Marilyn: An Untold Story

by Norman Rosten

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

125 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1973

About the author

American poet, playwright, and novelist.

Reviews

[J. Wootton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up hoping for insight into celebrity exploitation. The media-industrial complex (MIC) has this way of seizing upon young people, pushing them into fame, surrounding them with sycophants who make a living by grooming them for the limelight (stage, silver screen, TV, pro gossip, punditry, tabloids), and memetically reinforcing public attention on them for as long as they can bear up and profits can be made. No goose really lays golden eggs, but periodically, somebody from MIC discovers/creates someone who can play the role. "If any goose could lay golden eggs, it would be a goose like this." And the total monetary force of the public's wish-fantasy is enough to actually gild the eggs. All the while, the fledgling celebrity's real end is probably foie gras - unless he or she manages to make the exploitation mutual.

That isn't the book Norman Rosten wrote, though. He's not interested in analyzing Marilyn's career, which both of them seem to have tacitly understood as a gift with a dark underbelly. He wants to tell us about his friend, whom he misses and mourns. It's a moving memoir, necessarily mindful of the iconography and showmanship surrounding Marilyn's life as a force to be reckoned with, but much more interested in preserving her as a real person worth knowing.

There may not be a true antidote to the relentlessly inhumane behavior of the MIC, but surely the best form of resistance is friendship.

[Elaine Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poet Norman Rosten and his wife, Hedda, befriended Marilyn Monroe (or was it the other way around?) the last seven years of her life. In fact, as time went on she considered them to be her "best friends." And it seems like they were. She met them when, after her divorce from Joe DiMaggio, she moved to New York to study the Stanislavski method of acting with the famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. And it was then also that she renewed what had been a brief acquaintance in Hollywood with her future husband, playwright Arthur Miller.

Many biographies and memoirs have now been written about one of the most photogenic of Filmdom's actresses, but this one is special because it was not written by a show business personality, one of Ms. Monroe's ex-lovers or husbands or professional ghost writers for the stars. Norman Rosten and his wife were neighbors of mine in Brooklyn Heights where they met Marilyn (spending a whole day and evening with her not realizing she was the Marilyn Monroe. Sans makeup, wearing a full raincoat, she looked like any other harried New Yorker. And when they were introduced, she mumbled her name, pronouncing her first name only). Norman Rosten was a highly respected poet, and I would find his account of their friendship trustworthy.

One caveat, however, is that nowhere in the book is it mentioned that the author and Arthur Miller knew each other prior to the two couples getting together to socialize. They were fellow students at Michigan State when they were younger, a fact which may have influenced Rosten to go soft on or not even mention that which he would otherwise have contributed.

A series of vignettes told in the main in chronological order, this memoir is not long, a brief 125 pages, and I read it in one sitting, rare for me as I am not a fast reader. But it does hold one's attention, like glue to wood, throughout the whole reading. It never gets dull.

It is certainly a disturbing book. I had trouble sleeping after reading it, and when I finally fell asleep I had bad dreams, waking up not refreshed at all. Especially the last part of her life, reading about her swift decline, was not easy emotionally to take in.

A comprehensively rounded depiction of Ms. Monroe is given in this book: her intelligence is far underrated, she was not just a sweet, lost child (though certainly that was part of her), but she had definite opinions, was good at "putting her foot down," and she had a temper, just like everyone else. She was very close to her pets (in New York consisting of a cat, a dog and a parakeet); one wonders what happened to them after her divorce from Arthur Miller as her new home back in LA seemed to be pet-less. I found her giving her dog a tablespoon of straight scotch, with the author's assistance, because the dog seemed unhappy and she wanted to cheer him up, quite disturbing. Since they were at a party she gave, the cause of this poor judgment in the crossing of a taboo might be attributed, in both their cases, to alcohol which was pouring freely.

Following her divorce from Arthur Miller after five years of marriage in 1961, Marilyn Monroe catapulted more and more downhill. And I really have a bone to pick with her last LA analyst. He could have saved her life by having her committed for a time in a mental sanitarium (as Arthur Miller previously had done—she had attempted suicide many times before), but he didn't. Now the author was acquainted with her analyst, who explained that his treatment plan for Ms. Monroe was very unorthodox. He did not just see her at his office for sessions; he invited her to become a part of his family, thinking that she needed the emotional food she had missed in her extremely underprivileged childhood growing up in foster homes. She was a frequent guest at his home, dropping in whenever she pleased, and I have to wonder about this: Surely she was paying the usual hefty fee for their private sessions. But what about the time she spent on those family visits? Was she being charged also for them as therapy time?

Shortly before her death, the author and Ms. Monroe dropped by her analyst's home because she wanted to show him a bronze copy of a Rodin she had just purchased. She was heavily drugged, and kept repeating over and over again: "Do you like it? Do you really like it?" in strident tones. The author states: "The truth was—it struck me with a sudden force—she was falling apart."

That was when it was time to take action. And nobody did. She called the author, who had returned to NYC, a day before her death, saying she was coming briefly to New York. Ms. Monroe: "We'll have a great time, we have to start living, right?" The author believes undoubtedly she committed suicide, as he and his wife had witnessed her attempts before.

The book is a bit choppy and doesn't seem to have a steady flow. Also, the author skirts over revealing details of intimacies Ms. Monroe had, even denying her friendship with the Kennedys was anything more (again, this may be due to his longtime friendship with Arthur Miller and his desire to be tactful). Much of Norman Rosten's poetry is contained in the book, as well as that of Ms. Monroe. He states she was an amateur poet, as she had no knowledge of the craft. He was well-known in New York and a professional. Funny though, I like her poetry much better. It has more spontaneity and originality. Had she concentrated on that alone, she could have made a career of it.

I left my home of green rough wood,
A blue velvet couch.
I dream till now
A shiny dark bush
Just left of the door.

Down the walk
Clickity clack
As my doll in her carriage
Went over the cracks—
We'll go far away.

Don't cry my doll
Don't cry
I hold you and rock you to sleep
Hush hush I'm pretending now
I'm not your mother who died.

Help Help
Help I feel life coming closer
When all I want is to die.

    ~Marilyn Monroe

[Hannele · Rating 4 out of 5]

A touching memoir of Marilyn Monroe written by a person who was close to her. Written like only a poet can write eloquently and respecting and longing for his lost friend. One of the best memoirs written of Marilyn Monroe. A small but haunting oeuvre.

[Priscilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short but sweet intimate portrait of Marilyn from her close friend and poet Norman Rosten, who was introduced to her by photographer Sam Shaw in 1955, when she came to New York one memorable rainy afternoon. Rosten is also friend to Arthur Miller and was there when she and Miller got together.

Rosten captures the dual-sided nature of her alluring and larger than life Marilyn persona which she could turn on when she needed to, and which could also put her in real mortal danger. As Rosten describes the crowds that would descend on her and almost drowned one time on a day trip to the beach. Contrasting this with her ingrained insecurities, her harsh self-criticisms, mood swings (which most later biographers attribute to bipolar or BPD, I think Rosten says bipolar, but which I also see as being part of her autistic/ADHD temperament and CPTSD) desperation for love and validation.

He also portrays a woman who was able to articulate her feelings through writing and simple but affecting poetry, able to connect wonderfully with children and animals- the most funny scene in the book being when Rosten and Marilyn try to cheer up her forever characteristically doleful looking Bassett hound Hugo with a tot of whisky (who proceeds to dart. out from underneath the table and do a little spin), and when Marilyn is endearingly concerned that Hugo has hurt his genitals on rocks out walking due to his low carriage.

He also portrays Marilyn as someone who despite being able to express her emotions and put those emotions into characters, who could analyse and appreciate art with great sensitivity (Rosten talks about her fascination with the Rodin sculptures in The Met, where she remained for over an hour). And as someone who could stand up for herself and her forthright political opinions on civil rights etc.,she was still Rosten notes, ultimately unable to overcome those feelings of loneliness, inadequacy and rejection from her failed marriages, and her career.

Which as Rosten (and many other biographies have noted) indicates was not going in the direction she wanted, she still wasn't getting the serious film roles she wanted till Miller wrote 1961'sThe Misfits for her - which then became a hugely physical and emotional strain to do. Being as it was a painfully accurate portrait of her dying marriage to Arthur Miller, as Rosten notes and given her drug dependencies and the heat of the Nevada desert where it was set.

He also shows her very human streak of vindictiveness and defensiveness in anyone who showed signs of rejecting or invalidating her, becoming sullen and unresponsive, after Lawrence Olivier talked down to her on the set of The Prince and The Showgirl. Demanding many changes to Miller's draft of The Misfits and being open about her low opinion of her character and her dialogue to a disgruntled Miller, and trying unsuccessfully to get a reluctant Rosten to side with her.

I believe he is wrong about his conclusion of suicide -I believe as per Donald Spoto's evidenced conclusions, that it was an accidental overdose caused by a temporary substitute doctor prescribing her a drug that was deadly when mixed with a previous drug her regular psychiatrist Ralph Greenson had prescribed. Rosten also gets far too quickly charmed and seduced by Greenson and his unorthodox and totally inappropriate methods of introducing Marilyn into the family home.

Not seeing that her utter dependence on him and how he tried (successfully for the most part,
- how different things could've been if she'd actually followed through on her plans to stop seeing him) to make himself indispensable to her due to his unhealthy obsession with her, was initself deeply troubling and toxic and was what ultimately abd inadvertently led to her tragic end.

Methinks he also reads too much into possible signs of suicidal ideation after the fact of her death which he didn't see at the time, as a way to make sense of what happened. But apart from this it's a charming, poignant and insightful brief snapshot into Marilyn sadly all too brief and painful but exhilarating and fascinating life. Highly recommend this is read alongside Donald Spoto's excellent, well-researched biography for a fuller picture.

[Niki · Rating 4 out of 5]

AS this was a gift, i read the book in french (unfortunately ?), but don't look a gift horse in the mouth -
this is truly a very nice gift, it's one of the nicest book i have read about marilyn monroe, and i read a few which seemed only oriented on her sex life - mr rosten being a poet went over that image, and discovered a truly nice person, a gifted person, who wrote poetry, and had a great sense of humour -
of course he did not toned down her depressive moods, neither her obvious problems with time and space -
but really thank you mr norman rosten for this book

[Monty Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

1st Print September 1973

A brief testimony and witness to a remarkable human being in the prose of Norman Rosten, as only he could have conveyed.

Touching and humanely descriptions of events, persons and poems of the stars life from external locus.

[Sharknado Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book! I read it in one day. I have learnt things about Marilyn that I didn't know before like the fact that she wrote poems! RIP forever my angel

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful recollection of Marilyn. It gives an honest insight on who she was, and it is divine.

[Bailey Fields · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting it was very hard to put down, I found out so many things I had no idea the things Marilyn went through in her life. She was very deep, intelligent, and had a dark side that not that many knew about. Marriages that didn't work out and something in her wouldn't allow her to have a baby even though she was very motherly she was really sad she couldn't do the one thing that women are on this earth for, so she said. She was always wanting to party and have fun. She drank champagne and did eventually start taking sleeping pills,in the same evening. She loved painting and poems they just caught her attention like no other. Her mother was going through being crazy. She made sure she would never be like that. Ever. Soon she began taking pill after pill, after pill. They soon thought she would need hospitalization. She always wanted to keep working on movies but going through the lost of her baby due to a miscarriage and a divorce she stop for a while til she got better and she did, eventually. She lost contact with people and just stayed in. When she finally started doing movies again that light that had always been in her eyes was burning out but she would always still be trying to do something fun. She hated being alone. The author Norman Rosten had made a deal with Norma Jean (Marilyn) that if they ever thought of ending there own life they would call each other like a call for help. She called the day before her death she sounded low and talked about the future and how she couldn't wait to hangout in the next couple months with Norman and his wife, but the author wasn't quit sure if this was the call for help. The next day early in the morning they found her shirtless, lifeless, body. Things still will never be answered but Miss. Norma Jean will and forever be a legend !

[Ed]

book is highly recommended. I have NOT YET OBTAINED A COPY