Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon

Bottom line: how is it possible to make Marilyn Monroe more interesting? I don't know, but Charles Casillo has done it.Like the author, I've been a quiet fan of Marilyn Monroe since I was about eleven years old. There is no more classic beauty, no greater classic movie star (though there is some strong competition in my heart), and no more enigmatic and fascinating personality. This book, however, is not just thrilling and hard to put down because of its subject matter. By covering the chronology of Marilyn Monroe's life, her struggles, and probing the depths of her relationships, Charles Casillo has produced a biography that only heightens the mystery and charisma of Marilyn Monroe, while at the same time enlightening the reader as to what still charms us today. Most of all, this biography makes Marilyn Monroe, the ultimate other-worldly love goddess of our time, into a human being. More fascinating, still thrilling and beautiful, but human in every regard. None of the biographies I read or documentaries I watched as a kid mentioned Marilyn Monroe gardening, cooking, driving, babysitting. Casillo does, and it seals the deal, making Marilyn Monroe (of all people) into not a regular person, but an extraordinary human being. The themes of Marilyn's life are always kept in the forefront. From the very first page the author maintains a throughline of her psyche: her quest for attention, acceptance, and excellence in her craft. He doesn't shy away from the gritty details of her life, nor from her many affairs and personal problems. But those things are never the point. After the collapse of her third marriage, she had affairs with Frank Sinatra and two Kennedys (one of whom was president of the United States), but Casillo presents these juicy details not as titillation but as part of Marilyn's lifelong quest for her father. He builds a case not of Hollywood depravity, but of a woman navigating a life where she was worshipped for her beauty, tossed aside, and reviled by jealous women, costars, and movie executives. It's all part of a consistent package, all built on Casillo's extensive sourcing and his personal interviews with the important people in her life over the course of his decades of research.I have two pet peeves about nonfiction and biography that Casillo manages to dodge, and it kept the book moving at a living pace: there are no sidebars, no digressions into themes that were relevant to Marilyn Monroe's life. Casillo could have chosen to write long chapters about how business works in Hollywood, how orphans and foster children were dealt with at the time, psychoanalysis, drugs, or the Rat Pack. Instead he keeps the focus on Marilyn and everything flows from the perspective of her own quest for acceptance and achievement. Another way of putting it is that he could have just said “well she was bipolar/borderline and bipolar people do X and Y.” He doesn't bother. He writes about her as a living, breathing person with confused desires handicapped by the very things that made her successful.The second pet peeve is when authors refuse to judge or come to conclusions. Certainly, we know more about Marilyn Monroe than we know about Emma of Normandy, but one could attempt to write a biography of such a modern figure by filling it with weasel words and saying “we just don't know” over and over again. Casillo handles many of the controversial events and themes in Marilyn's life as a balanced and moral observer, i.e. he's not afraid to say when something was done wrong. When events have differing accounts, he delves into all of the available perspectives and looks for a convergence of evidence. He isn't shy about saying when the evidence points to wrongdoing, especially around Marilyn's death and her handling by various psychiatrists. It's quite refreshing to read a book and just see the author write “What this person did was wrong” instead of endless hemming and hawing. On the other hand, he doesn't do this without stating his reasons, and he doesn't rely on the reader's values for interpretation. He builds his case, and states his conclusions boldly. Remarkably though, he does this without blame or short-changing those in question, even regarding the events around her death.Marilyn Monroe is one of those enigmatic figures who straddles time periods we hear about as kids: she was born in Hollywood's silent era, grew up watching Jean Harlow movies at Grauman's Chinese Theater, lived through World War II, embodied 1950s cinema, and ended her life at the vanguard of a new kind of filmmaking. Casillo's real victory is to make these Hollywood eras come alive and to make Marilyn Monroe come alive as a whole person. He paints a picture of a woman who is known mostly (still) for her physical appearance and shows the struggles that created, how she used that to her advantage and to her own detriment. But he also shows how she was so much more than her looks, no matter how much people wanted to take advantage of them. I think what I got from this book that I haven't gotten from others is a real sense of what this struggle was like for her: it's as close as I've seen to really viewing Marilyn's struggle from the inside. After reading this book, she's so much more than a movie star. It's hard to stop thinking about her anyway, but after Casillo's brilliant treatment, it's even harder (I honestly can't stop playing “Candle in the Wind” in my head since finishing this book last night). He's just a damned good writer and knows how to hold a reader's attention. I want to go get [b:Elizabeth and Monty: The Untold Story of Their Intimate Friendship 56772231 Elizabeth and Monty The Untold Story of Their Intimate Friendship Charles Casillo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611229199l/56772231.SY75.jpg 86434610], his book about Elizabeth Taylor, and I don't even like Elizabeth Taylor!