Were Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio Really in Love?

Celebrity marriages get a lot of attention, perhaps most often in the tabloids when things go awry. But that doesn't mean the love wasn't real. Take baseball great Joe DiMaggio and movie star Marilyn Monroe, who eloped in San Francisco in 1954. Although the famous pair's marriage lasted only nine months, they must have shared something special. After Monroe's death in 1962 at age 36, the Yankee Clipper placed a standing order for six red roses to be placed on her grave three times a week -- for 20 years. It was said that DiMaggio was so heartbroken by their divorce that he quit drinking and went into therapy. He and Monroe reconciled after her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller, and it was rumored that DiMaggio wanted to ask her to marry him again, but she died before he could.

A brief, shining life:

• Marilyn Monroe loved to read and said she found intellectual men the most attractive, including Albert Einstein.
• Marilyn Monroe was barely 16 when she married a neighbor to stay out of an orphanage; the marriage lasted four years.
• The Misfits (1961) was the last film made by both Marilyn Monroe and fellow screen great Clark Gable.