Marilyn Monroe, baby sitter

Our family photos feature the tragic Hollywood legend. But until recently, I never understood the reason why

“Marilyn Monroe was my mother’s baby sitter,” I used to tell the neighborhood kids, whenever our rambunctious play took us inside the house. The girls went open-mouthed with wonder and admiration. The boys were skeptical, even scornful: “Movie stars don’t baby-sit!”

But then I’d point to the photo-booth image hanging in the vestibule of my childhood home. The picture was displayed in a prominent spot, where religious icons hang in Catholic homes. As little kids, we’d crane way up to see it, or scale the adjacent staircase and stretch our necks awkwardly.

In the photo, my mother holds a pursed smile while looking right into the camera. A mass of dark curls surrounds her face as she upstages Marilyn in a way no studio executive would allow. Cousin Laraine is caught unawares by the flash; she looks out of frame with a half-smile. Marilyn is grinning candidly — not the practiced smile she’ll use for thousands of subsequent photos.

The Marilyn story has been told and retold (and mis-told) for decades in my family. Marilyn Monroe wasn’t exactly my mother’s baby sitter, but that’s how I understood it as a child. Now, as an adult, I wanted to discover the truth behind it.

It begins with my Grandma Helen, a local pageant contestant. “A real beauty,” my great uncles used to say. I keep a snapshot of her wearing a stylish one-piece swimsuit and wedge heels, posing and smiling brightly, with milky skin, wavy black hair, ample curves, and a birthmark just in the right spot above her mouth. It’s punctuation on her pleasing face, like the dimples bracketing her smile. Her family crossed over from Amalfi, the storied town along the picturesque coast the town lends its name to.

Helen was in the middle of a brood of nine. To the dismay of her parents, she fell in love with Tony Rizzo, an intense Sicilian. Grandpa Rizzo had swarthy good looks and a stunning pompadour, but Grandma Helen’s family looked down on dark-skinned Sicilians. “You’re not marrying that African!” her father sputtered when she sought his blessing. The headstrong Helen defied him, and the young couple settled in San Francisco.

There she was befriended by a neighbor, Marie DiMaggio. The DiMaggios were also Sicilian; Guiseppe, the patriarch, had fished Mediterranean waters, and relocated to the Pacific coast in pursuit of a bigger catch. His haul out of San Francisco bay was bountiful, and he went on to raise nine children. To his initial disappointment, three of his sons turned their backs on the family trade to become baseball players. Joe was the real power slugger, having gone on to a record-breaking hitting streak with the Yankees. Around the time the DiMaggios befriended my grandparents, Joe began courting Marilyn Monroe.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013...by_sitter/

and some people still think she was 'fucked up'...

I'm sorry, but that picture looks phtoshopped big time. I believe I have seen that picture of Marilyn somewhere else with no crumb snatchers in sight.