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A review by nashwa017
Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon by Charles Casillo
5.0
Well, this was a surprise.
Prior to reading this, I knew very little about Marilyn Monroe. I had an image in mind -with her white skirt being blown up by the wind, I knew that she was rumoured to have an affair with JFK and I knew that she died under extremely suspicious circumstances. That's all but this book looks into the person beyond all that, through the lens of her mental illness, her debilitating depression and her manic depressive disorder now known as bipolar disorder. Now, add extreme abandonment issues, physically and psychologically abusive marriages, an employer who was constantly trying to discard and humiliate her, and an obsession with vanity and age - that is the formula for Marilyn Monroe - atleast 37% of her. It has been commented that she was ahead of her time, smarter than she looked and reformed the movie industry as it stands today. All of that is true in my opinion.
Throughout the course of her career, she made multiple attempts to take her own life to the point she was put in a psychiatric hospital. Her playwright husband, Arthur Miller, propelled his own career using her name to get out of court cases and then added humiliating lines to her scripts emphasising on her sexual history and her lack of proper education. In two of her movies, he put the words "I never finished high school" in her mouth. Tacky, cheap and opportunistic? Yes!
To say that Monroe was troubled would be an understatement, the last few years of her life showed a steady decline where she was discarded by both the Kennedy brothers, fired from her last movie, under the care of a psychiatrist who created an extreme dependency and her dwindling obsession with her increasing age and receding beauty was all too much to take.
The thing that was so striking to me was the fact that this was an extremely well-written biography. The author does not in any way taint her image or give us preconceived notions about her but instead lets us decide for ourselves after a very accurate presentation of the facts. While reading this, I watched a few of her movies and now I can understand the fascination with her.
The life of Marilyn Monroe has been the subject of discussion, widely covered in literature but if you had to pick a biography - I would say read this one.
Prior to reading this, I knew very little about Marilyn Monroe. I had an image in mind -with her white skirt being blown up by the wind, I knew that she was rumoured to have an affair with JFK and I knew that she died under extremely suspicious circumstances. That's all but this book looks into the person beyond all that, through the lens of her mental illness, her debilitating depression and her manic depressive disorder now known as bipolar disorder. Now, add extreme abandonment issues, physically and psychologically abusive marriages, an employer who was constantly trying to discard and humiliate her, and an obsession with vanity and age - that is the formula for Marilyn Monroe - atleast 37% of her. It has been commented that she was ahead of her time, smarter than she looked and reformed the movie industry as it stands today. All of that is true in my opinion.
Throughout the course of her career, she made multiple attempts to take her own life to the point she was put in a psychiatric hospital. Her playwright husband, Arthur Miller, propelled his own career using her name to get out of court cases and then added humiliating lines to her scripts emphasising on her sexual history and her lack of proper education. In two of her movies, he put the words "I never finished high school" in her mouth. Tacky, cheap and opportunistic? Yes!
To say that Monroe was troubled would be an understatement, the last few years of her life showed a steady decline where she was discarded by both the Kennedy brothers, fired from her last movie, under the care of a psychiatrist who created an extreme dependency and her dwindling obsession with her increasing age and receding beauty was all too much to take.
The thing that was so striking to me was the fact that this was an extremely well-written biography. The author does not in any way taint her image or give us preconceived notions about her but instead lets us decide for ourselves after a very accurate presentation of the facts. While reading this, I watched a few of her movies and now I can understand the fascination with her.
The life of Marilyn Monroe has been the subject of discussion, widely covered in literature but if you had to pick a biography - I would say read this one.