by Barbara Leaming
This is a sympathetic, gracefully written study of an American legend (born Norma Jeane Baker) whose severe emotional problems—which culminated in her suicide at the age of 36 in 1962—originated in a dreadful childhood: a paranoid-schizophrenic mother, poverty, foster homes, an orphanage. Author Barbara Learning (Katharine Hepburn, Orson Welles) does not dwell on rumor and gossip about Monroe's life and death. Instead, basing her account on dozens of interviews and thousands of primary documents, she brings new insight—and a woman's perspective—to Monroe's professional and psychological struggles and takes a dim view of Lee Strasberg, Arthur Miller and the Kennedy brothers, among other notables in Marilyn's world. All her adult life, Learning suggests, Monroe had been governed by the needs of men determined that she be whoever would serve them best. Only the camera truly loved her. (Crown, $27.50)
Bottom Line: First-rate bio
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