Rating: 
Summary: Page-turner but wrong conclusion
Review: I gave this book 4 stars simply because once I started it I couldn't put it down. Of course I love Marilyn Monroe. Who wouldn't after seeing one of her films? But this is the first book I've read about her. Leaming has a fast-paced, journalistic style. She gives a lot of facts, but also a lot of speculation. I took one star away because one could actually rename the book: Marilyn Monroe as described by the men around her. And she knew a lot of selfish users! On the one hand they tell us she's a vicious ballbreaker. On the other, we hear that she's nothing but a weak, mentally ill junkie. Which is it? She couldn't be both at the same time. My impression is that she had to fight misogyny with both fists from the day she was born until the day she died. And she was brilliant, regardless of the alcohol/pill habit...Based on Leaming's account, I would call Dr. Ralph Greenson an extremely questionable figure. He appears to spend all his time hovering around just one client, Marilyn. He knows the first thing she needs is to get off alcohol and pills, yet instead he guarantees that she's always amply supplied with both. He personally chooses Marilyn's lawyer, Mickey Rudin, and her housekeeper, Eunice Murray. Greenson has no concern whatsoever about doctor-patient privilege (confidentiality), and even has a private lunch with Marilyn's boss in Fox's executive conference room weeks before her death. What sort of a shrink is this?...Leaming concludes that Marilyn killed herself, but my opinion, based on the same material, is that it was someone else who decided to silence her permanently.
Rating: 
Summary: A new but disastrous view of our beloved sex goddess
Review: I had high expectations for this book since the author was much-acclaimed for her biographies on Katharine Hepburn and Orson Welles. But I ended up having an impression that Leaming makes some terrible mistakes in giving a portrait of the legendary Marilyn Monroe. She only devotes several pages to describing her childhood that acted as an dominant factor in explaining Marilyn Monroe¡¦s sensitive and vulnerable character. Leaming also puts much emphasis on Marilyn¡¦s relationship with Authur Miller and Elia Kazan, a fact that can be easily observed throughout the book. But I would ask myself if that is really necessary. One more appalling mistake is how unscrupulous Leaming is to tell the story the way she wants, completely neglecting other important facts about Marilyn¡¦s death. We all know her death is still a matter in question and no conclusion can be easily reached. I am sure Leaming dismisses every fact that are proved unfavorable to the version of her story. Leaming claims that it was a suicide and supports her belief with evidence that matters. Leaming don¡¦t even mention Marilyn¡¦s last famous photo shoot with George Barris before the day she died¡K.. A biography that seems to point out every little detail of Marilyn¡¦s life but in actuality a careless, bigoted, subjective, unbalanced and incomplete account that greatly lets me down. And, as a reader previously mentioned, there are no filmography and bibliography in the book, making it less informative and undesirable for quick reference. Anyway, Leaming¡¦s story is so intimate and descriptive in style, as if she was the eyewitness to what happened in Marilyn¡¦s life. Any first-time readers that are interested in Marilyn Monroe will be fooled by Leaming¡¦s ruthless and calculated staging of the story and Marilyn Monroe fans will find it horribly disappointing. Leaming tried to make a difference but she has gone too far.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: I have just recently read this book and I must say it is one of the most comprehensive biographies ever done on the actress. Leaming takes it to a new level, leading us to the real woman, not just the celleloid goddess. Marilyn Monroe was a real person, just like the rest of us, with all the problems we mortals have. I must say that some of the reviews I've seen on this page have been scathing. I'd really like to see you guys write a 400 page bio on someone as complex as Monroe.
Rating:
Summary: The life of Marilyn Monroe
Review: I like this book because it helped me learn more about history. I learned more about the fifties, HUAC, the studio system and other things I had no idea about. I thought that Marilyn Monroe's childhood was related too skimpily. I was also annoyed by some, though not all, of the psychological explanations for her behavior. I am perplexed because she was shown as a weak human being, but I see her, by the photographs in the book, and even a few stories in the book, as someone who had obvious strengths. It occurred to me that she may have been fiestier and more intelligent than the book always portrayed. It is important to know her problems, weaknesses, victimization by countless people. However, I want to know more. It didn't all come out of a vaccuum. The stardom, the charm, the determination that got her career started. I felt like Leaming let us see some of it, but didn't take great enough pains to show through actual evidence what made her practically worshipped or what about her fooled so many people. It strikes me that she may have been almost like a child in some respects, but she was also incredibly tough, ridiculously street smart. Just not when it came to her own feelings about herself. I want to know more about Marilyn than cute, but victim of an insane mother, bad childhood, and thorny psychological disorder. Though Leaming's account may not be the most complete or accurate, I wouldn't call it a failure because she made me want to know more and made me sympathize with someone I wouldn't have understood if I had met her. She also seems credible to me as an author and researcher because of the incredible details she took pains to procure.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book that makes me want to know more
Review: I like this book because it helped me learn more about history. I learned more about the fifties, HUAC, the studio system and other things I had no idea about. I thought that Marilyn Monroe's childhood was related too skimpily. I was also annoyed by some, though not all, of the psychological explanations for her behavior. I am perplexed because she was shown as a weak human being, but I see her, by the photographs in the book, and even a few stories in the book, as someone who had obvious strengths. It occurred to me that she may have been fiestier and more intelligent than the book always portrayed. It is important to know her problems, weaknesses, victimization by countless people. However, I want to know more. It didn't all come out of a vaccuum. The stardom, the charm, the determination that got her career started. I felt like Leaming let us see some of it, but didn't take great enough pains to show through actual evidence what made her practically worshipped or what about her fooled so many people. It strikes me that she may have been almost like a child in some respects, but she was also incredibly tough, ridiculously street smart. Just not when it came to her own feelings about herself. I want to know more about Marilyn than cute, but victim of an insane mother, bad childhood, and thorny psychological disorder. Though Leaming's account may not be the most complete or accurate, I wouldn't call it a failure because she made me want to know more and made me sympathize with someone I wouldn't have understood if I had met her. She also seems credible to me as an author and researcher because of the incredible details she took pains to procure.
Rating:
Summary: The life of Marilyn Monroe
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Barbara Leaming's Marilyn Monroe. It was very well researched and thoughtfully written. I found it to be refreshingly objective. Marilyn Monroe has been an inspiration to so many millions of people, that all too often the "biographies" written about her are saturated with personal emotions or agendas. I was extremely impressed with Leaming's dedication to writing a book about Marilyn Monroe that is as free from personal prejudices as exists. It is also interesting to read a woman's perspective of Marilyn Monroe's behavior as a vast majority of Monroe biographers are male. The only reason I did not rate this as a 5 star book was I found certain passages to be so well researched and detailed that it slowed my reading. Finally I am pleased with the manner in which Leaming addressed Marilyn Monroe's death. Suicide? Murder? Conspiracy? Federal Coverup? The fact is that there will always be different theories about Marilyn Monroe's death, and the passage of time will only exaggerate this. But Leaming's forthright statment and dedication of only 3 pages of text to the matter, was a poignant statement that Marilyn Monroe's beauty and contribution to history was in the way she lived her life. This was Leaming's understated way of ensuring her work was devoted to the life of an extraordinary woman, not the death of one.
Rating:
Summary: Marilyn Monroe
Review: I wish for once people/journalists would stop making it seam that marilyn Monroe Killed herself. No one was charged or suspected for her death, But this does not mean Marilyn took her own life. Many books on the market past & present, many movies ever made has her swollowing handfuls of pills. i do not believe this based on information I have read. There was plenty of evidence that she was indeed hushed. won't someone publish a book that paint the true picture.
Rating:
Summary: Better tragedy than any fiction
Review: It's really good, if a bit uncomfortable to read. Leaming views biography as a form of novel, telling the story like a story, which is what it is, rather than telling it like some anonymous collection of facts unrelated to anyone. This serves a subject as dramatic and depressing as Norma Jeane Baker very well. And the portrait is a depressing one, no doubt: self-loathing and bitter, Marilyn was consistently late to sets and meetings because she was too upset with herself to leave her apartment/trailer; she hated being "sexy" and wanted to be taken serious but then would self-sabotage by showing up in the sluttiest outfits she could find, in order to upset the men in her life, be it the overly controlling Joe DiMaggio or the overly cold Arthur Miller. The author makes a lot of very sensible assumptions and psychological readings, the most notable being declaring Marilyn's death a suicide, something still debated by Marilyn fans. I personally agree with the author, which probably makes me like the book even more, because quite frankly, all the signs are there. She even called someone and asked him to say goodbye to some people for her - how much more obvious does it get? The bottom line is, Marilyn Monroe had serious personality disorders, diagnosed by her physician as having "borderline personality", which results in enormous mood swings, a large dose of self-conciousness bordering on loathing, and an irrational fear of being "abandoned", even if the abandonment was only a short trip to the grocery store. She also had a heavy history of mental disorders in her family, including a mother in a mental hospital. Add on the drugs and you don't have a recipe for the best life ever. The more interesting tidbits of the book were things that aren't commonly tossed around, like the fact that her affair with Jack Kennedy was very short lived and not terribly interesting to Jack. Her multiple personality disorders were threatening to him, and she would call constantly, begging to speak with him. It basically ended the day she sung "Happy Birthday" to him on stage, contradicting the legend of Kennedy as the lecherous freak who didn't care who knew, doing it with every Hollywood girl 'til the day he died. Her life was rather peppered with disappointments, especially towards the end when Twentieth took away all her creative controls written into her contract. It was difficult to read of her personality disorders and see some of my own, and it was difficult to read what people from her costars to her own acting coaches had the nerve to say about her to her face, as if she was a stupid thing. It read like complete fiction, except it's true, and I like biographies that read like that.
Rating:
Summary: Saddest book I've ever read
Review: It's so tragic to see Monroe fall into the self-destructive behavior she does at the end of her life. She looks like a zombie in the last pictures, completely devoid of the joy, drive, and energy that made her so beautiful before barbituates and alcohol destroyed it all. I had to keep reminding myself that there was nothing I could do to help her. The way Arthur Miller completely ignored her descent is appalling. Monroe's marriage to Joe was not good by any means but at least DiMaggio didn't play a fiddle as Rome burned like Miller seems to have done. Miller acts selfishly and cowardly. The way everybody used her (especially Natasha, the Strasbergs, and Miller) to advance their own careers is shocking. Lee Strasberg seems to think it was his God-given right to mercilessly blackmail money from Monroe's production company. This is a sad tale indeed. Oh yeah and the book. I agree with the reviewer who said that Leaming doesn't sufficiently cover her marriage to DiMaggio. She doesn't. One other criticism: Leaming could have cut out some of the Freudian interpretations of Monroe's youth. It got a bit much in the first half of the book. But overall, this bio is well put together and very coherent. It's just so doggone sad.
Rating:
Summary: No one respected Marilyn,
Review: least of all Marilyn! Here was a sad and tragic woman who just wanted to be loved, but even when she was loved, she was unable to believe it or accept it. This book is so sad and heartbreaking. It left me wanting to comfort the little girl inside Marilyn Monroe. She longed for respect, but also did not believe she deserved it. Marilyn should have had therapy when she was a young girl. By the time she was in therapy, it was too little, to late. This book is fascinating. I loved that Barbara Leaming gave us a lot of details, because it helped me to really get a feeling for Marilyn and her life. I also enjoyed reading about other people such as Arthur Miller, Joe DiMaggio, Elia Kazan and Lee & Paula Strasberg. (To name just a few!)This book gives you a very clear picture of Hollywood and all of its selfish, greedy and self-oriented people. This book makes me feel that Marilyn did not get a fair shake in this world. It is also apparent, though that Marilyn made some big mistakes that hurt her badly. She was a lost girl and she needed help and guidance that she never really got. Most of the people she received 'help' from had their own agendas and so their 'help' focused more on them than it did Marilyn. There was a huge part of Marilyn that never grew up. She was fragile and was unable to stand the harshness of this world, and so, she self-destructed. Excellent book - sad book - intriguing book - absolutely worth reading!
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