The Secret Lives of Marilyn

The life of Norma Jeane Mortenson , aka Marilyn Monroe , sadly closed on an August day sixty years ago. It all ended in a suicide or in a reckless abuse of drugs , even if there is no lack of those who talk about murder for an actress who had dangerous habits, such as sharing a bed with the then president of the United States John Kennedy.

On that August day in 1962 the myth of Marilyn did not die, a myth that had accompanied her in her career as an actress and absolute protagonist of the star system of the 1950s. Monroe was now part of the cultural heritage of the twentieth century , as Andy Warhol testified a few years later by reproducing the appearance known to all in a series of works that have become a cornerstone of twentieth century art.

Beyond the myth, however, there was the Marilyn woman, indeed there was Norma Jeane: ambitious, fragile, insecure, rich in an acting and expressive talent too often obscured by the unforgettable features of a body that seemed to have been created to make you dream men and to give women a dream of emulation. It is precisely the lesser known and less public Monroe that we find in "Dea" (La nave di Teseo, 2022, pp. 640, also e-book), a biography that Anthony Summers wrote interviewing over six hundred people among acquaintances over the course of decades , friends and lovers of the great actress. Summers has also been able to draw information from secret police reports and telephone records secreted until recently. Finally, he was able to use private correspondence between Marilyn and her psychiatrist and unpublished documents revealing the mafia's plots to use the actress against the Kennedys.

Many lies have been told about Marilyn Monroe and many legends have been born, sometimes even with the contribution of the actress herself, who had built her public and private image by mixing real facts and self-gratifying fantasies. Anthony Summers clears all the rumors and gossip and delivers the definitive biography of the latest big screen diva, with surprising revelations about her marriages and relationships with famous men, including President John Kennedy and his brother Robert.

An engaging and at times surprising reading that the English journalist gives us, in which the story of a woman emerges whose life was short and incredibly intense and, if the public parable was sparkling and unforgettable, the private one was much darker and painful. Above all, Marilyn emerges as a 360-degree diva , a goddess who contained the vices and virtues of the deities of ancient mythology . He was able, in fact, to move towards the Empire when he was in a state of grace and made an entire generation dream and to sink into the deepest abysses of alcohol, psychiatric drugs and mental instability.

Just reviewing his films and dwelling solely on his public images is like looking at the moon and not realizing that there is a hidden side that we never see.

Summers reveals the dark face of a mass phenomenon. He resurrects Marilyn and shows us how she really was: vital, contradictory, seductive, pathetic and, finally, tragic. Immortal , as befits a goddess.