Top Ten Demonstrations of Love

The inventor, the celebrity and the royal highness couldn’t resist the draw of making a grand gesture to the love of their life

  • By Abigail Tucker
  • Smithsonian.com, February 10, 2012
| 7 of 11 |

Joe DiMaggio roses on Marilyn Monroe grave Hanging Gardens of Babylon Richard Wagner and Cosima William McKinley and Ida
Joe DiMaggio roses on Marilyn Monroe grave

(Bettmann / Corbis)


Joe's Roses

Joe DiMaggio’s storied marriage to Marilyn Monroe lasted a mere nine months before they divorced. (He didn’t like the billowing-skirt scene in “The Seven Year Itch,” among other difficulties.) But when she died of a barbituate overdose in August of 1962, he sent half a dozen roses to her grave several times a week—for decades.

Read about Monroe's impact on American culture.

| 7 of 11 |





 

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Comments (10)

Lucy and Desi divorced because Desi was a heavy drinker and a womanizer.

I always thought Richard Denning was really hot looking. Lucy made a mistake.

Ellis, that is the mutton-leg sleeves Ida is wearing, very fashionable around the turn of the 20th century; check out the Gibson girls for more of that weird little haute couture aberration.

Ida's dress has leg o' mutton sleeves. Her left arm is extended across her lap.

Re: the question about the photo of Pres. McKinley and his wife

ellis, look at the photo again carefully. Ida's hands are in her lap. Her sleeves have big puffs on the upper part of her arm, then the sleeve is tight down to her wrist.

"When the network proposed a television pilot, Lucy refused—unless her actual husband, Cuban pop band leader Desi Arnaz, was cast as her TV spouse, allowing the couple to spend more time together."

You didn't finish the story - some of your younger readers might not realize that sometimes couples can spend too much time together, as Lucy and Desi apparently did, since they divorced in 1960.

They didn't divorce, but they didn't live happily ever after. Wallis wanted to marry the King. When Edward didn't become king, she wanted out. They had very public fights over the rest of their very public lives. It didn't help that Edward was a Nazi sympathizer.

Am I [not] seeing things, or what? Why does Ida appear not to have arms or hands in that photograph? lsj

And then they divorced.

I am so glad I read these top ten.I,m sure you could find dozens more.McKinley,s story brought tears to my eye,s.Thank you.



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