Wrigley Field history: Marilyn Monroe appeared at the ballpark in 1949

Recently, CNN has run a documentary series about the late film star Marilyn Monroe. I didn’t watch this but an eagle-eyed BCB reader mentioned that there were a couple of shots of Wrigley Field in the documentary, including one of a smiling Monroe.

I did a little digging and found this video:

You can see a smiling Monroe at :17 of this video. In 1949 she was just 23, but had already had bit parts in Dangerous Years (1947) and Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948).

Just what was this event at Wrigley Field? Also shown in the video are these stars of the time: Eddie Bracken, William Boyd and Kirk Alyn.

I’ve actually written briefly about this previously, in this article about the Wrigley scoreboard from last October. Most of that article is unrelated to this event, but this was one of quite a number of non-baseball events that took place at Wrigley in the 1940s and 1950s:

The biggest of these events appears to have taken place in 1949, a “tripleheader” that was to feature an Old-Timers Game, a “Movie Star” softball game (quite similar in format to the celebrity softball game they now play at the All-Star Game site).

After the Old Timers game and the Movie Stars game July 9, rain prevented the kids game, which wound up being played two days later on Monday, July 11, 1949.

So that’s what we’re looking at here, and this is an image of a press pass that was issued for the event:

There’s a bit more on this event in this Daily Herald article, including a story on how White Sox outfielder Gus Zernial helped lead to the meeting of Monroe and Joe DiMaggio in 1951.

Just another slice of history from our favorite ballpark, and it happened more than 70 years ago.