Marilyn: The Last Take

by Peter Harry Brown, Patte B. Barnham

A revealing new account of Marylin's last days portrays the actress as a woman at the peak of career who was destroyed by a series of conspiracies hatched in Hollywood and the White House. 150,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Historical, Americana, Media Tie In, Biography Memoir

384 pages, Hardcover

First published July 27, 1992

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a reread!

This is one of my favorite books of ALL TIME!!!!

Marilyn: The Last Take is about the last 4 months of Marilyn Monroe's life. It was a very action packed few months. Marilyn bought a new house, started work on a new movie, got fired from that movie, gave a legendary performance of Happy Birthday, (allegedly) had relationships with John & Bobby Kennedy and Frank Sinatra. Also during this time her mental health continued to deteriorate.

The book makes the case that Marilyn was murdered by The Kennedy's with help from the Mafia? the CIA? Marilyn's movie studio? her friends?

Basically everyone Marilyn ever knew was in on the cover up of her murder.

I don't think Marilyn Monroe was murdered. I don't think she intentionally killed herself either. I think she was in the grips of a nasty and vicious drug addiction and she overdosed.

So why is this one of my favorite books, if I don't believe anything in it?

Because this book is sooo entertaining. I love a good conspiracy theory. And this book is one of the best written Marilyn Monroe was killed by the Kennedy's conspiracy theories.

I've read this book probably 4 or 5x and each time I love it more.

If you like shows like Ancient Aliens or movies like National Treasure?

Than you'll probably like this book too!

[Shaun · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm a failure as a woman," she said. "My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me--and that I've made of myself--as a sex symbol. They expect so much, and I can't live up to it. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it."

I think to many, Marilyn Monroe still epitomizes female sexuality and sensuality and for good reason. How ironic then that a woman no man could resist found herself jilted time and time again by the men in her life who often saw her as nothing more than perfectly proportioned curves and platinum blonde hair. And once they caught her, many were content to let her go, even when she didn't want to be let go...which is rather sad when you think about it.

Overall, this was quite good, a page turner for sure. Though I'm not sure it solves the mystery of Marilyn's death, it does do a thorough job of describing those last few tumultuous months as well as providing a context for her tragic end at a mere thirty-six years of age.

I particularly enjoyed the sneak peek into Hollywood at that time, from the widespread abuse of uppers/downers to complex and dirty studio politics. This was certainly more than I bargained for in a good way.

[Rachelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most informative books about the accounts of Marilyn Monroe's final days I have read. The authors made sure to do their research and homework before publishing this book. They have the proof and contacts to back up the statements they make throughout the book and it's very detailed. I recommend this book to anyone interested in finding out more information about Marilyn's final months leading up to her death and the proceeding days.

[C.S. Burrough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Regardless of its seeming irrelevance in the fifty year blizzard of Marilyn biographies, I was unable to put down this curled and yellowed artifice, lent to me by a diehard fan, complete with pressed and mummified cockroach legs. So many Marilyn pieces are unreadable pulp non-fiction. This one earned its place in that handful of standout efforts.

Easy flowing, unpretentious yet thoroughly slick, the quality of workmanship held me throughout. Whilst lacking the glitzy hallmarks of more iconic, full-life biographies, this steers clear of popular Monroe mythology, sticking solidly to documented facts concerning only that contentious period imminent to her death.

So much was ado in 1962, as Marilyn, 20th Century Fox's most bankable star of the 1950s, commenced that studio's ill-fated Something's Got to Give, an updated remake of screwball comedy My Favorite Wife (1940). We read how, for months, she was insidiously undermined, goaded on-set, bullied by proxy, misrepresented by studio and media alike, defamed to the point of despair (and that was only her work life, without even starting on her personal life).

This vicious campaign of intimidation was spearheaded by ageing, drug-addled, acid-tongued director George Cuckor, aided by his buddies higher up the studio ladder. What's more, the film's already insultingly flimsy budget was being further siphoned away to cover that farcically expensive Burton-Taylor debacle, Cleopatra, which the ailing studio hoped would save it.

The effects of Cuckor's malicious vendetta on this, Marilyn's final movie, were compounded by a throng of Hollywood gossip columnists led by notorious Hedda Hopper and her arch rival Louella Parsons. Fox's publicists also played a perversely pivotal role in wrecking her morale, as did the White House fraternity and its undercover henchmen, shielding the cracking image of a president at a critical time in his leadership.

In production reports and press releases, Monroe's genuine health issues were passed off as the temperamental play-ups of an unreliable diva. An underlying will to be rid of her simmered from office to office, coast to coast, awaiting some opportune moment. This involved studio heads and backers on one side and more sinister, undercover forces on the other, moving to prevent her affairs with President John F Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Bobby, becoming publicly confirmed (or, better still, to end them).

Before Something's Got to Give's shooting commenced, Monroe had notified producer Henry Weinstein that she had been asked by the White House to sing at President Kennedy's Madison Square Garden birthday honours on May 19, 1962. Weinstein had granted her permission, believing it would not hinder production. JFK had even personally assured her he would pull any necessary strings to prevent her Madison Square Garden appearance causing any contractual conflict with Fox.

Yet soon after the event her romantic and professional tide turned. Kennedy suddenly disowned her and Marilyn was publicly fired, amidst widely publicized plans to replace her with Lee Remick who was fitted into Monroe's costumes and photographed with Cuckor. This was to backfire, with her fans up in arms and her select remaining handful of powerful industry allies resolute about saving her.

Similarly, co-star Dean Martin, with final approval of his leading lady, loyally refused to continue without Monroe. After an extended stalemate and a personally engineered campaign aimed at her furious fans, Marilyn was reinstated under new terms and conditions with public popularity on her side.

Her detractors became more peeved than ever. She had, infuriatingly, triumphed once more, in yet another battle of Hollywood egos.

Awaiting resumption of the troublesome shoot, she had never been healthier or happier.

In the damage control wake of her 'Happy birthday, Mr President' appearance, amidst the prelude to an important by-election, Monroe was callously cut-off and ostracized by both Kennedy brothers and their phalange of bureaucrats and relatives. Politically vulnerable and under the supervision of political spin doctors and their ruthless father, each Kennedy brother changed his direct telephone number and refused to take her calls, offering Marilyn no explanation or farewell, resulting in the easily derailed star, with her lifelong abandonment issues, feeling used and discarded.

Yet now, no longer a forgotten orphan, or an impoverished starlet, but a legend at the peak of her stardom, she had the guidance, support and encouragement of therapists, minions and mentors; along with her money and fame.

Heartbroken yet more determined than ever before to fight back at life and re-empower herself, she planned a press conference to end all press conferences - one that would have blown the lid off the Kennedy administration and embarrassed its tentacular web of connections which, unsurprisingly, extended to entertainment kingpins, studio heads and financiers.

Having correctly assumed her house was being bugged, many of her calls pertaining to this messy strategy were made from roadside pay phones. But written notes on her planned press conference were kept at hand, along with intimately detailed diaries pertaining to the Kennedy affairs.

The rest, as we know, is history. She was suddenly found dead, tagged with the 'accidental suicide' label in a bungled post-mortem case that never concluded but saw scandalous levels of sensitive information swept under carpets and left there for decades. Her house, the scene of unidentified comers-and-goers in the still of that fatal night, was cleared before investigation teams even arrived at her death scene, those highly sensitive press conference plans vanishing along with her revealing diaries. As if working in with all this, publicity machines covered-up as much as they could by elaborating on her mental health problems and self-medication habits, emphasising the likelihood of suicide.

Monroe's autopsy, conducted August 5 by deputy coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, was pointedly clouded by the inexplicable disappearance of key liver and kidney tissue samples that would have proved she could never have self-administered the quantity of drugs that killed her.

For years, classified government files on her demise were kept tightly locked away, as were endless reels of Something's Got to Give footage showing she was never in better form, far from how the studio and its Washington connections would have had the world believe she had been in her final fourteen weeks on earth.

This book is no cheap conspiracy yarn, but a well documented account of Marilyn Monroe's final months. A comprehensive lowdown on the contributing parties standing to benefit from the melee of cover-ups surrounding her premature and unresolved end.

Despite my sneezes with each crumbling page, it was well worth the tissues. An excellent read.

[Heather V ~The Other Heather~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never expected to come out of a book feeling remotely sorry for the weasel otherwise known as Peter Lawford, but...well, there it is. This book is full of surprises, the portrait of Lawford among the least significant. What's really mind-blowing is how exhaustive the research is between these covers, and how disturbingly persuasive the case is for believing that Marilyn Monroe did not die by her own hand - intentionally or accidentally - that August night half a century ago.



Long review ahoy. Hey, it was a long book. And it was really bloody good.


I went into this feeling curious, obviously - why read it if I wasn't? - but I have always felt like the most probable chain of events leading to Monroe's death were of her own making. That she'd either miscalculated the incredible amount of meds and booze and it had finally taken its toll, or she'd decided to give in to what she seemed to believe was her destiny and end it all while she was still young and beautiful. I didn't really put a lot of stock in the idea that her death was engineered in any way; I figured it was just an inevitability, a tragic event that could've been avoided or delayed, but it wasn't.


I don't buy that at all anymore.


This is the first of any sort of biography I've read about Marilyn. I own other books about her, but they're more the sort that are filled with gorgeous photographs of a glowing Hollywood star interspersed with quotations from her meant to give us some insight into her inner self, while admiring the external. I'm glad this was the first, too; I don't know how interested I'd be in wading through nearly 500 pages about her early life and her start as an actress. [ Side note: I realize Goodreads has this listed as being 300-some-odd pages long, but the hardcover edition I just read was in fact 498 pages in length. Even the source notes, which are written in such a way that they're very much a part of the book and not like a list of citations, don't start until page 437 and they then run until 470. They are, in my opinion, an integral part of the story. In other words, I have no idea why (or how) there's a ~300 page version out there, but I'd encourage anyone who's genuinely interested in digging right into the massive clusterf*ck that was Marilyn's life in the final few months to seek out the long version and read every last word. ]





What we get here is a painstakingly researched and written account of what were to be Monroe's final weeks, and it is fascinating. The level of detail in recounting everything that happened while she was ill and trying to film Something's Got to Give under a director who hated her guts (that would be George Cukor) is staggering. And then we get into the really astonishing stuff: her relationships with the Kennedys. Yes, both of them.



The stories about everything that was said and done, all of the meetings and trysts that were witnessed or outright recorded by private investigators (a slimeball named Fred Otash was responsible for bugging the phones and the rooms in every place he could access, including Peter and Pat Kennedy Lawford's house in California and Marilyn's house itself), are so well sourced I don't know how anyone could read this book and come away still being unsure of what happened to Monroe. For all of their power and notoriety - and I mean both Marilyn and the Kennedy brothers - they sure as hell didn't know a damn thing about being discreet. Everyone from hairstylists to housekeepers to random neighbours knew about the affairs, and the stuff they overheard and discussed with Brown in the creation of this behemoth will leave you with your mouth hanging open.


Poor Marilyn.


Fun facts (which I will actually put behind spoiler tags, bizarre as that is, because you may want to read how it unfolds on your own):


Did you know...

...that Eunice Murray, Marilyn's "faithful housekeeper," was in fact a psychiatric nurse deliberately installed in Monroe's house (unbeknownst to the star) by her own incredibly unethical therapist, Dr. Ralph Greenson?

...that Marilyn kept thorough notes on things that she discussed with both JFK and RFK, only because Bobby had made a snide remark once about how she needed to "keep up" with their conversations? (The things with which she chose to fill her spiral notebooks, however, were really dangerous: details about the Bay of Pigs, plans to knock off Castro, names and incidents involving major Mafia players, etc. ...which explains why said notebooks were found burned to ash in her fireplace long before any medics were called the night she died.) A quote from the book (p403):

It was Bobby Kennedy's fault that Monroe kept these small steno pads handy. He had berated her at one party for her failure to remember things he had told her. "How can we carry on a conversation about current events if you can't remember the details?" he asked, according to [his brother-in-law] Peter Lawford.

...that her death happened as early as 11 p.m. that fateful night, but because so many people (Murray, Greenson, two Secret Service agents and a whole host of other interlopers) were called in to "clean things up" it was something like five full hours before anyone summoned the police or an ambulance?

...that Bobby Kennedy, who maintained he wasn't anywhere near California when Marilyn overdosed, was seen by many witnesses to be taking off in his private helicopter at the Lawford residence at the same time that Eunice Murray allegedly found Marilyn dead? (And instead of calling 911 she called Greenson! What the actual hell...!?)

...that the seasoned police chief who was the first to respond to the scene when someone finally bothered to call the cops to the house spent his entire life telling everyone who would listen that he didn't for one second believe what he was seeing was anything other than a homicide?

...that Dr. Noguchi, the famed coroner who performed Marilyn's autopsy, made some absolutely epic mistakes during his examination of her body - like saying he didn't find any needle marks that would indicate she'd been injected to cause her overdose, but she actually had at least two needle marks on her torso from legitimate shots she'd gotten from her doctors only a day before she died - but then any chance he had to find out more was halted when the lab (by someone's orders) immediately disposed of all tissue samples he'd sent out for toxicology before he could even glance at them?


Those are just a few of the things you'll boggle over while reading this book. There's more. Much, much more. It is some seriously freaky shit.


Have a gander at this particularly chilling passage (p402-403 in the hardcover edition I own):

A top executive at Twentieth Century Fox , who insisted on anonymity, asked a later U.S Attorney General, under a Republican administration, if such a murder [that of Monroe] could possibly be engineered by government agents.

"You're naive," this Attorney General said, "All the President or Attorney General has to do is insinuate his displeasure with somebody, and then somebody else picks it up and does it. The political world is built around that sort of thing, That's the kind of power that really, truly exists." The Fox executive looked at his host with a shocked expression. The man smiled. "Well, you're the one who asked."

"I haven't felt completely safe since that time," said the executive.

And then this, on the same page:

Former Police Chief Reddin said, "If you've been intimate with the President and the Attorney General of the United States, as Monroe was, and if you have overheard high-level, sometimes top secret, conversations - learning things you shouldn't know - what else do you need to be perceived as a danger?"

Reddin was asked whether Monroe could have been in worse danger because of the stenographer's notebooks she kept of JFK and RFK's conversations.

"Absolutely," Reddin said. "She absolutely could have been in terrible danger."

Genuinely compelling stuff. Brown's book feels oddly free of what many would call "conspiracy theories" and instead sticks to eyewitness accounts and endless interviews with the people who were closest to Marilyn in the months when her life was coming to a close. A lot of it is truly shocking.


If you're wondering why I didn't award this five stars, given all of my gushing, I'll explain: There are several chapters sandwiched into the book about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and the disastrous shoot for Cleopatra, which was taking place at the same time Marilyn was trying to finish filming Something's Got to Give. While I understand the necessity of including some information about it - the money being lost hand over fist on Taylor's film had a very direct and detrimental effect on Marilyn's own project - I found myself skimming those bits in order to get back to the breathtaking stuff that was all about Monroe and the people in her inner circle. Sure, finding out for certain that Taylor was just as hooked on pills as (and more hooked on booze than) Marilyn and the details surrounding her raging addiction and terrible behaviour were interesting tidbits, but devoting multiple chapters to her just felt like an unnecessary distraction. Fans of Old Hollywood would probably disagree and would love those glimpses into what else was going on in 1962 Tinseltown (particularly the hardcore studio politics and nastiness). For me it detracted from the book and jerked me out of it. But that's entirely subjective. (As is everything about a book review, I suppose!)


While I'm still left convinced that, had her death not happened the way it did, she almost certainly would have either accidentally died by being careless with her hoard of drugs or despair would have eventually driven her to take her own life...it surprises me how deeply sad I am after reading all of this, wondering what could have been, and wondering if maybe someone could have saved her from herself. Wouldn't it have been something if she'd grown old and finally given us the performances she was so desperate to achieve in her short life?


Clearly that wasn't meant to be.


Even if you're not a Monroe fan, I'd recommend this tome. It's got everything great fiction so often desperately needs: beautiful people, sex, drugs, political intrigue and, ultimately, tragedy. All of this is made a thousand times more gripping because it's not fiction. (Also, I give you some recommended viewing, as it's currently on YouTube: MARILYN: SAY GOODBYE TO THE PRESIDENT , a BBC documentary from 1985. It's riveting.)


I know I already said it, but since the story of this icon's demise broke my heart with every turn of the page, I'll say it again:


Poor Marilyn.

[Graceann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book concentrates on the filming of Marilyn's never-completed final film, "Something's Got to Give," and sheds new light on what, at first glance, might have been an old story. Studio politics, the budget over-runs of Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton "Cleopatra," and changing times all played a role during that fateful summer, and things are not at all what they seemed at the time. Fascinating reading.

[Jesika · Rating 4 out of 5]

She was MURDERED! Any fan of Marilyn MUST read this book!!!!!!!!!

[Elizabeth Roberts-Zibbel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to bail on this book. I’ve read probably around 20 Marilyn bios, and this one was too much about the studios and I knew I’d be bored.

Marilyn biographers generally fall into 2 camps. One tends to be cautious, dismissive and / or condescending, say she accidentally overdosed (most don’t think suicide anymore), had a one night stand with JFK only (not Bobby), Bob Slatzer (controversial average guy from Ohio) never knew her and was just a crazed fan, she used sex to get ahead, that she was difficult to work with and / or completely addled by drugs and mental illness. The other type is way more fun. Heavy with the implication of finally revealing everything “for the first time!” these usually emphasize Marilyn’s wily intelligence, abuse as a child, possible dissociation to become Marilyn, that she was taken advantage of by studio heads and her husbands and acting coaches, that Bob Slatzer was her best friend and lover, that she secretly was a lesbian, that she had endometriosis which made sex painful, that she had long Kennedy affairs where “they passed her around like a piece of meat,” that there were lots of tapes made from bugs in her home and a missing red diary containing government secrets she was planning to reveal. She was murdered by the Kennedys, by the mafia, by the CIA, by her psychiatrist. The most compelling narrative for me is that Bobby had her killed, and like good liberals, the people around her conspired to cover it up to protect the Kennedys (like Dr Greenson and Eunice Murray who supposedly had ties to communism).

This bio was definitely in the latter camp which is why I brought it home from the library, but for me it focused too much on the business / studio aspect so I decided to not bother. I think for someone more interested in movie studio history, or someone newer to MM narratives, it would be a super fun read.

[A.M. Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book when it first came out. Even the cover was striking for Marilyn was a beautiful woman. This book was well researched and had a lot of good information. I still don't know if she was murdered in the way it was speculated here; with a lethal injection. But anything is possible. I do think she accidentally overdosed perhaps and everyone around her allowed her to quietly perish including Robert Kennedy who was said to have visited her that day. I guess that would be murder. Whatever it was her housekeeper, and publicist Pat Newcombe were indeed hiding something. I recommend this book and the softcover which revealed a lot more. Long live Marilyn Monroe! There is still no one like her!

A.M Torres Author of Love Child.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book about Marilyn Monroe I ever read, and I suppose it can be considered the nascence of my fascination with her, which led me to buy many other books about her essentially until it seemed there were no more to buy. This book is specifically about the last few months of her life and is both sympathetic and indicting. Even if you don't care a whit about her, there's interesting coverage of the way studios were run at that time and what was going on in the country politically. Plus, she sure was pretty.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book only covers the last couple of years of Marilyn's life and focuses mainly on the background of the film "Something's Got to Give". It also doubles as an account of "Cleopatra" which had an active role in the fate of "Something's Got to Give". This is actually one of the better biographies of Marilyn Monroe I've read, even though it's a partial bio. Author thinks Marilyn was murdered (most likely by JFK & RFK).

[Mark Dickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scandalous. Emotional. Conspiratorial.

This was pretty much everything that I wanted it to be and provides an apt coverage of both the highlights and last few months of Monroe’s life.

I initially scored this a 3*, but on contemplation it was a perfect example of what it was trying to be and I can’t fault it.

Excuse me while I now go and watch her entire library of movies.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely interesting and pretty well written. I was expecting a trashy, sensational take on the "mystery" of Marilyn's death, but it's not a "Star Magazine" type book.

[Esteban del Mal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit, as a 20-ish year-old young man, I was drawn to this book by the cover. It has collected a lot of dust since those happy days.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the better books I have read on Marilyn. It was well written and very factual. It was very informative and covered the period of her troubles with Fox honestly and without bias.

[Raven Easter · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's about the last months of her life; it's very fitting that she died during the making of a film called "Something's Gotta Give." Perhaps even more fitting that the director of said film also directed the film "Gaslight." Sometimes life seems almost too metaphorical not to be fiction.

Not something I would typically choose, but despite an extremely hectic and stressful week, I haven't wanted to put it down. I've been an avid reader my entire life until many things messed with my focus the past few years; but this book has been the one to finally break that curse. I wasn't expecting that. But I would highly recommend this book to anyone. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and feel I gained a lot from the experience.

I bought it at a quaint little used bookstore over a decade ago and never touched it until I pulled it off a dusty storage shelf last week. I just wasn't ready for it before now; I was a different person then. I've never known much of anything about Monroe, but my instincts told me to take this book off the shelf.

I put off Tortilla Flat for this book...Steinbeck is my favorite.

The research is thorough and well-sourced, and the narrative riveting. I do not believe it to be biased. The authors don't paint a picture of Marilyn as flawless or innocent in the least. Quite the opposite--according to this biography, she had flaws I can relate to all too well as a woman. She made some terrible choices and did some morally disgusting things, even. But this only humanizes her more and, in my opinion, makes her more relatable and naturally sympathetic. Maybe that's one reason I couldn't put it down; I recognize similar tactics, like gaslighting and dehumanization, on a much different scale, obviously, in my own life. And elsewhere. Some things never change.

The authors include accounts from all sides, and use the treatment of Elizabeth Taylor and the production of "Cleopatra", which was being filmed at the same time as "Something's Gotta Give," (and by the same production company) as contrast; but this is not overdone, IMO, nor do the authors seem to be attempting to make a villain of Taylor. This is done to show what was typical and what wasn't for the industry and the times, which is a necessary part of understanding Marilyn's story.

Of course, that's only part of it. There are the Kennedys. Plural. And maybe a few crooks veiled as friends. But I don't want to spoil anything. Just read the book, trust me.

[Boni · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tale of Marilyn Monroe’s last 4 months is really a behind-the-curtain look at big Hollywood… the Business. It gets into a lot, a lot, a lot of well-researched details that used to get covered up by Studio PR machines, bought-off scandal reporters, and the ‘money men’, the execs with the real power to cast, to fire, and backed by the real industry cachet. It is enlightening to see how exaggerated LA politics rival… no, far exceed our DC politics. Studios and investments, and gambles, and star egos weave an interesting fabric that makes up the movies. And back in the 50’s, an actress standing up to the studios created incredible reputational backlash through easy character assassination. With Marilyn Monroe’s mental health and drug addictions, and presidential dalliances all in play at the same time, there is of course the extreme drama, the extreme rumors, and likely the extreme falsehoods implanted to save reputations and pocketbooks of ‘honorable’ men.

I don’t usually get too excited about Hollywood, but this is such an enticing story of Hollywood’s greatest starlet, flawed and at the same time still on the cusp of something special, until her flame extinguished with enough importance to become iconicized by Elton John many, many years later… when the world had every right to forget, but didn’t. The candle in the wind’s final breaths are assiduously played out in this comprehensive book… just a few compelling takes: the JFK romance, trysts, and running its course through its ‘usefulness’; the Liz Taylor (the Wicked Witch of Cleopatra) vs Marilyn showdown; the many MM couch casting climbs and movie star affairs with the well-hidden collateral falls (more than 4 miscarriages and maybe 7 abortions); the under-appreciated actress who welled up tears for each of the 27 takes of the opening scene of her last movie; her struggle against men for power and controlling the path of her career beyond sex kitten, yet embracing and leveraging that sexuality for all its advantage; how Fox Studios killed her career, her movie, and her fragile ego and spirit to save a buck; and how her emotional entanglement with little Bobby (and ironically his Justice Department) likely led to her sudden death…these were all news to me… and interesting news at that. Scene… and wrap.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marilyn: The Last Take is a biography on Marilyn Monroe’s last few months from April to August and specifically on the work of her last film, the uncompleted Something’s Gotta Give.

I have read many biographies on Marilyn including her own autobiography and this one was unique in that it focuses primarily on her last film. It also compares the main other film Fox was working on at the same time period, Elizabeth Taylor’s’ Cleopatra.

I always take every Marilyn biography with a grain of salt because there is so much speculation and people who knew her have changed their stories multiple times over the decades. I instead choose to focus on what is consistent among all of the biographies or I’ll Google for more information. For example, this book makes the claim that JFK paid Jackie $1 million to stay married to him, but when googling, there is no evidence to support the claim. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, there’s just no definitive proof.

However this book sites about 20 pages worth of sources so it’s clear they did their homework to the best of their abilities and much of what I fact checked is a fair assessment of what COULD have happened. I didn’t find anything that was a flat out lie.
The one thing I really didn’t like was that they spent quite a bit of time discussing how terrible Marilyn was treated by Fox, but then they made the title of the book removeable so you can see the full pool image. The images are beautiful of course, but they’re just doing what everybody else did to her by making the titles removeable.

Overall, a unique perspective, well researched and another version of the sad tale.

If you’d like to see what Something’s Gotta Give was supposed to be, watch Move Over Darling with Doris Day and James Garner. It’s the same script and same story, made one year after Marilyn’s death. There are also unused film clips of her footage on YouTube.

#bookreview #marilynmonroe #marilynthelasttake #somethingsgottagive #marilynslastmovie #deanmartin #twentiethcenturyfox #georgecukor #normajeane #biographybooks

[David Allwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marilyn Monroe remains an enigmatic figure, despite endless shelves of books about her, many focussing on her mysterious death. Some of these books are speculative, some are based on unreliable witnesses, and a few are even based on provable facts. ‘Marilyn: The Last Take’ by Peter Brown and Patte Barham, is based on a wide range of sources offering speculation to questionable witness accounts to verifiable facts. Recounting in intimate detail the final several months of the actor’s life, this is a very readable examination of a fascinating and tragic period in Marilyn’s life leading to her untimely death. Although there remain many pieces missing in the jigsaw of Marilyn’s death, this book offers as much verifiable truth as is available. However, until final irrefutable evidence emerges as to the circumstances and cause of her death, Marilyn’s life and death will remain enigmatic.

[Virginia Alice Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never seen a movie of Marilyn Monroe. But just knowing she died the same year I was born; I have always been curious about her life and what really happened to her all those years ago. This book did an outstanding job of giving its’ readers an eye view of the last few months of her life. It is bone-chilling to think that her life was cut short by a web of deceit with a cover-up in corporate Hollywood, the political realm, and even the local law enforcement. This book’s pages kept me on the edge of my seat knowing what would eventually happen, as we all know Marilyn’s fate, and still hoping that her life was not in vain. If you love mystery and intrigue, you will appreciate reading this book about Marilyn and the last take, the one that took her life.

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a sad, albeit glamorous life Marilyn lived. I believe that she did bring much of it on herself courting married men, but I'm not sure that she ever had a real friend. It seems that everyone in her inner circle was a user of some sort, and her daddy issues led to a life searching for a male, power figure to fill that spot. I don't know that I believe that her death was suicide. I've always wondered, but after reading this book, I'm even more convinced that she had 'help' finding her end. Please don't let my 3 stars dissuade you from reading this. It was a good book, full of information, but just a little slow for my taste.

[Tim Schreck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! Surprised I had not heard of this 1992 non-fiction. Not really a conspiracy theory book but a well documented history of her last few months. Ironically enough, the publishers of this book also sensationalized the sex goddess themselves with the book front/back covers. Interesting information on the film Cleopatra that was bankrupting same studio making Marylyn’s last movie at same time. I especially enjoyed the Hollywood business of the 60’s as well. Quick read, couldn’t stop reading it. Ez 4.5 Stars!

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished this and it was a very sad and angry inducing read. So many people failed this woman and I have to wonder if she had been taken more seriously and treated better if she would have lived a longer life. Sadly to this day Marilyn is still be disrespected, with the Kim K dress situation and now a movie being made about her that's including unnecessary sexual violence.

[Judge Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and detailed whodunnit, raising serious questions about the involvement of the Kennedy’s, the studio, and possibly the mafia, in her death. If believed, suicide does not appear the cause. Marilyn was one of a kind, and her tragic life, and death, serve as a shining example of the myth of Hollywood

[Dale L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched with vast amounts of detail from actual people directly involved with this tragedy at the time, you need to be very skeptical to not have strong suspicions on what happened after reading this tomb. It is easy to read and not a bit dull or lifeless, very good job by the writers all around.

[Lisa deGraffenried]

I loved this book! It felt like one of the most accurately portrayed of her last days. And it makes me cringe thinking of how idolized the Kennedys were back then and how corrupt everything surrounding her death was. I hope one day all the sealed records are released. Must read!

[Claire Biggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well researched book into the last 14 weeks of Marilyn's life, the research covers the last film she was filming and the studio, the Kennedy brothers and everything in between and covers all angles from lots of different people who were involved in her life

[Behrooz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting.

[David Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way too many people in this book to keep track of. The bottom line is we will never really know what happened.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have rated it higher if the authors hadn't jumped to conclusions that couldn't be proven and contradicted themselves in several places. Otherwise a good read.