Marilyn

The smiling blonde and her stoic husband were no ordinary honeymooners arriving in Hawaii. Even among celebrities, Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe and new husband, baseball hero Joe DiMaggio, were royalty.

The couple were on their way to Japan with a short layover in Honolulu. Their Pan American Airways Stratocruiser arrived from San Francisco late on Jan. 29, 1954, and the two were greeted by several thousand people.

Both Honolulu dailies made the visit front-page news the next day in their Saturday editions. Even the rumor that Monroe and DiMaggio might be winging their way to Hawaii — a 91⁄2-hour trip — warranted a banner headline in early editions.

The 27-year-old actress had been launched as an international sex symbol just the year before with the release of “Niagara” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

“Marilyn came down the stairs of the plane with a big smile,” wrote Honolulu Advertiser reporter Jack Burby of their arrival. “She was wearing a black dress and a fur coat. She stopped partway down, tossed her hair out of her eyes and waved.”

DiMaggio, 39, who had retired from the New York Yankees three years earlier, looked “a little grim,” Burby added.

The airport crowd had strained at fences and stood on terminal benches to get a glimpse.

“In the crowd were friends of the bridegroom and an estimated 2,000 persons who wanted to be friends with the bride,” wrote an unidentified Honolulu Star-Bulletin reporter. “Hula dancers greeted the two at the airport and the Hawaii Visitors Bureau and the Honolulu Police Department provided flower leis.”

Police Sgt. James Cullen walked right up to the couple, shook DiMaggio’s hand, draped a lei around Monroe and — to the roaring delight of the crowd — kissed the actress on the cheek.

It took six police officers to get the pair through the crowd and into the Pan American lounge, where Monroe and DiMaggio sipped pineapple juice, answered questions and posed for photographs. “They kept grabbing at my hair,” Monroe said once she was inside the lounge, which had to be guarded by several police officers.

Photographers from the Advertiser as well as Pan American Airways snapped away during the couple’s airport arrival, but those shots apparently have been lost to all but the world of bloggers, who don’t seem to worry about pesky details like copyright laws. Monroe, with several orchid and carnation lei around her neck, posed languidly in the lounge and with members of the Hula Nani Girls, who greeted celebrities at the airport.

Afterward they were off to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in a powder-blue convertible driven by DiMaggio’s close friend, Log Cabin bar owner Louis Benjamin, who met the baseball star in Honolulu during World War II.

The couple spent their only full day in Hawaii relaxing and visiting with friends.

“Marilyn didn’t get to see too much of Honolulu,” Benjamin was quoted as saying. “She spent most of the afternoon at the hairdressers (at the hotel).”

Monroe and DiMaggio had been married for just more than two weeks when they arrived in Hawaii, and it seemed blissful at the time. “Marriage is my main career now,” the actress told reporters.

They were traveling with minor league San Diego Padres baseball manager Frank “Lefty” O’Doul, a close friend of DiMaggio’s and a big booster of baseball in Japan. O’Doul told reporters the couple planned to stay away from the crowds. “You know, lovebirds on a honeymoon,” he said.

When the actress emerged for a short stroll on Waikiki Beach that Saturday, she was mobbed by fans. And after a Waikiki swim was canceled, police officers shelved plans for roadblocks and crowd-control squads.

When it was time to leave, the lovebirds snuck out of town. The press reported their departure aboard another Pan American flight would be around 12:30 a.m. Jan. 31, which drew hundreds of spectators to the airport. Fans wound up watching the flight take off without the couple, who slipped out unnoticed on a later flight.

But if Monroe and DiMaggio thought their time in Hawaii was raucous, their Japan arrival was in a league all its own, according to a wire service report.

There were 4,000 fans to greet them at Tokyo International Airport, and the couple was twice sent back into the plane to escape the crush and only got out by sneaking through a cargo door. They then got in a car that drove off with a couple of men clinging to the roof.

With their careers headed in different directions and DiMaggio reportedly preferring a more sedate retirement, the two divorced only nine months later, on Oct. 27, 1954.