Marilyn, Joe & Me

[Michael Hogan]

http://www.amazon.com/Marilyn-Joe-Me-Dimag...TF8&s=books

The Real Story of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio

At long last, June DiMaggio, niece of baseball legend Joe DiMaggio and a dear friend of Marilyn Monroe for 11 years, tells untold stories of the two legendary, very private stars that are insightful, fun and engaging.

Roseville, CA, October 20, 2006 --- June DiMaggio, niece of baseball great Joe DiMaggio and dear friend of Marilyn Monroe for eleven years, talks about the two legendary and very private stars for the first time in

Marilyn, Joe & Me

: June DiMaggio Tells It Like It Was with Mary Jane Popp (Penmarin Books, November 2006, ISBN:1-883955-63-7,$29.95, HC).

Now in her late 70s, June DiMaggio is telling her story—her memories of Marilyn, the person who often came to her apartment in pajamas and a fur coat for late-night lasagna; the person who sometimes arrived depressed after casting-couch liaisons; the person who basked in the warmth of June’s big, Italian family; the person who loved to quote Emerson; the person who fell in love with her Uncle Joe, arguably the greatest baseball player ever.

In Marilyn, Joe & Me, June DiMaggio, a singer and actress in her own right, who appeared in dozens of stage and film productions, remembers when Joe and Marilyn met in the early 1950s, married, and divorced. She speaks from an insider’s point of view and offers numerous never-before-seen family photographs of the Hollywood legend with her sports-star husband at the DiMaggio home, as well as personal photographs printed here for the first time, including one taken by Marilyn of June after a day’s outing turned into a giggle for girls then almost the same age. There are also unseen professional photos of Marilyn, among them scenes from the production of her next-to-last movie, The Misfits.

June DiMaggio has told her story to popular radio talk show host and trusted interviewer Mary Jane Popp over seven years, relating private moments about the golden couple as well as personal stories about other stars, including Ann Sothern, Jeanette MacDonald, Hoagy Carmichael, and Barbara Stanwyck.

June DiMaggio offers her lively, personal recollections of Marilyn as a witty, intelligent, warm, and generous human being as she relaxed with the DiMaggio family. She knew Marilyn outside the glare of studio lights and in the candlelight of home. June and Mary Jane take us, in Marilyn, Joe & Me, on a private journey, with no throwing flowers, to the real woman inside the Hollywood sex kitten and the real man off the baseball diamond.

June also tells us now, more than forty years after Marilyn’s death, why she believes that Marilyn was murdered . . . and that her mother knew who murdered the girl she called “Marilee.”

June had been with Marilyn on her last day, and her mother was speaking to Marilyn on the phone when the screen icon dropped that telephone. She was found with her arm outstretched toward it. June tells us that Lee DiMaggio heard the name of the person who came to Marilyn’s room before the line went dead, but Lee, virtually frightened to death that her family would be harmed if she disclosed it, went to her grave with that information.

Dozens of theories abound about the life and death of Marilyn Monroe, but in Marilyn, Joe & Me, June DiMaggio speaks her mind, and Mary Jane Popp has relentlessly researched and vetted June’s story.

Already the duo has been featured in Playboy magazine, “Inside Edition,” CNN’s “Showbiz Tonight,” Fox’s “The Big Story,” and MSNBC’s “The Dan Abrams Report.”

Find out what went on inside the studio for Marilyn, find out what went on inside the marriage of Marilyn and Joe, and find out why June DiMaggio knows that her friend was murdered in Marilyn, Joe & Me.

Bookstore Release

Marilyn, Joe & Me will be available in bookstores starting November 1.

Praise for Marilyn, Joe & Me

Marilyn, Joe & Me is an uncompromising and detailed examination of the 20th century’s highest profile celebrity marriage: Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. The Yankee Clipper’s niece, June DiMaggio, who remained a close friend of Marilyn’s until the day she died, is the ultimate insider here, and she sheds great light on a subject that has haunted the public for decades.

—Mitchell Fink, NY Times best-selling author of The Last Days of Dead Celebrities

Much of what June has to say is startling. . . . She has waited half a century to tell what she knows. But she wanted to tell it all before she died: the story of the Monroe she knew, the Monroe she visited on the day of her death and what she knows about Monroe’s last moments on earth, including the phone call she believes was interrupted by her killer or killers.

—Lisa DePaulo, “A Special Playboy Report: The Strange, Still Mysterious Death of Marilyn Monroe”

http://www.pr.com/press-release/20572