MARILYN MONROE(玛莉莲.梦露传)|报价￥115.60|图书,进口原版,Art & Photography 艺术与摄影,Performing Arts 表演艺术,
品牌：
基本信息
·出版社：Three Rivers Press (CA)
·页码：480 页码
·出版日：2000年
·ISBN：0609805533
·条码：9780609805534
·版次：2000-02-01
·装帧：平装
·开本：16开 16开
内容简介
Book Description
Barbara Leaming's Marilyn Monroe is a complex, sympathetic portrait that will forever change the way we view the most enduring icon of America sexuality. To those who think they have heard all there is to hear about Marilyn Monroe, think again. Leaming's book tells a brand-new tale of sexual, psychological, and political intrigue of the highest order. Told for the first time in all its complexity, this is a compelling portrait of a woman at the center of a drama with immensely high stakes, a drama in which the other players are some of the most fascinating characters from the worlds of movies, theater, and politics. It is a book that shines a bright light on one of the most tumultuous, frightening, and exciting periods in American culture.
Basing her research on new interviews and on thousands of primary documents--including revealing letters by Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan, John Huston, Laurence Olivier, Tennessee Williams, Darryl Zanuck, Marilyn's psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson, and many others--Leaming has reconstructed the tangle of betrayal in Marilyn's life. For the first time, a master storyteller has put together all of the pieces and told Marilyn's story with the intensity and drama it so richly deserves.
At the heart of this book is a sexual triangle and a riveting story that has never been told before. You will come away filled with new respect for Marilyn's incredible courage, dignity, and loyalty, and an overwhelming sense of tragedy after witnessing Marilyn, powerless to overcome her demons, move inexorably to her own final, terrible betrayal of herself.
Marilyn Monroe is a book that will make you think--and will break your heart.
Amazon.com
This extraordinarily thoughtful book by Barbara Leaming, a literary star among movie-star biographers, offers the last thing you'd expect in a book on Marilyn Monroe: new information from verifiable sources. Sure, lots of the tragedy is familiar: an abused, confused girl from an orphanage with a mother in a madhouse rises from sexual party favor for homely showbiz men to the movie superstar who pushes them around, until she crashes, a victim of self-loathing and drug addiction.
The thing about a tragedy is that its heroine isn't a victim--she's responsible for her fate. Leaming does scholarly spadework, digging up hard facts from sources like UCLA's 20th Century Fox collection and the diary-like first drafts of Arthur Miller's semiautobiographical work, and she makes sense of Monroe's motives. She even apparently solves Monroe's suicide with clues from the star's psychiatrist's letters in the Anna Freud collection. Her last overdose may have happened just because her shrink went to dinner with his wife and she felt abandoned.
But until pills killed her, Monroe wasn't a candle in the wind. She burned with ambition and knew how to craft a persona and play power games--with moguls and with the commie-busters hounding her husband Miller. Leaming plausibly analyzes the Miller-Monroe-Elia Kazan love/hate triangle, sizes up the Kennedy connection, busts her acting coach Lee Strasberg as "chillingly mercenary," and deftly shows just how her life entangled her art, film by film.
This book has a woman's touch: it's a work of sharp intellect and emotional insight unclouded by lust or star worship.
--Tim Appelo
FromPublishers Weekly
Thirty-six years after Marilyn Monroe's death (at the age of 36), Leaming, prolific celebrity biographer, picks through the bones and neuroses of the ultimate Hollywood icon. More than 200 books have been written on the subject; only a few biographies (namely, Donald Spoto's revisionist Marilyn Monroe: The Biography) have managed to humanize the fragile actress, who has long since been subsumed by her own mystique. Leaming's relentlessly morose and stand-offish portrait, by contrast, places Monroe on a downward spiral from birth. Beginning in 1951, the book backtracks briefly, skimming over her childhood, early marriage, status on the party-girl circuit and early screen debut. Relying on letters, memos, other biographies and a paper trail from Twentieth Century-Fox, Leaming relays the precise dates when Monroe signed contracts, called in sick, filmed for half a day, etc. It's an approach that does little to explain Monroe's dynamc screen presence, her warmth and charm. The absence of new interviews here is most noticeable in passages detailing Monroe's marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. Both husbands remain enigmas on the page. However, secondary characters (such as Lee and Paula Strasberg and longtime agent Charles Feldman) are often vividly etched. If Monroe enjoyed any good friendships or happy experiences making films, they're not presented here. Leaming's real contribution is the coverage of the HUAC blacklisting trials and its effects on the men in Monroe's life. As interesting as these details may be, however, they overwhelm the book and, even worse, shove Marilyn from the spotlight. 32 pages of photos not seen by PW.
FromBooklist
Is there anything left to be said about the sex icon of the 1950s? Leaming, author of the much-read Katharine Hepburn (1995), has lots to say, and she's worth listening to. This is no sleaze job by any means; hers is a respectable, respectful look at the much-misunderstood Marilyn Monroe. MM emerges as a smart perfectionist riddled with self-doubt and self-destructive tendencies; she became the most famous movie star of her day because that was what she wanted for herself, and her drive made it happen. "Marilyn wanted to be a movie star so very badly because it was the only way she knew to escape a chaotic, nightmarish existence that constantly threatened to draw her back in." The story of Monroe's life reads tragically from day one--from page one here. It was a life that despite the bright light of fame shining on it for many years could only be described as one long downward spiral. Monroe had barely gathered herself into a functioning entity before she began falling apart. We come away from Leaming's detailed, explicit, sympathetic picture with more understanding of Monroe's demons and more comprehension of her talents. And the book ends on a positive note. "On her own," Leaming concludes, "against almost impossible personal and professional odds, she had created something brilliant and magical--`Marilyn Monroe.'" Place this in the hands of not only those readers who are nuts over Hollywood but also those who simply enjoy well-done biographies.
Brad Hooper
FromLibrary Journal
The author of a number of big biographies of big stars, e.g., Katharine Hepburn (LJ 4/1/95), Leaming digs into the scandals surrounding Monroe's life and death.
FromKirkus Reviews
A dramatic, psychologically astute biography of the troubled sex symbol and star of such classics as Some Like It Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and The Seven Year Itch. Leamings (Katharine Hepburn, 1995, etc.) research is extensive and innovatively interpreted in this unusual biography, but she is bent on telling Marilyns story in a set, idiosyncratic way. This is both the great strength and weakness of her book. As a single, authoritative account, it cannot stand: Leaming omits too many telling details. Marilyns childhood, for example, is hurried through in a handful of pages. But as a portrait of the stars conflicted, complicated nature and of those around her, this account is first-rate. Marilyn first landed in Hollywood as a ``party girl,'' a wanna-be starlet, who traded sex for possible career advancement. She had some small successes, until she cleverly promoted herself into a breakthrough role. Fame then came almost instantaneously. But Marilyn was increasingly unable to handle its demands. Making movies came to terrify her, and drugs, alcohol, and on-set acting coaches could do little to assuage her fears. The caddish, self-serving behavior of many of those around her did little to help. And her suicide at 36 is all too understandable here. Beyond her acute insights into Marilyns psyche, Leaming offers extensive acid-tipped portraits of those around her. Drama coach Lee Strasberg uses Marilyn to build up his prestige, regardless of the effects on her career or well-being. And second husband playwright Arthur Miller is a weak, self-justifying, egocentric who badly fails Marilyn. Its indicative of the eccentricity and ingenuity of this account that Millers friendship/rivalry with the director Elia Kazan (another lover of Marilyn) occupies a central narrative position. Odd, but with a touch of genius. (32 paghes b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
About Author
Barbara Leaming is the author of the New York Times best-seller Katharine Hepburn, as well as the much-acclaimed Orson Welles. She was for many years professor of theater and film at Hunter College. Her articles have appeared in Vanity Fair and The New York Times Magazine. She lives in Connecticut.
Book Dimension :
length: (cm)23.3 width:(cm)15.6
点此购买报价￥115.60
