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labunnywtf's review against another edition
1.0
How do I put this delicately.
I think Colin Clark is a big fat liar.
I believe this about as much as I believe that there are sparkly vampires mentally abusing idiotic teenagers. I believe it as much as I believe that fairies come out at night to sprinkle magic dust on gardens to make flowers grow. I believe this as much as I believe that saying, "Happy Holidays" is a direct attack on Christmas.
Here's what I do believe. I believe Colin Clark worked on The Prince and the Showgirl. I believe he met Marilyn Monroe. I believe he was alive.
That about sums it up.
Really? Marilyn Monroe fixated on you, and you became her Knight in Shining Armour? You gave her the ol' "chuck under the chin, stiff upper lip, atta girl life will get better" speech, and she was oh so grateful to you? "Oh, Colin, you really think so? Oh, Colin, you're so wonderful. Oh, Colin, don't leave me."
Really?
"No, no, little lady, you don't need pills. Don't take them." "Oh, yes, Colin, you're so smart and brilliant and oh so handsome."
Give me a fucking break.
I think he was there on set, saw everything that happened, and in the 50ish years that passed between his writing The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me, he fantasized about "What if". Since, oh so conveniently, no one was around to witness it, and the other main character in the story is dead, who's going to stop him or fact check him?
And he tells you straight up front he's full of shit. How? He names the book "My week with Marilyn". As opposed to, "My three or four days with Marilyn".
Big. fat. liar.
I think Colin Clark is a big fat liar.
I believe this about as much as I believe that there are sparkly vampires mentally abusing idiotic teenagers. I believe it as much as I believe that fairies come out at night to sprinkle magic dust on gardens to make flowers grow. I believe this as much as I believe that saying, "Happy Holidays" is a direct attack on Christmas.
Here's what I do believe. I believe Colin Clark worked on The Prince and the Showgirl. I believe he met Marilyn Monroe. I believe he was alive.
That about sums it up.
Really? Marilyn Monroe fixated on you, and you became her Knight in Shining Armour? You gave her the ol' "chuck under the chin, stiff upper lip, atta girl life will get better" speech, and she was oh so grateful to you? "Oh, Colin, you really think so? Oh, Colin, you're so wonderful. Oh, Colin, don't leave me."
Really?
"No, no, little lady, you don't need pills. Don't take them." "Oh, yes, Colin, you're so smart and brilliant and oh so handsome."
Give me a fucking break.
I think he was there on set, saw everything that happened, and in the 50ish years that passed between his writing The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me, he fantasized about "What if". Since, oh so conveniently, no one was around to witness it, and the other main character in the story is dead, who's going to stop him or fact check him?
And he tells you straight up front he's full of shit. How? He names the book "My week with Marilyn". As opposed to, "My three or four days with Marilyn".
Big. fat. liar.
wearethedepinets's review against another edition
2.0
Not what I was expecting, but was a pleasant read.
marcusuhre's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
En rigtig fornøjelig og fin roman; der er virkelige hændelser i fortalt udfra en dagbog eller noget lignende. Den er hyggelig og realistisk og slet ikke en kæmpe kærlighedsroman som så mange ellers gik og håbede på, men jeg følte at den fungerede langt bedre sådan her.
Den er ikke smukt skrevet, den har ikke et spændende plot, den har intet der ville kvalificere den som god, men det behøver den heller ikke, det er faktisk fraværet af det som går den så god. Bogen har vakt min interesse for den anden side af den så kendte skuespiller.
En rigtig fornøjelig og fin roman; der er virkelige hændelser i fortalt udfra en dagbog eller noget lignende. Den er hyggelig og realistisk og slet ikke en kæmpe kærlighedsroman som så mange ellers gik og håbede på, men jeg følte at den fungerede langt bedre sådan her.
Den er ikke smukt skrevet, den har ikke et spændende plot, den har intet der ville kvalificere den som god, men det behøver den heller ikke, det er faktisk fraværet af det som går den så god. Bogen har vakt min interesse for den anden side af den så kendte skuespiller.
pebblespenguin1's review against another edition
4.0
My Week with Marilyn
Colin Clark
Weinstein Books
De Capo Press
978-1-60286-149-7
When I first seen the preview for this movie, I was immediately hooked. Being that I am a huge Marilyn Monroe fan I knew that I just had to see it. However when I found out that it was taken from a book, as most amazing movies are. At least in my opinion they are. I then knew I had to read the book and the book became much more important to me than the movie did and to this day I am writing this having just finished the book and still have not seen the movie. I do have the movie sitting on my dresser right next to me but I am the kind of woman that believes the books are so much better and I must read them before even beginning to watch the movie.
Now with that being said, ‘My Week with Marilyn’ is a book showcasing Colin Clark’s story of his week with Marilyn which he titled, “My Week with Marilyn” in its other releases as well as his own personal diary entries which were titled, “The Prince and the Showgirl”, those were written while he worked as a 3rd Assistant Director on the film, starring Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Oliver. This was the first time both forms had been put together as a book; they had both previously been released separately.
I was very excited to start this book; I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would hold in it, I mean imagine actually getting to spend a week with Marilyn Monroe! This book had to be good! The first part of the book, which is ‘My Week with Marilyn’, is extremely intriguing. You get to see everyone who was a part of that movie and what their role is. You see from Colin’s point of view what his take is on everyone including everyone in Marilyn’s party, which includes herself. At this point in time she was married to playwright Arthur Miller. This book did not portray Arthur as a very kind fellow, more of an egotistical self-centered jerk. Colin felt sorry for Marilyn in most of the book; he stated numerous times that the people surrounding her were so terrible for her and this I completely agree with and I believe they were a great contribute to her demise.
The Strasbergs, Milton Greene, and Hedda were the people that were her team. Lee and Paula Strasberg were her acting coaches on this film although Paula was the only one present; Lee was always contacted by phone when big problems arose. Milton Greene was her partner in Marilyn Monroe Productions and the man who got her out of her wretched contract with 20th Century Fox; he was in charge of getting her to the studio each day, which proved to be a great burden considering she was always late. Hedda was a secretary and really no help at all considering she was drunk most of the time.
Colin worked for Sir Laurence Oliver but somehow got twisted up into Marilyn’s life. He said she was just so hypnotizing no one could stay away from her. He feared for her well-being during the filming, because Milton’s way of helping her cope was to continuously feed her pills she did not need. In the end the film turned out to be torture for everyone.
I really enjoyed reading the first half of this book, the way he told his story of his week with her was wonderful, even though I do believe it was only a few days that they interacted and not a full week. However once I got halfway through the diary entries I lost a lot of interest, it seemed he was writing the same thing over and over again. Marilyn was late and seemed confused, Sir Laurence Oliver was getting more and more upset and didn’t know what to do about it. That was the general idea of every diary entry. Don’t get me wrong I did enjoy a lot of the diary entries but it was hard to read through all of them, with the same repetition it had.
It also doesn’t tell you much about Marilyn that you probably don’t already know, so if you are looking for a story of her life this isn’t it, this is a story of the filming of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’.
Overall it was a wonderful book and a wonderful insight into the filming of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’ which was intriguing. It is a nice piece to read and have if you are a Marilyn fan, I must say.
I give it four stars.
Colin Clark
Weinstein Books
De Capo Press
978-1-60286-149-7
When I first seen the preview for this movie, I was immediately hooked. Being that I am a huge Marilyn Monroe fan I knew that I just had to see it. However when I found out that it was taken from a book, as most amazing movies are. At least in my opinion they are. I then knew I had to read the book and the book became much more important to me than the movie did and to this day I am writing this having just finished the book and still have not seen the movie. I do have the movie sitting on my dresser right next to me but I am the kind of woman that believes the books are so much better and I must read them before even beginning to watch the movie.
Now with that being said, ‘My Week with Marilyn’ is a book showcasing Colin Clark’s story of his week with Marilyn which he titled, “My Week with Marilyn” in its other releases as well as his own personal diary entries which were titled, “The Prince and the Showgirl”, those were written while he worked as a 3rd Assistant Director on the film, starring Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Oliver. This was the first time both forms had been put together as a book; they had both previously been released separately.
I was very excited to start this book; I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would hold in it, I mean imagine actually getting to spend a week with Marilyn Monroe! This book had to be good! The first part of the book, which is ‘My Week with Marilyn’, is extremely intriguing. You get to see everyone who was a part of that movie and what their role is. You see from Colin’s point of view what his take is on everyone including everyone in Marilyn’s party, which includes herself. At this point in time she was married to playwright Arthur Miller. This book did not portray Arthur as a very kind fellow, more of an egotistical self-centered jerk. Colin felt sorry for Marilyn in most of the book; he stated numerous times that the people surrounding her were so terrible for her and this I completely agree with and I believe they were a great contribute to her demise.
The Strasbergs, Milton Greene, and Hedda were the people that were her team. Lee and Paula Strasberg were her acting coaches on this film although Paula was the only one present; Lee was always contacted by phone when big problems arose. Milton Greene was her partner in Marilyn Monroe Productions and the man who got her out of her wretched contract with 20th Century Fox; he was in charge of getting her to the studio each day, which proved to be a great burden considering she was always late. Hedda was a secretary and really no help at all considering she was drunk most of the time.
Colin worked for Sir Laurence Oliver but somehow got twisted up into Marilyn’s life. He said she was just so hypnotizing no one could stay away from her. He feared for her well-being during the filming, because Milton’s way of helping her cope was to continuously feed her pills she did not need. In the end the film turned out to be torture for everyone.
I really enjoyed reading the first half of this book, the way he told his story of his week with her was wonderful, even though I do believe it was only a few days that they interacted and not a full week. However once I got halfway through the diary entries I lost a lot of interest, it seemed he was writing the same thing over and over again. Marilyn was late and seemed confused, Sir Laurence Oliver was getting more and more upset and didn’t know what to do about it. That was the general idea of every diary entry. Don’t get me wrong I did enjoy a lot of the diary entries but it was hard to read through all of them, with the same repetition it had.
It also doesn’t tell you much about Marilyn that you probably don’t already know, so if you are looking for a story of her life this isn’t it, this is a story of the filming of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’.
Overall it was a wonderful book and a wonderful insight into the filming of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’ which was intriguing. It is a nice piece to read and have if you are a Marilyn fan, I must say.
I give it four stars.
brittniphillips's review against another edition
1.0
This book has very little to do with Marilyn. The author is the 3rd Asst Director of a film Marilyn is featured in and he has very little interaction with her. His "week" with her is more like a day and one random evening which he described in exact detail in about 100 pages. There is no excitement to this 'week' he talks about. It kind of just happened. The other 206 pages are a day by day telling of what goes on in a movie production in the 50s. All is taken from the author's personal diary from when he worked on the film.
Great if you want to know how a film in the 50s is made. Horrible if you are looking for a Marilyn Monroe story.
Great if you want to know how a film in the 50s is made. Horrible if you are looking for a Marilyn Monroe story.
mrsthrift's review against another edition
2.0
This book was broken into three parts - a 'remembered' version of Colin's seven days spent in Marilyn's company, a letter to a friend about the week (basically a shortened version of the preceding section), and the longer, less interesting actual journal of Colin's time working on the movie set of The Prince and the Showgirl, which includes a blatant omission of the seven days spent as Marilyn's companion and a lot of movie set shenanigans, like dating a young girl who works in Wardrobe and dealing with all the drama of egos and film stars.
I thought this book was "just ok" and most of it was actually pretty boring, but it does get an extra star for the completely random, completely unexpected scene where Colin nonchalantly gets a blow job from a gay coworker. I, for one, am shocked that didn't make it into the Michelle Williams movie.
I thought this book was "just ok" and most of it was actually pretty boring, but it does get an extra star for the completely random, completely unexpected scene where Colin nonchalantly gets a blow job from a gay coworker. I, for one, am shocked that didn't make it into the Michelle Williams movie.
emilyhames's review against another edition
3.0
This is split into two different books, the first being the real life diaries of the author Colin Clark as he worked on a film with Marilyn Monroe. The other is more of a story based on real life events where Colin spent a weekend with Marilyn. I really enjoyed the first volume, the diaries gave insight into the films production and the work Colin did onset. But the second volume, which was originally published much later than the first, felt like another man exploiting Marilyn. Despite my mixed reviews I enjoyed being transported to another time, and was interested to learn the author is the son of the famous art historian, Kenneth Clark, whose books I frequented during my university study.