New Marilyn biography a well-researched, respectful look at her life

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The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

By J. Randy Taraborrelli

Grand Central Publishing, 560 pages, $30

Norma Jeane Baker, known to the world as Marilyn Monroe, has been the subject of countless books in the 47 years since her death.

Gloria Steinem wrote of how abandonment, abuse and domestic instability in childhood shaped the insecure personality behind Monroe's self-destructive behaviour.

Norman Mailer entertained a conspiracy theory about her death as a possible murder at the behest of John and Robert Kennedy.

And many lesser wordsmiths have plumbed her private life for lurid tales of sex, drugs and heartbreak.

You might say Randy Taraborrelli has done that, too, with his new offering.

But that wouldn't be entirely fair and accurate.

The author of 15 previous books, including biographies of Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson, has written a carefully researched Monroe biography that treats its subject with respect while essaying the demons and turmoils of Monroe's 36-year life.

The big story is how Taraborrelli describes the screen siren's mental health problems, a topic never before covered in such detail though certainly at least alluded to in past biographies. He tapped doctors' records and correspondence in his research on this part of the story.

Monroe's mother, who survived her by some 20 years, had paranoid schizophrenia and spent much of her lifetime in psychiatric institutions.

The actress's maternal grandmother was never diagnosed as schizophrenic but likely had the disease as well.

Monroe herself was diagnosed by her last psychiatrist (she had more than one) as having "borderline paranoid schizophrenia."

That doctor seems a shady character with too close a relationship with his star patient, but his diagnosis comports with what others in Monroe's life observed.

Early in her career, before she was a star, she told at least one friend she thought she was being followed and watched.

She was closely watched later in her career, of course, by journalists and the FBI. But it's doubtful there was that much interest in her private life before lead roles in three 1953 movies (Niagara, Gentleman Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire) made her a major star.

She also told more than one friend over the years about hearing voices inside her head.

Monroe bravely endured "a devastating battle with her own mind," Taraborrelli writes in the preface. "Attempting to explain her difficult journey is the challenge I set for myself with this book."

And he does a good job of explaining that journey, with compassion and thoroughness.

He also spends a lot of ink on Monroe's film career, from 20-year-old contract starlet on the 20th Century-Fox lot to difficult superstar in 1962's The Misfits and the aborted Something's Got to Give, and her marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller.

The movies and marriages have been examined at great length before, so one wonders why he bothered so much with them. The long descriptions of movie plots, in particular, seem out of place in a book purporting to tell of a star's "secret life."

Nearly a half-century after her death, and after a truckload of books big and small, does the world need another Monroe biography?

Well, need is probably the wrong word. Want seems more apt.

There's still quite an interest in the blond beauty -- as evidenced locally by the popularity of a Monroe exhibit at the Winnipeg Art Gallery this year and internationally by massive sales of Marilyn memorabilia.

And Taraborrelli has done more than crank out a redundant biography.

His book isn't really "the definitive biography" or "explosive" as the publisher promises, but it's competently (though not elegantly) written and contains details that Taraborrelli insists haven't been disclosed in previous biographies.

Monroe fanatics, jonesing for more about their goddess, will find it hard to resist picking up The Secret Life. And, for the most part, they won't be disappointed.

Mike Stimpson is a Winnipeg writer and editor.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 11, 2009 b9