Review
THE MANY LIVES OF MARILYN MONROE
by Sarah Churchwell
Raincoast Books, 384 pp.
There’s an old saying that goes something like, "If you own a clock, you always know the time; if you own two, you’re never sure."
The cautious reader should keep this in mind while absorbing The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, because author Sarah Churchwell presents and analyzes a substantial number of other people’s takes on the famous movie star and sex goddess. A typical biography would be much less contradictory.
But Churchwell has produced an engrossing, entertaining book. It probably says far more about mass media than about the legendary blonde whose unparalleled appeal remains undiminished 42 years after her death at age 36 (alone, on a Saturday night, noted Clare Booth Luce, when you’d think a woman who sexually excited millions of males would have had a date).
Under such headings as "Producing the Image," "Producing the Life," "The Naked Truth" and "Femme Fatale," Churchwell organizes her story about the Marilyn myth in a way that is more scholarly than sensational – backing her criticisms and analyses of biographers with persuasive evidence and an air of authority. After quoting Lucy Freeman’s Why Norma Jean Killed Marilyn Monroe: A Psychological Portrait – which contended Monroe was obsessed with sex – she says, "Freeman’s account is the most egregious example of the apocrypha’s tendency to explain Monroe by means of literalism…" and sums up Freeman’s biography as a "mishmash of watered-down psychology."
Churchwell isn’t universally dismissive, however. She gives some weight to fiction written by Arthur Miller, one of Monroe’s husbands, in which she emerges in the form of imaginary characters – composites, for sure, but with the actress’s blend of innocence and worldliness.
Many Lives inevitably leads to Monroe’s mysterious death, and to the enduring speculation about the Kennedy brothers’ possible connections to her apparent drug overdose. One version has her committing suicide because Bobby Kennedy had rejected her.
Again, we are left with more questions than answers with respect to Monroe, but still with a strong sense of how superficially the world has treated her. She pined for love and offed herself when she couldn’t have it, according to the stereotype.
One thing is clear at the end of Churchwell’s story: Monroe was rarely given enough credit for her talent, achievement and intelligence. She also had a sharp wit. "Monroe," goes one passage, "was asked by a reporter after her divorce from Miller whether she believed that Miller had sought her out in the first place as some sort of real-life muse, because he had ‘come to an end in his writing’ (having not published anything successfully for several years). Monroe told the reporter that if she answered, he would need to print her answer in its entirety. He agreed, and after a pause, she said, ‘No comment.’"
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