Customer Reviews

Lee: A Romance

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The title of this book is Lee: A Romance, as if to suggest it is a biography of legendary actor Lee Marvin and the love life the author spent with him. That's NOT what this book is. It is the author's autobiography and her years with and without the famous movie star. His most influential period in film history, the mid and late 60s, is completely ignored. Instead we read about Pame Marvin's countless other relationships! Don't be fooled by this book -- a great biography on the life of Lee Marvin has to exist some time but it certainly is NOT this book!!

WHAT AN INTERESTING AND WONDERFUL STORY OF A TRUE WAR HERO THAT WENT ON TO BECOME A SCREEN LEGEND. PAMELA MARVIN SHOWS LEE WITH HIS GREAT SMILES, ABILITY AND,.....HIS WARTS. I PUT OFF FINISHING THE BOOK FOR SEVERAL WEEKS DREADING THE END OF THE STORY OF MY HERO OF MANY DECADES. ELVIS IS GONE, AND SO IS LEE SOMEHOW, WE NEED MORE OF LEE. THANK YOU PAMELA. PLEASE SHARE MORE WITH US.

Lee Marvin was an amazing actor and a troubled soul. Unfortunately there are few books available on this talented man, and even more unfortunately this is one of them. In this book, his last wife, Pamela, tells about what she considers her 'romance' with Lee. If you are at all an analytical reader you can clearly see this book is nothing more than her attempt to make people believe their relationship was more than it was. Yes, the man married her, yes, he stayed with her, but it is clear that she was way more into him than he was to her. The woman seemed obsessed with him from the time they were involved when he was younger until when he passed away. From reading between the lines it is also easy to gather than the woman did all she could to put a chasm between Lee and his children. Yes, the chasm was formed by Lee by his inattentiveness and alcoholism, but it is quite evident that she did all she could to widen it and to make it worse. Funny how in the end she ended up with everything and his only biological children ended up with next to nothing. Yet if you were to read the book written by his first wife, Betty Marvin, she makes it clear that until he married for a second time, he was very supportive of her and their four children. Save your money folks and buy Betty's book instead. Betty is witty, interesting and tells it like it is. Pamela comes across as petulant, weak and obsessed. A huge section of this book is also dedicated to Lee's companion of many years, Michelle Triola. Pamela makes every attempt to make Michelle appear as obsessive and psycho, yet if you were to read the book by Donald Zec you would see how inaccurate that portrait is. Funny as well that although Pamela went through four husbands (and almost lost Lee at one point, she actually refers to it briefly in the book that he stated he was going to leave her but didn't because he was afraid he wouldn't be happy), Michelle went on to a fully functional 35 year relationship with legendary actor Dick Van Dyke. Things to make you go hmmmmmm.

"In a sense, one of the reasons why he ran off and married Pam was to escape Michelle."- John Boorman (A very close friend of Lee Marvin and director of Point Blank and Hell In The Pacific)

Doesn't sound like much of a "romance" to me.

Where do I start with my review of this book? First of all, the title is definitely not appropriate. The authoress had a relationship with Mr. Marvin in 1945, which ended in 1948 when he left Woodstock to pursue his career. Fast forward 25 years, after his divorce from his first wife Betty and Pamela Feely's third divorce, Lee Marvin marries her. He had just put his former lover, Jeanne Moreau on an airplane back to Paris and he called Pamela to say he was coming to see her. Of course, she stays at home and waits for him. When he got to her house, the most unromantic marriage proposal happened. He slid his suitcase into the door and said "You know I've come to get you, we're getting married". Just a year earlier, he had been trying to reunite with his first wife, Betty (her book is amazing, btw)and he was currently entangled in a dysfunctional relationship with Michelle Triola. He had been trying to disengage from Triola for years and marrying the old girlfriend who still pined for him (enter Pamela) was the way to disengage for good, especially since Betty did not want him back. If this was some great romance, why did he not marry her until 25 years after he had dumped her to move to New York City and then Hollywood?

What I gathered from reading between the lines of this book is that Lee Marvin actually made a safe choice. He married someone who knew him from before he was famous and someone who had always adored him. I would say she was borderline obsessed with the man. I've seen many pictures of them and she looks at him like an adoring school girl. This would be cute if the woman had been young when she married him but, she was not. She was a 3 time divorcee with 4 children who was over the age of 40. This book is more like a fan letter with very little information about the inner workings of their relationship. Instead, she tells us that Lee drank a lot, was capable of great generosity, was taken advantage of by Michelle Triola, she also tells us that Betty Marvin and Michelle Triola were obsessed with Lee (this could not be further from the truth. Pamela herself was the obsessed one-not Michelle and Betty), Lee once called Pamela and her mother the dreaded "C" word in a public location, how poor Lee was taken advantage of by his former friend Rope Nelson, etc. She spends 200 plus pages on the notorious palimony suit that made Lee and Michelle infamous. For this book, the authoress pulled 300 pages of the 1,500 page transcript from the Marvin vs. Marvin trial. Coincidentally, she picked all of the pages that made Lee look pretty good and made Michelle look bad. How can the reader get a fair assessment of the case when she presents such biased transcription?

Things I gathered from this book and the 2 other bios I've read on Lee:

~Pamela Feely was always obsessed with Lee and her divorces managed to coincide with the breakup of all of Lee's relationships. I think she was hoping he would "come and get her" sooner.

~Pamela lied about Betty Marvin and Michelle Triola being obsessed with Lee. Anyone can read the Marvin biography by Donald Zec to peel away these lies. The Donald Zec biography was authorized by Lee himself.

~Pamela Feely lied and said that Betty's children were estranged from her. Betty's children are not estranged from her (read Betty's book). One of Betty's daughters acted out as a teenager and went to live with Lee but all of Betty and Lee's children are firmly in the life of their mother. In fact, Betty said in a radio interview on Blog Talk radio that the Marvin children refer to Lee's wife of practicality as "the ugly stepmother".

~ Pamela pretends to have a good relationship with her children but,her daughter Wendy is married to an ALLEGED child molester and Pamela was trying to kick her off of Lee's land in Arizona just a few years ago (Lee apparently made a verbal agreement with Wendy. Didn't she learn that his verbal agreements are worthless? Too bad she can't ask Michelle Triola about that). Whereas all of Lee's children are emotionally healthy people because Betty raised them well, Pammie messed up with her kids along the way. Why else would her daughter stay married to an alleged molester? Could it be that having so many stepfathers messed her up?

~Pamela barely mentioned Lee's children in her book but, she spends an inordinate amount of time talking about her children and their relationship with Lee. Lee had previously gotten along with his children until he married Pamela and in the end, he cut his children out of his will and left Pamela and his trust everything. His children ended up with nothing and Pammie's children (who are NOT Lee's children) will get everything when she croaks. I guess she felt like it was the least she deserved since he dared to marry and father children with someone other than her. She squeezed Lee's children out of his life and out of their inheritance. After his death, she wouldn't even return the gifts the children had given their father. The children stated that they never felt welcome at their father's home after he married Pamela Feely. Pamela was jealous that Betty Marvin (the more important wife, since it was she who had Lee's ONLY children) was the first wife who also got to have the children and she was jealous of the fact that Lee was married to Betty and had a relationship with Michelle through his most prolific years in Hollywood. Pamela comes across as a very manipulative woman and it appears that Lee could not see her for what she was. His friend Menahem Golan (director) certainly saw her for what she was and he asked her point blank "why don't you appreciate your husband?", as Pamela admits in her book. See Betty's book for more her take on Pammie's jealousy.

~Pamela was so desperate to have this man, she took him under humiliating circumstances. This book was a total laugh fest to me. She had so FEW great memories of their "romance", that she chose to obsess over Michelle Triola for the whole book, as well as talking about her life before Lee (I wasn't interested in her life, personally).

Other things I gathered from this book and the 2 other bios I've read on Lee:

~Lee was very prone to disrespecting her. The story about the Israeli shoot for Delta Force was eye opening. A woman called his hotel room while Pammie was there and she said she didn't ask him any questions because "I didn't want to know". Lee even introduced Pamela as "Betty" (his first wife) during an interview with a journalist (Lewis Grossberger, New York Magazine article from 1980-you can find it on Google), after he had been divorced from Betty for YEARS and married to Pamela for YEARS. Was it a Freudian slip, did he truly forget her name or was it out of spite?

~She painted Lee as a martyr when it came to being screwed over by people but, she never told us about the people Lee screwed over and there were many. I am a hardcore Lee Marvin fan but she paints him as damn near perfect in his relationships with others. The few times she talks about his flaws are in reference to herself or to alcohol.

Don't waste your time and energy on this book. I would suggest reading the Donald Zec bio and Betty Marvin's bio.

I will end this review exactly how I started it:

"In a sense, one of the reasons why he ran off and married Pam was to escape Michelle."- John Boorman (A very close friend of Lee Marvin and director of Point Blank and Hell In The Pacific)

Doesn't sound like much of a "romance" to me.

There is a reason why this book is out of print.

This review is strictly my opinion.

It's been about four years since I ordered this from Amazon. Very nice detailed account about this classic actor, who left us much too early in 1987. Lets us see inside to find out what made Lee tick.

In the 1970's I went to the Downer family reunion in Woodstock, NY. Both Lee and Pam were there, two very gracious people. This story is sweet, true love at its finest hour.