I Wanna Be Loved By You - Marilyn Monroe, A Life in 100 Takes

A SUNDAY TIMES SUMMER READ

Dreamer. Bombshell. Icon.

Featuring a wealth of unpublished material, Andrew Wilson’s biography of Marilyn Monroe presents the actress in a startling new light.

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, she had an uncertain and unforgiving upbringing. She grew up in Los Angeles and would dream about Hollywood, believing that acting would be her one-way ticket to happiness. Her dream was so powerful that she transformed herself into the ultimate goddess of the silver screen, and her image has been branded into the collective consciousness. Men lusted after her, and women wanted to be her. All her life, she just wanted to be loved.

Told through 100 captivating snapshots, we are thrown into the glamorous but dangerous world of old Hollywood. We see a young Marilyn navigating the highs and lows of the studio system as she attempts to free herself from the constraints of Twentieth Century-Fox. We also go behind the scenes of her marriages to teenage sweetheart Jim Dougherty, baseball star Joe DiMaggio and famous playwright Arthur Miller. We hear the voices of friends, lovers – and enemies.

We hear of the friendships she formed with poets, philosophers, playwrights and political activists, and the years spent training with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

In the concluding chapters, Andrew Wilson unpicks what happened on the night Marilyn died after a suspected drug overdose. Were the Kennedys involved, or was she just let down by those closest to her?

I Wanna Be Loved By You is a revealing and nuanced portrait of the life, death and afterlife of an icon who still fascinates us today.