SHARON HELGASON GALLAGHER | DATE 12/10/2012

Marilyn Monroe: She waved, winked and asked him to come along

He was 14, she was 29. He was a skinny, big-eared kid from the Bronx, she a blond bombshell from Hollywood. They said it would never work out, and sure enough, it didn’t. But for one brisk day in the spring of 1955, Peter Mangone and Marilyn Monroe were in love. And he has the film to prove it. Back in the 1950’s, Mr. Mangone, now 63 and living in Palm Beach, Fla., was such a Monroe fan that for several months he staked out the Gladstone Hotel on East 52nd Street, where she was recovering from her divorce from Joe DiMaggio and her summary dismissal from her contract at 20th Century Fox. On one of those truant mornings, Mr. Mangone took an eight-millimeter Kodak camera from his brother, headed downtown and met Monroe just as she was leaving the hotel for a therapeutic shopping spree. Then, just as in the movies, she waved, winked and asked him to come along. (From the introduction to Marilyn Monroe NYC, 1955 now in stock.)