numerous international awards. 

Lighting the Torch at the 1995 Atlanta Games despite shaking with Parkinson's was the emotion highlight of the Games.

The pinnacle of his public acceptance and a moment of high emotion was when he was chosen to light the Olympic Caldron at the 1996 Atlanta Games. 

But perhaps no honor spoke more loudly about how his draft resistance had not only been forgiven, but put in an appreciative context was when he was selected by the state of California Bicentennial Commission for the U.S. Constitution to “personify the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights” public events throughout 1988 starting with the Tournament of Roses Parade.

Ali had a turbulent personal life.  He was married four times, unions which produced six natural children including his youngest daughter, Laila Ali the retired Women’s World Super Middleweight Champion.  He also had and supported two other daughters out of wedlock.  On November 19, 1986, Ali married Yolanda “Lonnie” Williams, a friend since his youthful days in Louisville.   Together they adopted one son, Asaad Amin.

Lonnie was his inseparable companion, and increasingly Ali’s voice as Parkinson’s first garbled his speech and finally left him publicly mute.  Their relationship has alienated him from some of his oldest children, particularly the four from his second marriage to Khalilah Ali.

Ali and his wife Lonnie as he was honored in his hometown of Louisville.

With Lonnie at his side an increasingly frail Ali continued to make public appearances in support of favored charities and causes and seemed to enjoy them along with the accolades and attention at awards ceremonies and testimonials.  Until his last couple of years he would still mug a boxing pose for photographers. 

Ali’s story was often told, including his own book, The Greatest My Own Story co-written by Richard Durham and edited by Toni Morrison originally released in 1975.  There have been several other biographies, some hagiography and some blatant racist smears. Aspects of his life and career were captured in numerous documentaries.  In 2001 Will Smith was nominated for an Academy Award for the bio pic Ali.  The film sensitively examined his whole life, not just a parade of ring movements.

                                        

                                                            Will Smith was nominated for an Oscar for portraying Ali.

But his health was rapidly declining, and the public appearances became rarer. Despite the limitations, he still spoke out through his wife.  In he released a statement on Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. “We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda.”

Ali barely survived a crisis in 2013 and was hospitalized repeatedly afterwards.  In 2016 he was admitted to a Phoenix, Arizona hospital where he died on June 3. 

How Casey at the Bat Became The Epic Poem of America’s Pastime

 

An illustration for a 1912 edition of Casey at the Bat.

On June 3, 1888 Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888 appeared for the first time in the San Francisco Examiner.  It was credited to Phin.  That was shortened from Phineas, a nickname of sportswriter Ernest Lawrence Thayer in his days as a Harvard student.  The poem was picked up and reprinted in papers from coast to coast.

Thayer, the son of wealthy New England textile mill family, did not lay public claim to the poem for years and only stepped forward when competing claims of authorship were being made.  Even the King of the Diamond himself, Boston’s Mike Kelley claimed authorship.  It so offended Thayer that he never acknowledged what everyone knew—that Kelly was the model of the Mighty Casey.

                                        Sportswriter Ernest Lawrence Thayer published Casey at the Bat  under a nom de plume and didn't take public credit until 1905.

The poem really gained fame when popular stage star and baseball fan DeWolf Hopper started reciting it.  He first performed it privately for members of the Chicago Cubs and New York Giants after a game on August 14.  He would go on to recite it over 10,000 times in vaudeville houses, at banquets, and as a curtain call for his successful performances in musical plays.  He recorded it in 1906 and made an early Lee DeForest Phono Film sound-on-film process short in 1922 that was finally exhibited in theaters in 1926.

                            Casey at the Bat was publicly recited by comic actor DeWolfe Hopper.  He also made an early recording and a 1922 Lee Deforest sound film short. 

Thayer finally claimed authorship of the poem when he read it—very badly it is reported—at his Harvard class reunion in 1905. 

Innumerable editions of the poem have been published, most lavishly illustrated, especially after it lapsed into public domain.  In addition to DeWolf recordings go back to a Columbia Gramophone cylinder by Irish dialect comedian Russell Hunting in 1898.  More recently came Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1973, Pitcher Tug McGraw with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops in 1980, and James Earl Jones with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in 1998.

                                                Wallace Beery and Zasu Pitts starred in a 1927 Paramount silent film.

Wallace Beery, Ford Sterling, and ZaSu Pitts starred in a 1927 silent movie feature.  The poem got a big pop culture boost when Jerry Colonna narrated a version as a part of Walt Disney’s anthology film, Make Mine Music.  It was released as a stand-alone cartoon short in 1954 and was frequently shown on the Disneyland and Wonderful World of Color TV shows. 

Walt Disney's animated version narrated by Jerry Colonna has enthralled generations of children since it was first shown in 1953.

In 1986 Elliott Gould starred in Casey, the Shelley Duvall’s Tall Tales and Legends adaptation of the story, also featuring Carol Kane, Howard Cosell, Bob Uecker, Bill Macy, and Rae Dawn Chong. The screenplay was written by Andy Borowitz, now the acclaimed New Yorker news satirist.

“There is no joy in Mudville,” has become a catchphrase use in many ways to denote ironic disappointment.

The poem still strikes a chord with the public.  Possibly because it was obviously not set in a big league ballpark.  Mudville stood in for every small city or town that fielded a team in the baseball obsessed Gilded Age.

 

Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888

 

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
    The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
    And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
    A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

 

    A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
    Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
    They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that–
    We'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat.

 

    But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
    And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
    So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
    For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat.

 

    But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
    And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
    And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
    There was Johnnie safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

 

    Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
    It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
    It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
    For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

 

    There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
    There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face.
    And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
    No stranger in the crowd could doubt ‘twas Casey at the bat.

 

    Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
    Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
    Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
    Defiance flashed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.

 

    And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
    And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
    Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped–
    “That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said.

 

    From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
    Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
    “Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand;
    And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

 

    With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;
    He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
    He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the sphereoid flew;
    But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.”

 

    “Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
    But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
    They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
    And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

 

    The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
    He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
    And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
    And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

 

    Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
    The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
    And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
    But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

 

   –Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Fenians Hoped to Get Up the Queen's Arse at the Battle of Ridgeway

 

 An idealized print of the Battle of Ridgeway sold to raise money for further Fenian Brotherhood forays into Canada.

On June 2, 1867 men from of the most successful of a series of armed raids across the international border into Canada by armed forces of the Fenian Brotherhood surrendered peacefully to U.S. authorities. 

The Fenian Brotherhood, or at least one faction of it led by William R. Roberts, had publicly been raising money, stockpiling arms, and drilling combat units for some years with the full knowledge and winking approval of the United States government.  

The Brotherhood was founded in the U.S. in 1858 by John O’Mahony a junior leader of the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848-49.  In turn they were inspired by the 1798 United Irishmen uprising.  The Young Ireland movement had been crushed by British troops and many top leaders arrested and transported to the Australian penal colonies.  O’Mahdony and James Stephans were among the few leaders to escape to Europe. 

O’Mahony crossed the Atlantic in 1856 to rouse the huge numbers of Irish immigrants who had poured into the United States during and after the Potato Famine.  While O’Mahony was organizing the Fenians, Stephans returned to Dublin and organized its counterpart in the old country, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB.)  The two organizations afterwards supported each other’s efforts. 

Within a few years the Fenians in the U.S. split with the faction led by Roberts advocating a policy of attacks on Britain’s Canadian provinces in the hopes of either trading Canadian security for Irish Independence or goading the U.S. into war with Britain which would be coordinated with another Irish uprising.  To finance the scheme the Brotherhood issued Bonds in the name of the Irish Republic redeemable “six months after the recognition of the independence of Ireland.”  Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants eagerly snapped up the bonds.  Thousands of stands of arms and even artillery were purchased. Armed, uniformed volunteer units were soon drilling in most big cities. 

The government turned a blind eye to all of this, which at the time was not illegal.  Many U.S. politicians still harbored American territorial ambitions in Canada and were not averse to using the Irish to that end.  In 1860 American Secretary of State William Seward toyed with the idea of an invasion of Canada as a way of uniting North and South in a common fight and avoiding the looming Civil War. 

That was a desperate, forlorn hope.   During the course of the war the Lincoln administration grew increasingly irritated with the British government, which was quietly assisting the Confederacy because English mills were dependent on Southern cotton.  The British sold arms to the South, financed and fitted some blockade runners, and even built ships designated for the Confederate Navy.  And Confederate agents were allowed free reign in Canada to plot various cross-border incursions of their own.  

The seal of the Fenian Brotherhood.

At war’s end the Army allowed Irish born T.W. Sweeny to be temporarily detached from duty so that he could become Secretary of War for the Roberts’s Fenians.  He recruited battle hardened veterans, including many members of highly decorated Irish units, to the Fenian militia companies.  Sweeny began to plan raids to seize the transportation system in Canada.  Fenian operatives in Canada reported back encouraging news of reservoirs of support for an invasion by the large number of Irish immigrants in the north. 

By spring 1866 trainloads of uniformed Fenian troops were arriving in Buffalo for the planned invasion.  Under the command of Civil War hero Colonel John O’Neill 800 to 1500 troops crossed the Niagara River on May 31.  With most of the troops already across a Navy gunboat finally began turning back rear elements late in the day. 

                          

                                  John O'Neill as a Civil War Union colonel.

O’Neil and his men easily occupied Ft. Erie and he spent the day trying unsuccessfully to rally Canadian Irish immigrants and French Catholics to his side and gather local arms supplies. 

Meanwhile Canadian militia and British Regulars rallied to the defense of the town of Ridgeway.   Due to crossed communication and inexperience militia, the Anglo-Canadian forces were defeated in a sharp little battle leaving 8 dead, two mortally wounded, and 27 injured.  O’Neill reported lighter losses on his side, but the Canadians later boasted of finding 16 bodies on the field, perhaps to take away the sting of the humiliating loss. 

O’Neil put the town to the torch and then anticipating the arrival of British re-enforcements, fell back on Ft. Erie where he fought another successful engagement against an outnumbered Canadian artillery battery fighting as infantry and the Dunville Naval Brigade. 

Despite these victories without the expected outpouring of local support, with supply lines from America severed by the U.S. Military, and British reinforcements continuing to pour into the area O’Neill ordered a hasty retreat back across the Niagara.  He lost more men in the confused return crossing than he had in battle. 

After earlier ambivalence U.S. authorities, alarmed that a general war on the international frontier might break out were now acting more firmly.  O’Neil and his men were forced to surrender their arms but not arrested. 

Within a week, following further skirmishing across the border in the St. Lawrence area the government purchased free railroad tickets home for the soldiers in exchange for their oral parole not to invade Canada again.  Sympathetic Army officers even saw that many Fenian arms were returned to them. 

In 1867 O’Neil was elected new President of the Fenian Brotherhood at a massive convention held in Philadelphia.  The convention publicly proclaimed plans for another invasion and 5000 uniformed Fenians paraded through the streets. 

The alarmed British speeded up the long-planed reorganization of their Canadian holdings,, and the 1867 Canadian Confederation came into existence. 

Some of the Fenian plans were diverted to support of an anticipated uprising in Ireland.  A number of senior Irish-American officers landed in Ireland expecting to be placed in command of troops only to find little organization, a sputtering rebellion that was quickly suppressed by local authorities and arrest. 

Subsequently the IRB suspended support of both factions of the Fenians and underwrite a new American affiliate, the Clan na Gael.  

General O'Neill was arrested in May 1870 by a U. S. Marshall near the Canadian border while planning another raid into Canada.

The Fenians, or factions of them continued to engage in increasingly futile, almost comic-opera raids in 1870 and 1871.  But the patience of Irish Americans for such adventures was wearing thin.

The Brotherhood formally disbanded in1880 but dissident remnants were engaged in plots in the Pacific Northwest with the intent of seizing British Columbia. The presence of a strong Royal Navy squadron at Vancouver during the 1886 celebrations of the completion of the Trans-Canadian Railroad in effectively ended the Fenian threat once and for all. 

 

Marilyn Monroe at 100--The Candle in the Wind

                     

                                    Quintessential Marilyn--frank, inviting, vulnerable.

One hundred years ago on June 1, 1926 baby Norma Jean was born in Los Angeles to an attractive young woman who worked as an RKO film cutter.  Mortenson was the name on her birth certificate.  Her father abandoned the family before her birth and her mother Gladys took to calling her Norma Jean Baker, the name she would use through childhood, after an earlier lover.  She was never sure who her father was and her mother, who battled mental illness kept a parade of men through the house between periods in an institution. 

By age six she was being farmed out to relatives and friends with unhappy periods in foster care.  Her longest term care giver, a family friend, filled her with fantasies of becoming a movie star.  At age nine she began two years of Dickensonian torment in the Los Angeles Orphan’s Home working in the kitchen for 5 cents a week.  She was released to yet another foster home. 

After a brief turn at Van Nuys High School, she took a job at age 16 at a Los Angeles aircraft plant applying dope to canvas wing covers.  She married co-worker James Doughety mostly to avoid being sent to another foster home.  He was soon inducted into the service.  

                         

                                     What started it all--Mrs. Doughety at the defense plant.

A photographer visiting the plant to document women war workers zeroed in on the attractive girl and suggested that she become a model.  Although her first shoot paid only $5, it was enough to get her to quit the plant.  Soon she was getting regular work in pin-up and bathing suit pictures, in addition to some commercial work.  She was modeling under the name Norma Jean Doughety when photos came to the attention of producers. 

In 1946, the same year she divorced her husband in Las Vegas, she signed a development contract with 20th Century Fox, where her name was changed to Marilyn Monroe.  Monroe had been her mother’s maiden name.  Marilyn was borrowed from Marilyn Maxwell, a second-tier Betty Grable.  She was given bit parts and promoted with things like being named Miss California Artichoke Queen in 1947.  After walk-ons and bits, she was cast in a small speaking part as waitress in the turgid teen melodrama Dangerous Years.  Her contract was not renewed, and Marilyn returned to modeling and took acting lessons. 

With an I.Q. above 160 Marilyn was always trying to improve herself and yearned to become a serious actress.  She also read voluminously, focusing on history, biography, and literature.  She felt cheated by her lack of formal education and wanted to be able to hold serious conversations.

She was briefly picked up by Columbia Pictures, where she got the second lead with two songs in the burlesque musical Ladies of the Chorus.  Despite personally good notices for this B-picture, Columbia dropped her contract. 

In 1949 she appeared in the Marx Brothers’ final feature film Love Happy in a brief role as detective Groucho’s client.  By this time, she had changed her light brown hair to a golden blonde and was rooming with another buxom aspiring blonde, Shelly Winters.  Her modeling assignments, which that year included the famous nude calendar art shoot that ended up years later as Playboy’s first centerfold, were getting more attention. Despite lacking a studio contract her personal publicist was giving her the standard starlet build-up and she was beginning to get noticed in gossip columns and fan magazines. 

1950 was Marilyn’s break out year in two small, but unforgettable appearances—MGM’s Asphalt Jungle, and even more memorably as the bombshell at Margo Channing’s (Bette Davis) party in All About Eve.  Her roles were getting bigger and better.  She was a war-buddy distraction to William Lundigan as the husband of June Haver in the domestic comedy, Love Nest.

She was second billed, but this movie made her a top star.

In 1953 Marilyn stunned audiences as the mentally ill hotel babysitter in Don’t Bother to Knock with Richard Widmark, a role which drew on her own insecurities and demons.  The same year she displayed her knack for comedy in Monkey Business with Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant.  It was her first performance as a platinum blonde, a shade selected to differentiate her from her aging co-star Rogers.  The same year her turn as a murderess in the film noir Niagara with Joseph Cotton was another reminder of her serious acting chops.   But it was the busy actress’s role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with her memorable turn as Lorelei Lee made Monroe a true star of the first rank.  She capped the year playing a very dumb, bespectacled blonde in the ensemble comedy How to Mary a Millionaire with another predecessor as Hollywood’s blonde bombshell du jure, Betty Grable.  

Wedding day with Joe DiMaggio.

In January of 1954 she married baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio and was soon on a famous USO tour to Korea where the attention of the troops stunned her new husband.  The shy and reserved DiMaggio wanted Monroe to quit her career, resulting in a divorce in less than a year, although the pair remained friendly, and DiMaggio famously carried a torch for her even after her death.  Wearing mostly tight jeans and plaid shirt, she made Otto Preminger’s western adventure, The River of No Return with Robert Mitchum and the show-biz musical There’s No Business Like Show Business in which she held her own with musical heavy weights Ethyl Merman, Dan Dailey, and Donald O’Connor.  Her next film was the comic hit Seven Year Itch remembered for its iconic publicity shot of her white dress billowing around her waist as she stood over a subway ventilation grill.

During filming, there were reports of chronic lateness on the set and other problems began to surface.  Always plagued with self-doubt and probably suffering from genetic bi-polar disorder, she also had genuine health problems—a serious gynecological condition, endometriosis, that could be quite painful. 

In 1955 Monroe was suspended by Twentieth Century Fox for refusing to make How to be Very, Very Popular and The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing because she wanted to break away from her image as a sex symbol.  She fled to New York City where she joined Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio to study Method acting.  She also began serious Freudian analysis and spent time with the city’s literary set, where she met playwright Arthur Miller.  After nearly a year off, she returned to Hollywood and played in the screen adaptation of William Inge’s acclaimed play Bus Stop.  This time she finally wowed critics as well as the audience with her nuanced performance as the fragile, innocent sexpot Cheri.

Next up was a trip to England to be directed by and co-star with Lawrence Olivier in The Prince and the Show Girl, where her chronic lateness and her devotion to the Method drove the traditionally trained Olivier nearly to distraction. 

Monroe took most of 1958 off to study and spend time with Miller.  In 1959 she had her greatest success in a comedy in writer/director Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot.  With personal acting coach Paula Strasberg on the set, she was a problem and demanded as many as 83 takes before she felt she had “nailed it.”  Wilder and co-star Jack Lemon were patient with her, but leading man Tony Curtis was so frustrated that he compared kissing Monroe to “kissing Hitler.” 

Monroe’s troubled marriage to Miller was coming unwound with her bouts of depression, angry accusations that Miller did not respect her, and casual love affairs.  A liaison with French actor Yves Montand during the making of George Cukor’s musical comedy dud Let’s Make Love was just one last straw in the marriage.  Monroe by this time was heavily dependent on sleeping pills and sedatives. 

The Misfits, fine dramatic tour de force for the stellar cast, will forever have an aura of doom clouding it after Clark Gable's death.  It was also one of Clift's last films, and Monroe's last completed film.

With their marriage already rocky, Miller wrote gift screenplay for Monroe—The Misfits starring Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, and Eli Wallach directed by John Huston which was shot in 1960 and released in February 1961 following Gable’s fatal heart attack.

Miller and Monroe announced their separation shortly after Gable’s death, for which Marilyn felt guilty.  Soon she was hospitalized in a mental institution so stark that a desperate call to former husband DiMaggio got him to drive from San Francisco to retrieve her and help her find another institution.   

Monroe wore no underwear and had to be sewn into the tight beaded gown she wore when she crooned Happy Birthday, Mr. President to John F. Kennedy causing a scandal.

Upon release she restlessly became involved with serial affairs including liaisons with Rat Pack leader Frank Sinatra and his pal Peter Lawford, who introduced her to his in-laws John and Robert Kennedy.  She had affairs with both, which was an ill-kept secret in Hollywood.  Monroe created something of a scandal and a sensation when she crooned Happy Birthday, Mr. President to John in a shimmering sheath dress so tight she had to be sewn into it.

These relationships, made public in the years after her death, shaped her legend and fed a thousand conspiracy theories.  One conspiracy theory proved to be true—FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover had every room of her Hollywood home bugged in an attempt to get damaging goods on the President and/or his boss Bobby, the Attorney General.  The super-sophisticated bugging equipment was discovered hidden in the house when it was remodeled in 1972.

Her reputation for unreliability made it hard for Monroe to get parts even at her home studio Fox.  They gave her one last chance with the comedy Something’s Got to Give, but production was suspended because of her chronic absences from the set.  Footage released later, including a stunning swimming pool scene, revealed that Monroe remained luminous on film no matter her personal demons. 

With a genius level IQ Marylin sought out the company of great minds like Carl Sandburg and Albert Einstein--and they reveled in her company.

Despite all of these problems Monroe was in discussions for several projects and was reported in good spirits by friends shortly before her death.  In her last days DiMaggio, concerned about “the people she had fallen in with,” reportedly was ready to ask her to re-marry him.  

On August 5, 1962, hours after last speaking to DiMaggio, Monroe was found on her bed with the phone in her hand.  She was naked, but ordinarily slept without clothes.  Several bottles of pills were found.  Her personal physician reported that he found the body after being alerted by the housekeeper. 

Police found several inconsistencies in various accounts given of her final hours and evidence that the scene had been tampered with, including the laundering of the bed linens and removal of any water glass.  Autopsy results indicated death as acute barbiturate poisoning and a likely suicide.  Revelations of the Kennedy connections have fueled dozens of conspiracy theories. 

Joe DiMaggio left roses at Monroe's crypt every year on the anniversary of her death until he died.

DiMaggio claimed Monroe’s body and arranged her funeral.  Famously, he left a dozen roses at her mausoleum vault every year on the anniversary of her death.   Monroe’s will left 25% of her estate to her acting coach, Lee Strasberg and 25% to the Freud Institute for Psychoanalysis. 

Her life, death and career have sparked an industry, including over 600 books.  Marilyn seemed to be everywhere with new books, an award winning 2011 film with Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn, based on her time in England doing The Prince and the Show Girl, the TV series Smash! chronicling the road to Broadway for a Marilyn musical, and Ana de Armas in 2021 in Blonde, the second film version of Joyce Carol Oates’ fictionalized biography. 

But back in 1973 Elton John and Bernie Taupin may have summed up Norma Jean/Marilyn Monroe’s life best: a Candle in the Wind.