fragments poems intimate notes letters by marilyn monroe

In an Italian-made diary, believed to date from 1955 or ’56, Marilyn writes that she is ‘afraid’ of a man called Peter. It’s possible that the piece may have been written some later, or is about someone else – for example, Fred Karger, the musician Marilyn was in love with during 1948. The tone of the narrative seems to be of someone looking back on past experience. In the text, Marilyn claims to have already worked as a model and actress, but her career did not begin until three years after her wedding. Though Marilyn states that she was a teenager at the time, and her lover six years older, other details do not seem to match so well. The first document is a long, typed piece by Marilyn about an early love, and has been linked to her first husband, Jim Dougherty, who she married in 1942, when she was sixteen and he was twenty-one. While this approach is largely successful, there were a few attributions that left me unconvinced. They have also tried, where possible, to identify the places, people and incidents that Monroe refers to. Most of Marilyn’s papers and journals were undated, and so the editors have divided them into chapters based on purported chronology. ‘This book does not attempt to show her stripped bare,’ state editors Stanley Buchtal and Bernard Comment in their preface to Fragments, ‘but rather simply as she was.’ Apart from providing transcriptions of Marilyn’s handwriting, their presence is fairly unobtrusive. On the other hand, Marilyn’s life has been tabloid fodder for decades, long before Mrs Strasberg made her debut at Christie’s. Some may argue that Monroe’s legacy has been pillaged by bringing her most personal writings into the public domain. Anna Strasberg is a shadowy figure among Monroe fans, who never knew the actress personally, and sold most of Marilyn’s possessions at auction in 1999. The source material was provided by Anna Strasberg, widow of Lee Strasberg, who was Monroe’s acting coach and the main beneficiary of her will. A small handful of books can claim a direct connection to the star ( My Story, an incomplete memoir from 1954 and a long interview, Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words, unpublished until 1995.) Now, Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters can be added to the body of literature by Monroe. Only a few interviews with Marilyn herself are still in print, and most of the people who knew her well are now gone. Of the millions of words that have been devoted to Marilyn Monroe, few of them were written or said by the woman herself.

Fragments poems intimate notes letters by marilyn monroe