Customer Reviews

My Story

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

There is a lot of disagreement about the authenticity of this material. Because of that, I have rated the book as three stars . . . to reflect not giving it a rating. I simply cannot tell if the book is authentic or not. If it is authentic, it reflects either someone living in a nightmare world or has been too heavily rewritten. Perhaps we will never know for sure.

Whether you read the book as Ms. Monroe's own words about the truth of her life, or as a fictionalized account of her life by her or someone else, you will be seared by the loneliness and desolation depicted. About being seven the book says, "I thought the people I lived with were my parents." "My mother . . . was the pretty woman [who sometimes visited] who never smiled."

The new introduction by Andrea Dworkin is marvelous for summarizing the book. "This memoir, the authorship of which is in some dispute, tells the childhod story of the world's loneliest orphan." She nicely captures the most emotionally wrenching moments in the book. Ms. Dworkin goes on to say, "I miss Marilyn. I wish I had known her."

From the point of view of the story, the book can be divided into three parts. First is the young Norma Jean growing up in foster homes. Second is the young adult trying to get work in motion pictures. Third is the beginning of a star's career. The book abruptly ends while Ms. Monroe is recounting her entertaining of U.S. troops in Korea during her honeymoon with Joe DiMaggio.

Ms. Monroe never knew her father except by a photograph her mother showed her. Ms. Monroe's mother could not afford to raise her, and eventually was committed to a mental institution -- a problem that many people in her family had experienced. Ms. Monroe was raised like an orphan even though a family friend adopted her. Her poverty dogged her well into her twenties. "I often felt lonely and wanted to die." Many such statements occur in the book, heavily foreshadowing Ms. Monroe early death.

Initially, her foster home status and pitiful clothes during the Depression set Ms. Monroe apart. No one wanted to associate with her. She tells the story of how one day she borrowed a too small sweater from a "step sister" and created a commotion with the boys in class due to her developing figure. From then on, she was apart because of the powerful physical attraction her appearance created for many men and the threat she represented to many women.

She tells stories of being molested and of receiving many unwanted and inappropriate advances while young. Her escape from all this was a marriage as a young teenager. The marriage did not work, but it got her out of the foster homes. At that point, she no longer considered herself as being Norma Jean, even though she would later revert to that personna at times when she craved attention.

Being an aspiring starlet mainly meant being hungry and fighting off the casting couch. There are several stories here about opportunities she had to marry wealthy men she did not love, that seem like day dreams rather than reality. Who knows? Undoubtedly, she received unwanted attention even more now. The book contains many black-and-white and color photographs that display an unusually attractive young woman. "Sundays were the loneliest." "I went to sleep hungry and woke up hungry."

Because she was beautiful, she was in demand as a date for publicity-hungry stars. She mostly avoided this scene, but would participate when she was really hungry (for the buffets). This section also tells about how her car was repossessed and she posed nude to get $50 to retrieve it.

Here is a flavor of the writing that makes people suspicious of the authorship. "I was the kind of girl they found dead in a hall bedroom with an empty bottle of . . . pills . . . ." This was "the Hollywood of failures." "We were the prettiest tribe of panhandlers that ever overran a town." "And all around us were the wolves."

As a movie star, her early roles all involved being a sex object. During this time, she experienced her first real love, but he did not love her. She did discover she liked sex. She worked on her education and her acting, so she could more fully participate in her world.

Whether the book is authentic or not, undoubtedly Ms. Monroe's life was heavily affected by her lack of family connections, her poverty, and her appearance. What would your life have been like if this had happened to you? How could she have taken a different path, and had a happier life? These last two questions will haunt you . . . no matter what this book represents.

Look beyond the surface appearance of beauty or ugliness to find the beating heart of truth beneath!

"My Story" has generated controversy since its publication in
1974. After perusing the above reviews, it appears to continue this legacy. Milton Greene, Marilyn's former vice president of Marilyn Monroe Productions, claimed to have the original manuscript allegedly typed by Marilyn. Greene published it in hardcover for the first time twelve years after Marilyn's death. However, the roots of this project stemmed from serialized newspaper articles for London's The Empire News in 1954. Supposedly, the writing was ghosted by Ben Hecht as told to him by Marilyn in interviews. It reads as if Marilyn was speaking and is obviously edited to resemble an autobiographical account. Of course, Marilyn was given the byline in the newspaper. Marilyn's account of childhood sexual abuse is harrowing. When Marilyn's estate was auctioned by Christie's in NYC in 1999, excerpts from this book were used to illustrate and authenticate her white baby grand piano, a gift from her mother in childhood.
Gary Vitacco-Robles, author of "Cursum Perficio: Marilyn Monroe's Brentwood Hacienda

Whether you believe that Marilyn herself or friend Ben Hecht wrote this book, it is a must-own for any collector. With short, charming chapters that you can almost hear being whispered to you in Marilyn's little girl voice, the book truly captures her persona. How awful to get to the end, knowing her troubles are barely beginning!

This bbok was published several years ago and I made the mistake of buying several copies to give to friends. Needless to say, I believe MM DID NOT write a single word of this drivel. Just rotten. Don't waste your time or money. I have collected and even met Monroe as a child of five in an elevator in NYC. That was in 1955. My collection amasses over 7000 pieces including over 45 books, this is amongst the worst.Folks this ain't the REAL thang!

Marilyn Monroe humbly yet courageously exposed her inner soul to the not-so-forgiving public in this masterpiece of confessional autobiography. She ambitiously presented her struggles in a then male-dominated Hollywood that was quick to suppress an independent woman who rose to the top by her own validity. One could almost misinterpret the honesty in her writing for the voice of a misunderstood and frightened child whom society had forgotten and displaced. It was only through her own learned street-wise vices that she picked herself up and found an identity through self-exploration and self-education. Bravo to the departed Ms. Monroe who now righteously overcomes the bad hand in which she had been dealt by speaking from the grave and thereby finally achieving the attention and authenticity she deserved for the voice and mind that brightly outshone her outer beauty.

To clear up any confusion, this book is by no means an autobiography. It was written around 1953-4 and wasn't published until 1974. Many, many changes had been made since Ben Hecht wrote the draft to be published in the fifties, although it never was. There are many bizarre lines in the book, and Marilyn miraculously predicts she will wind up dead with a bottle of pills in her hand. While it is true she always believed she would die young (a la Jean Harlow) this is just a little too absurd. In fact, the whole book is absurd. It's not really worth reading at all. Of course, if you're like me and collect any book if it's Marilyn, it's an ok addition to your collection, just not one I would pull out very often.

Written at the height of her fame but not published until over a decade after her death, this autobiography of actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) poignantly recounts her childhood as an unwanted orphan, her early adolescence, her rise in the film industry from bit player to celebrity, and her marriage to Joe DiMaggio.

The Marilyn on these pages is a revelation: a gifted, intelligent, vulnerable woman who was far more complex than the unwitting sex siren she portrayed on screen. Lavishly illustrated with photos of Marilyn taken by renowned photographer Milton H. Greene, this special book celebrates the life and career of an American icon--from the unique perspective of the icon herself.

There is apparently some doubt as to whether or not Marilyn actually wrote the words in this book, or if someone else did it for her. In either case, there is a poignancy about the book that is haunting.

Like many women growing up when I did, Marilyn was definitely a screen star in every sense of the word. Larger than life, glamorous, enviable...But then the image began to slip a bit, with stories of her various mishaps--her unreliability, her marital discords, her futile attempts to have a baby. Then one tragic night in August 1962, the whirlwind life of Marilyn was over. But the stories continued as the media ruthlessly circled the life and times of Marilyn, speculating about whether or not she died accidentally, or in a suicide attempt. Then later, there were conspiracy theories, hints of murder. But none of those questions were answered.

When I bought this illustrated tome a couple of years ago, I was hoping to find information not previously known to the public. Perhaps a peek into her world through her own eyes. Hearing the story in her words (if they are her words) satisfied some of that curiosity; she came across as a wounded, but spirited woman who always dreamed big, despite the odds. She conveyed that famously described depth often belied by the surface exterior.

The most chilling words in this "memoir" are the prescient vision she had of herself as "the kind of girl they found dead in the hall bedroom with an empty bottle of sleeping pills in her hand."

None of us growing up in the fifties will ever forget Marilyn, and her story lives on in the various books out there. But her own story in her own words adds significantly to the collection.

I give My Story four stars, primarily because so much is left unanswered....but then again, at the end of this book, the collaborator's note says: "This is where Marilyn's manuscript ended when she gave it to me." A book unfinished, perhaps--just like her life.

I really enjoyed reading My Story. I admire Marilyn the actress/model, and as I am primarily interested in her life because of the real challenges she faced and overcame, most biographies of her (written by other people) do not interest me.

I think My Story may have been part publicity stunt, part accurate portrayal of the star's beginnings, but this is probably the closest thing we will ever get to a personal account of her life story. At least we know that she had some hand in writing it. The editor admits that the book was cut short as Marilyn left the manuscript unfinished. Her career, at the point that the book leaves off, was at its peak: she had just married Joe DiMaggio and was preparing to entertain the troops in Korea.

At least the reader can glean some truths about Marilyn's life before her fame. I do not think that the first-person, sensitive description of her experiences as a budding young woman and courageous tenacity in the face of struggles could be entirely fabricated. This is the picture of Marilyn that few would believe, or would want to see. The real loneliness and self-awareness cultivated by a sole struggle for love and notoriety is at the heart of her accounts. Touching passages describe her unique mix of ambition, courage, and Achilles-heel insecurity; there is a traumatic description of what happened when a police officer followed her home and attempted to rape her (an event that was later subject to sensational rewrites); she has to set internal lines and limits as numerous men attempted to exploit her in exchange for a shot at mostly non-existent "movie opportunities".

For a long time, the public has been fed the glamorized image of Marilyn as the sex icon, the tragic actress, the most famous golden-era Hollywood starlet. In my opinion this short book represents the diamond-in-the-rough version of Marilyn's life- before she was "Marilyn", before the waif became the star, and the legend became the myth.

this book is unique for the reason that it is marilyn monroe's story, told as she herself wanted it to be told. (there is no mistaking that because she wrote it.) but at the same time, it is unfinished, and really cuts off before she gets to "the good stuff". you are left with an unquenchable desire to know the whole story. if you love m.m., then i sidgest adding this to your collection, if you are not that die hard of a fan, then you may pass this one up with out a second thought!

I bought this book when it first came out in the 1970s, so it's not a new revelation. Marilyn's writing is self-conscious and stiff at times, and the book is light on facts. The worst part is Andrea Dworkin's predictable "woman as eternal victim" foreward, and I was disgusted that she repeated Norman Mailer's confessed fiction that Marilyn had had multiple abortions. Mailer admitted that he made that up! And Dworkin repeats it here as if it were a known fact. This calumny gives you a clue as to the stringency of her scholarship. This book is pretty much useless.