Marilyn Monroe Confidential: An Intimate Personal Account [Hardcover]

Lena Pepitone (Author), William Stadiem (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 29, 1979

Marilyn Monroe Confidential An Intimate Personal Account.Copy1979 by Lena Pepitone and William Stadiem.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 251 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (May 29, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067124289X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671242893
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #475,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A memoir of Marilyn from a maid's POV, August 7, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marilyn Monroe Confidential: An Intimate Personal Account (Hardcover)

When first released, "Marilyn Monroe Confidential" was widely and, IMO, unfairly criticized for passing mentions of MM's habits. However, taken as a whole, the book is warm and sympathetic and it is evident Lena Pepitone thinks of MM as a good person. Still, it is a maid's eye view and as the old saying goes, "No man is a hero to his valet." If Pepitone is telling the truth, MM frequently went without showers, baths, and -- in private -- clothes and lacked the usual embarressment connected with burping and breaking wind. Seen in context, these are minor personal flaws in a woman who was good-hearted, generous, and kind.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's an explosive book - if it is the truth..., June 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Marilyn Monroe Confidential: An Intimate Personal Account (Hardcover)

The book offers Lena Pepitone's personal account as Marilyn's seamstress and special confidante. Offers information on the last 6 years of her life, including her marriage to Arthur Miller, the making of Some Like It Hot, a notorious affair with Yves Montand,her addiction to sleeping pills and alcohol, and her early expieriences as a struggling actress. The book is shocking with specific details about Marilyn's lack of personal hygenine and love of nudity. It also suggests that Marilyn gave birth to a child, but gave it up for adoption? I liked the book for its specific details and experiences with the goddess. It's a shocker, but you will often find yourself wondering if Ms.Pepitone is telling the truth or embellishing the truth for money-making purposes.Check it out for yourself.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The lowdown on a Fifties High Flyer: Marilyn Monroe, October 11, 2006

By 

Stephanie DePue (Carolina Beach, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marilyn Monroe Confidential: An Intimate Personal Account (Hardcover)

OK, so we're all celebrity-mad these days, and even a 1950's actress like Marilyn Monroe, whose life, granted, was mysterious and controversial; and whose death was even more so, cannot enjoy the privacy of the grave. For, among numerous books, theories, television treatments, etc.,there was this book, by Lena Pepitone, her former personal maid and wardrobe mistress. And what a chronicle of popped buttons and burst zippers it is.

But let's be fair. "Marilyn Monroe Confidential" is, at the very least, professionally written. For which, I suppose, we can thank William Stadiem, the as-told-to. The book's lucid, reasonably well-organized, and it coheres. Furthermore, considering its gamy reputation, it treats its subject with respect and affection. And there are a couple of nuggets in it that were fresh way back when.

But there are problems. Pepitone lived in New York, and Monroe in California. The most important events in Monroe's life-- the making of the movies-- happened in Hollywood, or on location. So this is hearsay about the most important side of Monroe's short, unhappy life. Furthermore, as people hardly ever study acting, or double-date, with their maids, we're pretty much just getting alleged girl talk for anything that happened when Monroe was out of the house.

What happened with Yves Montand, Monroe's co-star in Let's Make Love ? People have been wondering about that for years. Pepitone says Marilyn told her they did. What happened with Lee and Paula Strasberg, heavyweight acting coaches who were to make Monroe a "serious dramatic actress?" All we know is what Pepitone says Marilyn said. How about the two famous husbands, baseball player Joe Di Maggio, playwright Arthur Miller. Ditto. Frank Sinatra, Monroe's most famous attested-to affair? Ditto. The brothers John and Robert Kennedy, equally famous 1960's President and Attorney General of the United States, whom, we know, did not meet good ends? Ditto. And then, for good measure, there's Laurence Olivier, with whom Monroe made The Prince and the Showgirl. Ditto.

All we can know is what Pepitone says Monroe told her. Finally, what happened at the dismal, controversial end, Monroe's ambiguous suicide, at age 37, in Los Angeles? Pepitone was 3,000 miles away, in New York, and had always been so.

Mind you, this is not to accuse Pepitone of holding back, or dishonesty. But the perspective of a personal maid is not the most useful one when it comes to the star of The Seven Year Itch;Some Like It Hot;Bus Stop, and other films that lit up the dreary Eisenhower Fifties with MM's special incandescence.

An even more serious problem is the fact that Pepitone only came to work for Monroe when the great star was already on her long mental-emotional slide down, after the marriage to Miller had begun to sour. Pepitone paints an horrific picture( in which other sources concur) of a woman who is no longer functional. MM is addicted to a wide variety of pills, Bloody Marys, and Piper Heidseck Champagne. Pepitone meets the great star in a state of total, filthy nudity, which we soon learn is her normal state when she's at home, which is her normal state, too. Though, occasionally, we're told, she puts on a white terry cloth robe.

Pepitone says,"Her surroundings certainly weren't anything to get excited about. The large living room where we sat was a far cry from "House Beautiful." It seemed half-finished, half-furnished, and reminded me of a hotel. There was a white piano, some nondescript white sofas, and wall-to-wall carpeting marred by many stains.

"Marilyn's bedroom was definitely not a queen's chamber. In fact, it was all queen-sized bed and little more. The room itself was tiny. The bed had no headboard. The only other furniture was a rickety gray nightstand with a lamp, a small matching bureau, a little record player on the floor, and a black telephone by the bed, also on the floor."

Pepitone "never saw Marilyn read a book or newspaper. She didn't own a television, never listened to the radio. Marilyn had few interests. She spent most of her time in her little bedroom, sleeping, looking at herself in the mirrors, drinking Bloody Marys and Champagne....Marilyn didn't have much to say to her husband, she had even less to say to anyone else. She didn't seem to have any real friends of her own."

We already know she was none too fond of water in those last years: Bloomingdales' saleswomen often complained of her smell. Her hair was a mess. She wore her clothes without underwear, as most of us know, and so tight that buttons and zippers were always at risk, giving Pepitone enough work to keep her job.

Does all this distressing information help you to understand how the world's favorite blond could still uncork remarkable performances? Then you will love the crucial event of maid and mistress's early relationship.

"The trouble started when Marilyn decided, on a whim, that she wanted all her blouse collars heavily starched like the collars on men's shirts. I tried to convince her that a soft collar, which lay flat, was more feminine, more flattering to her, but she insisted on having her way. When I returned hours later, arms full of freshly starched and ironed blouses, Marilyn ordered me to wait. She tried on each blouse in turn, complained that its collar wasn't stiff enough, and then threw it into a pile of crumpled laundry on the floor. My heart sank as I saw all my hard work destroyed."

Angry words followed, and then Marilyn "flew into a blind rage, tore all the buttons off the blouse she had on, and tried to rip off the entire collar. Then she hurled the tattered blouse in my face. 'There, take your goddamn soft collar.'"

Well, if tales from the laundry room are what you're looking for...