For decades, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio remained famously tight-lipped about his marriage to screen icon Marilyn Monroe.
But now, almost 20 years after his death, intimate details of their passionate yet turbulent relationship are being revealed in a new book written by DiMaggio’s longtime friend and podiatrist, Dr. Rock Positano.
In “Dinner with DiMaggio”, Positano recounts the candid conversations he shared with the Yankees great over countless meals in the 1990s.
During these dinners, DiMaggio would open up about his love life, including his electric romance with Monroe.
“When we got together in the bedroom it was like the gods were fighting; there were thunder-clouds and lightning,” DiMaggio confided to Positano about his sex life with the blonde bombshell.
“Doc, Marilyn told me that no man ever satisfied her like I did.”
Their high-profile marriage in 1954 captivated the nation, but sadly ended after just nine months.
Over the years, rumors swirled that the split was due to DiMaggio’s violent temper or jealousy over Monroe’s sexy image.
But the Yankee Clipper told a different story to his trusted friend.
According to Positano, DiMaggio revealed the marriage crumbled because he desperately wanted children, but Monroe was unable to bear them.
Her lack of personal hygiene during bouts of depression also put a strain on the relationship, as the impeccably clean DiMaggio “complained that she wouldn’t take a bath for days.”
Despite the divorce, DiMaggio carried a torch for Monroe for the rest of his life.
He told Positano how the actress confessed she always thought of him while making love to her next husband, playwright Arthur Miller.
After Monroe’s tragic death in 1962, DiMaggio blamed the Kennedy family, once reportedly calling them “high-class shanty bastards” and “lady-killers.”
Though he never remarried, DiMaggio did develop a crush on model Elle Macpherson in his later years, often cajoling Positano to accompany him on walks past her NYC apartment building in hopes of bumping into her.
The notoriously private DiMaggio also admitted to the doctor his frustrations with impotence in old age, once exclaiming “I don’t want conversation, I want sex! If I had a d**k that worked for just an hour, I would be one happy fella.”
Positano says he decided to finally share these intimate conversations to show a different side of an American icon, and because he believes DiMaggio’s “class, leadership, guidance and elegance” are needed now more than ever.
Nearly two decades after his passing, Joltin’ Joe’s complex personal life and enduring devotion to the love of his life continue to fascinate.
