On Marilyn Monroe: An Opinionated Guide

Looking beyond the ballyhoo and legends surrounding Marilyn Monroe, this informative study and perceptive critical assessment gives this brilliant performer the attention she desired—that of an artist whose work deserves both examination and celebration.
"She was born nearly a century ago and has been gone for well over half that time. The body of work she left behind is of limited size and, in some cases, debatable quality. The environment in which she thrived, popular entertainment in the 1950s, is a distant memory, if that. Those are indisputable facts. Why is it, then, that they seem so immaterial? How is it that the phenomenon continues unabated, that the iconography and mythology only seem to increase? Why all the interest and speculation and merchandising, and why all the documentaries and miniseries about her? Plus, to cut a little closer, all those shelves of books? With Marilyn Monroe, there is never one single answer. To start with one of the most obvious: some of it has to do with the elementof tragedy, the special kind that crashes in when a life of magnetic achievement and renown is cut short with miserable suddenness. Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc, Byron and Keats, Valentino, Hank Williams, James Dean, the Kennedys, Malcolm X, Dr. King, Joplin and Hendrix and Morrison, Elvis, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson. How natural to mourn, how easy to speculate on what could have been. Monroe offers unusually ripe territory for this, with her blatant, rapid-fire explosion into the world's consciousness, the tumult and visibility of her private and professional paths, and the sharply cut-off way she died, overlaid with just enough ambiguity to cause some people to wonder about the circumstances. From there, eventually and alas, to an unseemly franchise based on conjecture about that death, with most of the ruminations drenched in paranoia and personal agendas"--
Marilyn Monroe has been gone for over sixty years, and yet people are still talking about her. What, exactly, is the spell she casts on so many? Stunning, exciting to watch, incredibly famous, Monroe lived a very public life and died young, with a sad suddenness. All of this is true, and yet there is so much more to her story. On Marilyn Monroe: An Opinionated Guide looks past the sensation to the real legacy--her richly varied body of work. Both during her life and following her death, Monroe was dismissed as more of a phenomenon than an actor, often an object of ridicule instead of a performer whose work could be taken seriously. Even when films such as The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot saw immense success, Monroe seldom got her due as the inventive and accomplished performer she was. The truth that lay behind the dazzling surface was that she was one of the hardest working of actors. Rigorously applying both skillful technique and an inherent charisma, she was able to create truly unforgettable performances. In this lively guide, Richard Barrios looks beyond the ballyhoo and legend at Monroe's best-known films, and some that even today remain obscure. Besides her films, it also addresses the work she did on television and the stage, as well as her underrated abilities as a vocalist. Both an informative study and a perceptive critical assessment, On Marilyn Monroe: An Opinionated Guide gives this brilliant performer the attention she desired--that of an artist whose work deserves both examination and celebration.