Joe DiMaggio, Jr.

[Jazbabee]

After reading the Marilyn Monroe threads, I became curious about whatever became of Joe Jr.? I always thought he was a Doppelganger for his father, and only remember him in his military uniform during MM's funeral. I have included the Wiki link on him, but found ir=t interesting that ;
1) he seemed to have been a ne'er do well with substance abuse issues
2) he was one of the last people known to have spoken to MM before she died
3) he died within a few months of his father.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_DiMaggio,_Jr

[Danny62]

A drunken loser from what I heard, a shadow of what his father was.

[djdeath-hag]

Sometimes......I think that trying to live up to the standards set by a legend are insurmountable. No one is born with an agenda to become a substance abuser.

[Danny62]

Sometimes......I think that trying to live up to the standards set by a legend are insurmountable. No one is born with an agenda to become a substance abuser.

Very well put!

I think when I saw him on TV before he died he was broke living in a rundown trailer park.

Hey djeath-hag, you always can say the right things!!

[eca1094]

Sometimes......I think that trying to live up to the standards set by a legend are insurmountable. No one is born with an agenda to become a substance abuser.

I wanna be a drug addict when I grow up.

[djdeath-hag]

I don't say things because I wanna be right....or even if they seem like what IS right, just have a tendency to speak from my heart. (Reconstructed & remodelled though it may be!)

[Kathyf]

I Have not heard a lot about him over the years.

[onehunglow]

Well his dad was Mr. Coffee. They don't make a Jr.Coffee.

[Jaxxx]

Sometimes......I think that trying to live up to the standards set by a legend are insurmountable. No one is born with an agenda to become a substance abuser.

Very well spoken, my brother is a Jr and has had alot of trouble living up to his name, went through drugs, alcohol etc. He finally is ok with himself. I feel sorry Joe Jr. if someone is a legend they should never force Jr on any child!

[Jazbabee]

I agree, I personally wouldnt want to live in anyones shadow, especially not a celebrity

[knothere]

hell if my parents were worth millions yes im exagerating id be a big ol media loser too

[Blondin]

Very well spoken, my brother is a Jr and has had alot of trouble living up to his name, went through drugs, alcohol etc. He finally is ok with himself. I feel sorry Joe Jr. if someone is a legend they should never force Jr on any child!

I am named after my dad, first name only. My parents told me they would never make me a Jr, that I am my own person and not a copy of my father.

[Kathyf]

Joseph Paul DiMaggio III (October 23, 1941 in New York City - August 6, 1999 in Antioch, California) was the only child of baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. His mother was former starlet Dorothy Arnold. The elder DiMaggio was the Jr., named for his father, Giuseppe, but the younger DiMaggio was the one known as Junior.
Contents

[hide]

• <LI class=toclevel-1>1 Early life <LI class=toclevel-1>2 Later life <LI class=toclevel-1>3 Death
• 4 Trivia

[edit] Early life


The inaugural issue of SPORT magazine, September 1946, depicting New York Yankees' centrefielder Joe DiMaggio together with his son Joe Jr.


Joe Jr. always had a hard time with his father's fame. He and the elder DiMaggio had barely spoken for years before his father's death. When he was younger, his father was barely in his life, due to his parents' divorce in 1944, and to Joe's career. In 1946, Dorothy remarried, which upset Joe, as he was still in love with her, and she had promised to wait for him to return from training camp. Despite the fact that his parents did love him and tried their best in the circumstances, the boy was neglected, even as his father sent him to camps and boarding school, and gave him the best of everything. "They threw the man away," his ex-wife, Sue told Esquire.
A blurb on the now-13 year old in Newsweek reported that he planned to be an engineer and join the United States Air Force. But, something, obviously, went wrong. He developed a drinking problem while in still his teens, and a chip on his shoulder that alienated him from his mother's family. The president of Yale University once called Joe and told him the boy was failing his classes; he was loath to expel him due to him being Joe DiMaggio's son. Joe told him not to accord Joe Jr. any special favours, but treat him like any other student. Shortly afterwards, he dropped out, joined the United States Marine Corps, and broke off his engagement to the daughter of a contractor.

[edit] Later life

After his stint in the Marines, he held jobs here and there, though never stayed with them long. He eventually left Sue (after years of infidelity and physical abuse) and her two daughters, whom he adopted, necessitating that his father step in. Joe Sr. was close to his daughter-in-law and called her children "my grandchildren." Joe Jr. once accused the girls of using him in order to get close to his father.
According to his attorney Morris Engelberg, Joe was angered at his son for throwing away his life, yet, determined to get him back on track. Joe used to walk the streets looking for him as his address changed often and he would sometimes be homeless. When Joe was dying, he didn't visit or even call. In the hours after Joe's death was announced, reporters found Joe Jr. living in a trailer, working in a junkyard. "My lifestyle is diametrically opposed to my father's," he once said. "I'm not much more than a hobo." His father left him a $20,000 a year trust fund. He died 5 months after his father due to drug and alcohol abuse.

[edit] Death

At his dad's funeral, Joe Jr. was one of the pallbearers. His uncle Dominic was also a pallbearer, and barely spoke to his brother before he got sick. The brothers tried to patch up their relationship before he died (there's some dispute about this: Dominic claimed he and Joe had long settled their differences; Engelberg claimed they didn't).
Joe DiMaggio, Jr., was dead on arrival to Sutter Delta Medical Center. Attempts at resuscitation failed, and he was officially pronounced dead at 11:25 p.m.. His ashes were scattered at sea.

[Kathyf]

I did not realize he died so soon after his Dad.

[Kman0072]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dimaggi...s/pande03.html

[vandal]

Well his dad was Mr. Coffee. They don't make a Jr.Coffee.

He could have been Koffee Kake Junior

[RubySlippers]

He could have been Koffee Kake Junior

mmmmmm, tastykakes....

[beatlebaby4]

Sometimes......I think that trying to live up to the standards set by a legend are insurmountable. No one is born with an agenda to become a substance abuser.

Well said DJ.

[lisalouver]

I heard he died in a filthy trailer.

Sad. He was so handsome in his uniform at MM's funeral.

I always have had a thing for Marines though

[neilmpenny]

Joe would have been a hard act to follow for any kid.

[Nicki]

I guess he dropped out of the class of 1964 at Yale University. Very sad fella. He use to live here in Martinez,CA before moving a several miles down the road to Pittsburg, CA. Everyone use to see him around town. Very sad man with a big drug and drinking problem. Never knew about his brain surgery until this article.


http://alumninet.yale.edu/classes/yc...s/dimaggio.htm

Joe DiMaggio Jr.

Son of Yankees Baseball Legend Led Troubled Life

Los Angeles Times
August 08, 1999

Joe DiMaggio Jr., the only child of baseball great Joe DiMaggio, died late Friday at a hospital in the Northern California town of Antioch, apparently of natural causes, hospital officials said Saturday. He was 57.

He was the only son of DiMaggio and Dorothy Arnold, an actress whom the sports legend married in 1939. The athlete had no children with his second wife, Marilyn Monroe.

The younger DiMaggio was estranged from his father and had seen him infrequently over the last few years. However, he was one of six pallbearers at the March funeral of the "Yankee Clipper" in San Francisco.

DiMaggio Jr. was not breathing and had no heartbeat when he was taken by ambulance to Sutter Delta Medical Center late Friday, a hospital spokesman said. Attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful.

The younger DiMaggio, who was living in nearby Pittsburg, had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and got into several minor scrapes with police. He also experienced periods of homelessness.

Joseph Paul DiMaggio Jr. was born Oct. 23, 1941, in San Francisco. After his parents divorced three years later, he spent much of his early life in summer camps and military schools, including the now-defunct Black Foxe Military Institute, a few blocks west of Paramount Studios in Hollywood. It was known as the school of choice for the sons of Hollywood celebrities.

As he entered his teen years, the youth split his time between his mother, who was pursuing her acting career in Hollywood, and his father, who had begun seeing Monroe. Young Joe and Monroe were reportedly close, and the boy often accompanied the couple on dates.

He spent his high school years at a prep school in New Jersey, where he shunned baseball to play football. He was the kicker on the team and by all accounts a bright student. However, his father, who was living in New York, had little time for his son and never saw his games.

Young DiMaggio enrolled at Yale University as a freshman in 1960 but quit after the first year because he had grown to hate the Eastern winters. He returned to Los Angeles and worked at odd jobs before deciding to join the Marine Corps.

Despite his father's divorce from Monroe, young Joe remained close to the actress. He phoned her about 8:30 on the night of Aug. 4, 1962, to tell her that he had broken off his engagement to the daughter of a wealthy San Diego contractor. The next day, DiMaggio Jr. learned that Monroe had died from an apparent overdose of drugs and alcohol.

He attended the funeral, which was closed to much of Hollywood, wearing his dress Marine uniform.

After Monroe's death, he finished his enlistment in the Marines and married a 17-year-old girl from San Diego, but the union lasted just a year.

Returning to civilian life, DiMaggio Jr. took a series of odd jobs and eventually moved to the East Coast, where he worked for his uncle Dom DiMaggio, the onetime great outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, who owned a polyurethane foam company near Boston.

That is where the younger Joe met and wed Sue Adams, who had two daughters from a previous marriage. He eventually moved back to California to run a polyurethane foam business for his father and two business partners.

Joe DiMaggio Sr. grew attached to his son's stepdaughters and doted over them as a grandfather.

Working for his father proved problematic for the younger DiMaggio, who felt that no matter how hard he worked he could never do anything right in his father's eyes. That led to bouts of drinking and fights with his wife that often left her battered and bloody. Drugs came next, particularly speed. The business was lost and the couple divorced in 1974.

Two years later, DiMaggio Jr. was seriously injured in an automobile accident, and a piece of his brain had to be removed because of a blood clot. That surgery seemed to make him even quicker to anger and to have less control of his actions.

His father tried to help him recover, buying him a $75,000 Peterbilt truck cab, but he wrecked the truck and by the late 1980s was working odd jobs and living in a trailer near Martinez, Calif., his father's hometown.

In his only known on-the-record interview in recent years, DiMaggio Jr. spoke with the tabloid television magazine show "Inside Edition." In the interview, broadcast Feb. 11, he explained why he had not gone to the side of his ailing father when he was fighting cancer in Florida.

"You know, I never got the words 'Come now,' or I would've been there in a flash," he said. "I love him and just all of the things that are felt, but never said, between people. When he wants me there, I'll be there."

Although DiMaggio Jr. did not subsequently see his father before he died, his two stepchildren were at the baseball great's bedside, along with Dom DiMaggio and two other friends.

DiMaggio Sr. left his only child a $20,000 annual trust fund in his will, signed in 1996, the year the two reportedly last saw each other. He also bequeathed his son 45% from the sale of his firm, Yankee Clipper Enterprises.

He left the two girls he considered his grandchildren considerably more.

Another Joseph DiMaggio, the son of the baseball legend's late brother Mike, was left $100,000. That Joe DiMaggio made something of a name for himself as a chef, with restaurants in Florida and Toronto.

On Saturday, Marie Amato Goodman, a cousin whose son was a close friend of Joe DiMaggio Jr., said he was simply unable to cope with his father's fame.

"He had a brilliant mind," Goodman said. "He lived in the shadow of his father and could not rise above that."