January 14: On This Day in World History … briefly
Baseball hero DiMaggio led the New York Yankees to 10 pennants and 9 World Series titles. In 1941 he hit safely in 56 consecutive games - an all-time record.
1954: Marilyn becomes Mrs DiMaggio
Marilyn Monroe, screen star of ‘How to Marry a Millionaire’, follows her own advice and finds herself a wealthy husband – 1940s baseball hero Joe DiMaggio.
After a checkered start to her career, Norma Jean Baker (her real name) had nowhere to go but up, as Hollywood vied for the talents of the new international sex goddess.
In September 1954, Monroe began filming Billy Wilder’s comedy The Seven Year Itch, in which she starred opposite Tom Ewell as a woman who becomes the object of her married neighbor’s sexual fantasies. Although the film was shot in Hollywood, the studio decided to generate advance publicity by staging the filming of a scene on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.
In the shoot, Monroe is standing on a subway grate with the air blowing up the skirt of her white dress, which became one of the most famous scenes of her career. The shoot lasted for several hours and attracted a crowd of nearly 2 000 spectators, including professional photographers. The publicity stunt placed Monroe on international front pages, and it also marked the end of her marriage to DiMaggio, who was furious about it.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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