An amazing source of new information into the private life of Marilyn Monroe through personal documents, correspondences and photos from her own filing cabinets which had been obtained by Marilyn’s one time business manager, Inez Melson after the actress’ death.
They had been stored in Inez’s home for forty-five years, with only a few documents made available to earlier biographers.The papers contain previously unknown information relating to Marilyn’s childhood, the years she struggled to become a star, her contract difficulties with Fox and the internal politics of her own production company.
It reveals how Marilyn dealt with negative media portrayals of her and made decisions about her film roles, the photographs taken of her and her publicity.The book also brings to light an intimate portrait of Marilyn, away from the cameras. Her skill at making friends, her love of animals, and her humanity and concern for others. Letters from family and friends and famous admirers. One of the most touching items in the book is a fan letter from Italy, which is so beautiful and full of love that Marilyn kept it and wrote back and sent a lock of hair.
And she wrote a note to say she would “carry next to my heart always.”It gives an insight into her spending habits and what she bought. She kept bills, contracts and all items in relation to her business ventures. She would even write down what she spent on coffee and lunches on scrap pieces of paper. Her lawyers and accountants pressed her to keep these items, since she was often audited by the IRS and involved in lawsuits.While last years ‘Fragments’ was an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections, this book is the other side of the coin, more on a level of her day to day handling of her personal life and career and how others worked with her, how these relationships evolved, both business and personal.
It’s a cornucopia of information that has never been known before.A graduate of UCLA, with a Master’s Degree in European History and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in American history, Lois Banner was a founder of the field of women’s history in the 1970s. Along with Mary Hartman, she founded the Berkshire Conference in Women’s History, the biennial conference that has been held ever since and that is considered the major event in the field.
She was the first woman president of the American Studies Association, and in 2006 she won the Bode-Pearson prize of the American Studies Association for Lifetime Achievement in the field. She has won the Raubenheimer Award for outstanding achievement in teaching, scholarship, and college activities of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. She has also won a general education award for teaching, the Mellon Foundation award for student mentoring, and the USC Associates Award for outstanding scholarship.This is Professor Banner’s first book on Marilyn Monroe.
She is currently at work on a two-volume study of glamour in the 19th and 20th centuries. She is currently at work on the second volume, a study of the life, image, and career of Marilyn Monroe.
By Fraser Penney
