MM — Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe by Lois Banner, Abrams, $55.
It’s hard to believe there’s anything new left to see or read about Marilyn Monroe, but this slickly presented hardback tome promises to lift the veil on the private Marilyn.
While it may not do that exactly, what author Lois Banner does achieve is telling if slightly voyeuristic insight into the blonde bombshell’s world through the mundane — but sometimes fascinating scraps of her life stored in two private filing cabinets.
The files contained some 5000 documents — from telegrams to bills, financial records and personal notes. The most interesting are letters from Marilyn to the children and parents of her husband Arthur Miller, one giving an account of the first time she met Robert Kennedy: “He isn’t a bad dancer,” she wrote.
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