Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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THE FIFTH QUARTER LOU SOMOGYI from Fighting Irish athletics director Ed "Moose" Krause, who told him he could take his "best girl" to New York with him. With no girlfriend, he took his mother (his father had passed away during his freshman year at Notre Dame). That didn't mean Lattner didn't have an eye for the opposite gender. During his sophomore year in 1951 on the trip to USC, Lattner and several teammates dropped in unannounced at a Los Angeles studio where Marilyn Monroe was filming "Clash By Night." "Bobby Joseph, our extra point kicker, could talk like a million dol- lars," Lattner recalled. "He talked his way into us getting on the set. Marilyn wasn't doing anything that morning, so we went back to practice at one of the big hotel dining hall rooms and afterward we went back to the studio and sat with her in her star hut for at least an hour. "We told her we'd get her a field pass, so then she brought out her pub- licity pictures for us. She said, 'What should I put on it?' I said, "Dear John, thank you for the wonderful night we had together. Love and kisses, Mari- lyn." She signed it just like that — and put her phone number on it." Although Monroe was unable to make the game (she had to pick up Joe DiMaggio at the airport), she did drive Lattner and his teammates back to the team hotel. She then drove a friend of Lattner 's in the Marine Corps, who was visiting, back to the main base. The photo of Monroe, which he later lost in a flood that occurred in his basement back in Chicago, was hung in his dorm hall at Morrissey Hall, until … "The rector made me take it down," Lattner said. "He kept it and said, 'You can get it back when you leave this dorm.' So at the end of my sophomore year I got the picture back. Things were more strict back then, but at least he didn't kick me out of the dorm." Life was more strict back then. Af- ter the 1953 Irish finished unbeaten, Lattner 's fellow starters in the back- field, quarterback Ralph Guglielmi and halfback Joe Heap, were kicked out of school for a semester for return- ing late to campus because of celebrat- ing too much that evening. As a senior, Lattner also was as- signed to be a mentor to "the next big thing" — freshman Paul Hornung. Already awe struck by Hornung's on- field talent, Lattner was even more amazed with him off it. "He had a car when he was a fresh- man, and I didn't as a senior," Lattner said. "I was supposed to be like a big brother and watch over him, so before school started I said to him one time, 'Let's go to a movie!' He didn't want to and took me to Mishawaka and some bars I never heard of. "We had only a couple of beers, but after a couple of days with him I said, 'Paul, if I stay with you, I won't make the team.'" When it comes to any all-time Notre Dame team, Lattner will be on it. ✦ Senior Editor Lou Somogyi has been at Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 1985. He can be reached at lsomogyi@blueandgold.com