Book-It 'o9! Book #16
May. 18th, 2009 07:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alivemagdoleneMore of the Fifty Books Challenge! My father found this in the "for sale" shelf at the library. Typically, when a new release comes in, the library overbuys so that there'll be enough copies to go around. Afterward, they sell them off for fairly cheap.
Title: Marilyn Revealed: The Ambitious Life of an American Icon by Ted Schwarz
Details: Copyright 2009, Taylor Trade Publishing
Synopsis (By Way of Front and Back Flaps): The first comprehensive look at the life of Marilyn Monroe to appear in years, this biography that benefits from interviews with many of the actress's friends and acquaintances who have remained silent until now, as well as access to the FBI files of such figures as Clark Gable, Sam Giancana, Frank Sinatra and Monroe herself. Ted Schwarz demystifies the woman whose own autobiography, mythologized her childhood as one of serial abandonment and sexual abuse. Schwarz's research reveals that Monroe's childhood in the person of Norma Jean Mortenson was in fact fairly conventional and confirms that she was a virgin until her first marriage at the age of sixteen to sailor Jim Dougherty. Still, Schwarz reveals a woman who was pathologically insecure in her relationships with men marrying three times and often finding no line of distinction as she moved from one affair to another. As Schwarz notes almost matter-of-factly, for example, Marilyn celebrated her engagement to baseball great Joe DiMaggio by going to bed with film director Elia Kazan. Upon returning from her honeymoon with DiMaggio, she immediately announced to friends her intention to marry playwright Arthur Miller - much to the surprise of Miller and his wife. Her only "constant lover," Schwarz contends, was the camera, whether she was posing for a glamour still or acting in one of her twenty nine films. Finally, Schwarz puts together the pieces of Marilyn's final days, spent in the company of Peter Lawford and his brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy, who were the guardians of her affair with President John F. Kennedy. He debunks conspiracy theories surrounding the circumstances of her death and acknowledges a wide spread Princess Diana-like sentiment that "her life was cut short before she could fully blossom."
Her passing marked the end of an era, one in which "a woman could become a star because she was a publicity-created icon representing the ditzy, beautiful, funny, endearing, and intensely desirable girl next door." Perhaps, Schwarz concludes, this is why Norma Jean's creation, Marilyn Monroe, fascinates us so much.
Why I Wanted to Read It: Marilyn Monroe was one of my prepubescent crushes and inspirations (fashion wise) and that never really went away. Also, what more could possibly be said about Marilyn Monroe that hasn't been said in at least fifty other "biographies"? I was curious.
How I Liked It: Marilyn Revealed sort of reads like the Snopes for all other Marilyn biographies, and certainly the one she created for herself. While Scwarz doesn't offer Snopes's extensive references, merely a bibliography, he does appear to have gone to lengths to obtain various documents to support his claims, some of which he actually does publish in the book (including Monroe's autopsy and will).
Most interesting about this is just how, well, uninteresting Monroe apparently was. Most biographies (and I've read a lot) have a point they are driving home about Monroe and/or their own memoir of their recollections of her (generally exaggerating their roles in her life). Schwarz has almost a disinterest in his subject. While it at times can be grating, it is a rather much-needed reality check for Monroe myths and legends. Among other falsehoods he debunks...
• Evidence strongly suggests Monroe's story of her childhood molestation was false (this is a VERY tricky subject, obviously, but Schwarz treads with a relative amount of care) as were subsequent stories of sexual abuse, neglect, and physical abuse suffered at the hands of her various foster parents/care-givers. Evidence strongly supports that these stories were lifted from foster sister Beebe Goddard.
• Monroe did in fact lose her virginity to her first husband (who she married at sixteen) at least if the broken hymen (not always a sure indicator as well as the fact some women have been shown to continue to bleed small amounts during subsequent sessions of intercourse after the initial penetration) is an indication. Neither with her first husband Jim nor with her foster mother/"aunt" did she apparently reveal any discomfort nor display any behavior consistent with that of CSA or prior sexual activity.
• Monroe's use of pills was not an uncommon practice in Hollywood and not just in the sense of a shared vice. Studio "doctors" used what they felt were "harmless" drugs to regulate the shooting schedules of stars, Benzedrine and phenobarbital. These drugs were obviously intensely addictive and were frequently taken with alcohol, a factor that frequently led to cross-addiction and severe depression, according to Schwarz. This drug regimen killed many stars, among them Peter Lawford, Robert Walker, Judy Garland, and Richard Burton. Some, like Elizabeth Taylor, could find a way out later through rehab. Many could not.
• While the knowledge that Monroe's marriage to Joe DiMaggio was not "the love affair of the century" is hardly news, the man had a first wife similar to Marilyn, save for the fact her ambitions weren't as high and she was willing to forfeit them and even produce a child. DiMaggio lost interest anyway. This book also cautiously supports the theory that DiMaggio was physically and emotionally abusive to Monroe.
• Marilyn was not mentally ill. Mental illness did not run in her family, although a number of her ancestors had illnesses that created behaviors that resembled mental illness. "What Marilyn was was brain-addled from drugs and exhaustion." (pg 556)
• Most of all, and hopefully this is the final nail in the coffin of Monroe/Kennedy conspiracies, Schwarz takes on Monroe's relationship with Kennedy. Schwarz authored one of the more respected biographies of Peter Lawford, The Peter Lawford Story with Lawford's wife Patricia. He uses knowledge he gleaned to support the "Kennedy/Monroe conspiracies are bullshit" theory. He points out that the preferred means of death via organized crime or the CIA at the time would've been a car crash, something that would've been easily explainable given Monroe's use of drugs, rather than an overdose. He also points out, as supported by the autopsy, that the corpse was in full livor mortis, meaning essentially she died where she was found. The pills in her system that killed her were the ones she was known to be addicted to. There was no forced entry nor signs of a struggle in her home. Also, he points out, if anyone thought Marilyn's ties to the Kennedys were really a threat, she would never have been allowed to perform at the now infamous presidential gala. Most interesting is that the woman who WOULD be the most dangerous to all "involved" in the conspiracy cover-up was Judith Campbell Exner, a woman who was bedding both President Kennedy and Chicago crime boss Sam "Momo" Giancana. She was apparently acting as a go-between, delivering personal messages related to organized crime activities on behalf of the U.S government. She allegedly knew about the rigging of the 1960 election in Illinois and quite possibly also West Virginia and New Jersey. Exner was the living proof that the president of the United States was working directly with the Mafia. Exner, not Monroe, Scharz alleges, was the most dangerous woman alive.
Judith Campbell Exner died in 1999 of cancer. Also notable was Marita Lorenz, the female assassin chosen to poison Fidel Castro. She knew of everything taking place, but ultimately ended up "falling in love with her target" and giving birth to one of his sons. "If Monroe was considered too dangerous to live, would not Lorenz--so intimate with a national secret-- have been even more so?" (pg 592) Let's hope that's the end of that, but fat chance.
Scharz paints with some pretty broad strokes in this book, showing at times almost contempt for his subject.
"Norma Jean was never raped. She was never kidnapped, never held hostage, never ordered to have sex in order to get a part in a movie. She spread her legs with frequency because it was the way she chose to achieve some of her career goals, the way to reward an occasional fan, the way she could say 'thank you' knowing that any real or perceived debt had been paid." (pg 555)
The tragedy was not that Monroe was a drunken, drug-addled slut-- though those terms were as valid as those lauding her for her beauty, her comic skills, and the personality she conveyed on the big screen. The tragedy was that no one in the film industry who knew Monroe had the courage and the love to force her to stop when she made the choices that would soon take her life. And if the men who claimed to love her were users and emotional abusers, they had simply met their mirror twin in Monroe. (pg 556)
Also, Scharz has an annoying habit of constantly reminding the reader of the difference in the time periods between "then" and "now". Yes, yes, the fifties were a more innocent and restrained era. Understood. Is devoting two pages to that fact in at least three different chapters really necessary?
Overall, this is a decent (and very lengthy) read for the Monroe enthusiast, provided said enthusiast is willing to hear some extremely disparaging text about the woman.
Notable: Oddly, what makes this book so interesting (at least for me) is the "revelations" that Monroe was not that interesting. Her childhood was not a war torn stretch of abuse, it was actually fairly dull. She was not a demented pill popper anymore than the rest of Hollywood. She wasn't the second coming of Venus, a tragic heroine, a secret genius, a cipher to which to pin commentary, she was just an ambitious actress that happened to meet with an unfortunate but predictable end met by many others in her profession.
Less notable but worth noting? An excellent example of Scharz broad strokes (broad stroking?) occurs in the opening of the chapter HUAC/Kazan/Miller and the World Outside Hollywood:
"Trying to accurately piece together the story of Marilyn Monroe during her yearlong hiatus from Hollywood is like assembling a group of adult Barbie doll enthusiasts, all strangers to one another, who share the hobby of creating adult worlds for their dolls. Each clutches what, to you, is an identical looking Barbie doll. One at a time you take each person just far enough from the others so they cannot overhear your conversation. Then you ask each in turn to tell you the life story of Barbie. One Barbie helps the homeless and the sick: another runs through husbands and boyfriends, grabbing all the 'bling' she can get. One is an astronaut, another a movie star, and a third seems to hang out at the beach, living on unknown but obviously adequate resources. Barbie might have siblings, but the idea of experiencing her own childhood or even who might have been her parents will be vague concepts. Yet no matter how these identical-looking Barbies differ in the eyes of the enthusiasts who cling to their fantasies well past childhood, each is certain he or she has told you the 100-percent true story of the beloved plastic friend.
(pg 507)
Point 1: The Barbie/Marilyn connection is old news:
Point 2: I beg of you. Can we as a society FINALLY stop using the word "bling"?!
Title: Marilyn Revealed: The Ambitious Life of an American Icon by Ted Schwarz
Details: Copyright 2009, Taylor Trade Publishing
Synopsis (By Way of Front and Back Flaps): The first comprehensive look at the life of Marilyn Monroe to appear in years, this biography that benefits from interviews with many of the actress's friends and acquaintances who have remained silent until now, as well as access to the FBI files of such figures as Clark Gable, Sam Giancana, Frank Sinatra and Monroe herself. Ted Schwarz demystifies the woman whose own autobiography, mythologized her childhood as one of serial abandonment and sexual abuse. Schwarz's research reveals that Monroe's childhood in the person of Norma Jean Mortenson was in fact fairly conventional and confirms that she was a virgin until her first marriage at the age of sixteen to sailor Jim Dougherty. Still, Schwarz reveals a woman who was pathologically insecure in her relationships with men marrying three times and often finding no line of distinction as she moved from one affair to another. As Schwarz notes almost matter-of-factly, for example, Marilyn celebrated her engagement to baseball great Joe DiMaggio by going to bed with film director Elia Kazan. Upon returning from her honeymoon with DiMaggio, she immediately announced to friends her intention to marry playwright Arthur Miller - much to the surprise of Miller and his wife. Her only "constant lover," Schwarz contends, was the camera, whether she was posing for a glamour still or acting in one of her twenty nine films. Finally, Schwarz puts together the pieces of Marilyn's final days, spent in the company of Peter Lawford and his brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy, who were the guardians of her affair with President John F. Kennedy. He debunks conspiracy theories surrounding the circumstances of her death and acknowledges a wide spread Princess Diana-like sentiment that "her life was cut short before she could fully blossom."
Her passing marked the end of an era, one in which "a woman could become a star because she was a publicity-created icon representing the ditzy, beautiful, funny, endearing, and intensely desirable girl next door." Perhaps, Schwarz concludes, this is why Norma Jean's creation, Marilyn Monroe, fascinates us so much.
Why I Wanted to Read It: Marilyn Monroe was one of my prepubescent crushes and inspirations (fashion wise) and that never really went away. Also, what more could possibly be said about Marilyn Monroe that hasn't been said in at least fifty other "biographies"? I was curious.
How I Liked It: Marilyn Revealed sort of reads like the Snopes for all other Marilyn biographies, and certainly the one she created for herself. While Scwarz doesn't offer Snopes's extensive references, merely a bibliography, he does appear to have gone to lengths to obtain various documents to support his claims, some of which he actually does publish in the book (including Monroe's autopsy and will).
Most interesting about this is just how, well, uninteresting Monroe apparently was. Most biographies (and I've read a lot) have a point they are driving home about Monroe and/or their own memoir of their recollections of her (generally exaggerating their roles in her life). Schwarz has almost a disinterest in his subject. While it at times can be grating, it is a rather much-needed reality check for Monroe myths and legends. Among other falsehoods he debunks...
• Evidence strongly suggests Monroe's story of her childhood molestation was false (this is a VERY tricky subject, obviously, but Schwarz treads with a relative amount of care) as were subsequent stories of sexual abuse, neglect, and physical abuse suffered at the hands of her various foster parents/care-givers. Evidence strongly supports that these stories were lifted from foster sister Beebe Goddard.
• Monroe did in fact lose her virginity to her first husband (who she married at sixteen) at least if the broken hymen (not always a sure indicator as well as the fact some women have been shown to continue to bleed small amounts during subsequent sessions of intercourse after the initial penetration) is an indication. Neither with her first husband Jim nor with her foster mother/"aunt" did she apparently reveal any discomfort nor display any behavior consistent with that of CSA or prior sexual activity.
• Monroe's use of pills was not an uncommon practice in Hollywood and not just in the sense of a shared vice. Studio "doctors" used what they felt were "harmless" drugs to regulate the shooting schedules of stars, Benzedrine and phenobarbital. These drugs were obviously intensely addictive and were frequently taken with alcohol, a factor that frequently led to cross-addiction and severe depression, according to Schwarz. This drug regimen killed many stars, among them Peter Lawford, Robert Walker, Judy Garland, and Richard Burton. Some, like Elizabeth Taylor, could find a way out later through rehab. Many could not.
• While the knowledge that Monroe's marriage to Joe DiMaggio was not "the love affair of the century" is hardly news, the man had a first wife similar to Marilyn, save for the fact her ambitions weren't as high and she was willing to forfeit them and even produce a child. DiMaggio lost interest anyway. This book also cautiously supports the theory that DiMaggio was physically and emotionally abusive to Monroe.
• Marilyn was not mentally ill. Mental illness did not run in her family, although a number of her ancestors had illnesses that created behaviors that resembled mental illness. "What Marilyn was was brain-addled from drugs and exhaustion." (pg 556)
• Most of all, and hopefully this is the final nail in the coffin of Monroe/Kennedy conspiracies, Schwarz takes on Monroe's relationship with Kennedy. Schwarz authored one of the more respected biographies of Peter Lawford, The Peter Lawford Story with Lawford's wife Patricia. He uses knowledge he gleaned to support the "Kennedy/Monroe conspiracies are bullshit" theory. He points out that the preferred means of death via organized crime or the CIA at the time would've been a car crash, something that would've been easily explainable given Monroe's use of drugs, rather than an overdose. He also points out, as supported by the autopsy, that the corpse was in full livor mortis, meaning essentially she died where she was found. The pills in her system that killed her were the ones she was known to be addicted to. There was no forced entry nor signs of a struggle in her home. Also, he points out, if anyone thought Marilyn's ties to the Kennedys were really a threat, she would never have been allowed to perform at the now infamous presidential gala. Most interesting is that the woman who WOULD be the most dangerous to all "involved" in the conspiracy cover-up was Judith Campbell Exner, a woman who was bedding both President Kennedy and Chicago crime boss Sam "Momo" Giancana. She was apparently acting as a go-between, delivering personal messages related to organized crime activities on behalf of the U.S government. She allegedly knew about the rigging of the 1960 election in Illinois and quite possibly also West Virginia and New Jersey. Exner was the living proof that the president of the United States was working directly with the Mafia. Exner, not Monroe, Scharz alleges, was the most dangerous woman alive.
Judith Campbell Exner died in 1999 of cancer. Also notable was Marita Lorenz, the female assassin chosen to poison Fidel Castro. She knew of everything taking place, but ultimately ended up "falling in love with her target" and giving birth to one of his sons. "If Monroe was considered too dangerous to live, would not Lorenz--so intimate with a national secret-- have been even more so?" (pg 592) Let's hope that's the end of that, but fat chance.
Scharz paints with some pretty broad strokes in this book, showing at times almost contempt for his subject.
"Norma Jean was never raped. She was never kidnapped, never held hostage, never ordered to have sex in order to get a part in a movie. She spread her legs with frequency because it was the way she chose to achieve some of her career goals, the way to reward an occasional fan, the way she could say 'thank you' knowing that any real or perceived debt had been paid." (pg 555)
The tragedy was not that Monroe was a drunken, drug-addled slut-- though those terms were as valid as those lauding her for her beauty, her comic skills, and the personality she conveyed on the big screen. The tragedy was that no one in the film industry who knew Monroe had the courage and the love to force her to stop when she made the choices that would soon take her life. And if the men who claimed to love her were users and emotional abusers, they had simply met their mirror twin in Monroe. (pg 556)
Also, Scharz has an annoying habit of constantly reminding the reader of the difference in the time periods between "then" and "now". Yes, yes, the fifties were a more innocent and restrained era. Understood. Is devoting two pages to that fact in at least three different chapters really necessary?
Overall, this is a decent (and very lengthy) read for the Monroe enthusiast, provided said enthusiast is willing to hear some extremely disparaging text about the woman.
Notable: Oddly, what makes this book so interesting (at least for me) is the "revelations" that Monroe was not that interesting. Her childhood was not a war torn stretch of abuse, it was actually fairly dull. She was not a demented pill popper anymore than the rest of Hollywood. She wasn't the second coming of Venus, a tragic heroine, a secret genius, a cipher to which to pin commentary, she was just an ambitious actress that happened to meet with an unfortunate but predictable end met by many others in her profession.
Less notable but worth noting? An excellent example of Scharz broad strokes (broad stroking?) occurs in the opening of the chapter HUAC/Kazan/Miller and the World Outside Hollywood:
"Trying to accurately piece together the story of Marilyn Monroe during her yearlong hiatus from Hollywood is like assembling a group of adult Barbie doll enthusiasts, all strangers to one another, who share the hobby of creating adult worlds for their dolls. Each clutches what, to you, is an identical looking Barbie doll. One at a time you take each person just far enough from the others so they cannot overhear your conversation. Then you ask each in turn to tell you the life story of Barbie. One Barbie helps the homeless and the sick: another runs through husbands and boyfriends, grabbing all the 'bling' she can get. One is an astronaut, another a movie star, and a third seems to hang out at the beach, living on unknown but obviously adequate resources. Barbie might have siblings, but the idea of experiencing her own childhood or even who might have been her parents will be vague concepts. Yet no matter how these identical-looking Barbies differ in the eyes of the enthusiasts who cling to their fantasies well past childhood, each is certain he or she has told you the 100-percent true story of the beloved plastic friend.
(pg 507)
Point 1: The Barbie/Marilyn connection is old news:
Point 2: I beg of you. Can we as a society FINALLY stop using the word "bling"?!
