MARILYN MONROE & FRANK SINATRA: More Than a LOVE AFFAIR

A NEW BOOK EXPLORES THE SEVEN-YEAR RELATIONSHIP OF THE SEX SYMBOL AND THE ROMANTIC CROONER

- Louise A. Barile, Katie Bruno

In early 1954, Marilyn Monroe went on strike. She had been cast opposite Frank Sinatra in the 20th Century Fox musical The Girl in Pink Tights, but discovered that she'd be earning $1,500 a week while Frank got $5,000. The actress was a no-show the first day of shooting and ignored the studio's threats about suspending her.

Marilyn and Frank would never appear on the silver screen together, but they did begin a love affair sometime after the studio scrapped The Girl in Pink Tights. "It was a relationship that was intentionally kept out of the public eye," says Edward Z. Epstein, author of Frank & Marilyn: The Lives, the Loves, and the Fascinating Relationship of Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe. "They had a great deal in common. They understood each other."

The pair had each known the heartbreak of love gone sour by the time they became close. "Frank was still married to Ava Gardner, but it was a tooth-and-claw relationship," says Epstein. "And Marilyn was a battered woman, still reeling from her pending divorce from Joe DiMaggio when she and Frank got together."