The Genius and the Goddess: Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe - Hardcover

Meyers, Mr. Jeffrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0252035445 ISBN 13: 9780252035449

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2010

Synopsis

The 1956 wedding of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller surprised the world. The Genius and the Goddess presents an intimate portrait of the prelude to and ultimate tragedy of their short marriage. Distinguished biographer Jeffrey Meyers skillfully explores why they married, what sustained them for five years, and what ultimately destroyed their marriage and her life.

The greatest American playwright of the twentieth century and the most popular American actress both complemented and wounded one another. Marilyn craved attention and success but became dependent on drugs, alcohol, and sexual adventures. Miller experienced creative agony with her.  Their marriage coincided with the creative peak of her career, yet private and public conflict caused both of them great anguish.

Meyers has crafted a richly nuanced dual biography based on his quarter-century friendship with Miller, interviews with major players of stage and screen during the postwar Hollywood era, and extensive archival research. He describes their secret courtship. He also reveals new information about the effect of the HUAC anti-Communist witch-hunts on Miller and his friendship with Elia Kazan. The fascinating cast of characters includes Marilyn's co-stars Sir Laurence Olivier, Yves Montand, Montgomery Clift, and Clark Gable; her leading directors John Huston, Billy Wilder, and George Cukor; and her literary friends Dame Edith Sitwell, Isak Dinesen, Saul Bellow, and Vladimir Nabokov.

Meyers offers the most in-depth account of the making and meaning of The Misfits. Written by Miller for Monroe, this now-classic film was a personal disaster. But Marilyn remained Miller's tragic muse and her character, exalted and tormented, lived on for the next forty years in his work.

About this title

About the Author:

Jeffrey Meyers has written extensively on literature, film, and art. He is the author of forty-seven books, including biographies of Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, and George Orwell. Meyers is one of twelve Americans who are Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2005 received an Award in Literature "to honor exceptional achievement" from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Berkeley, California.

From Booklist:

Theirs was an unlikely match: Monroe from the glamorous world of Hollywood and Miller from the intellectual theater world. They married in 1956, after she divorced baseball legend Joe DiMaggio and he left his wife and two children. What followed was not the promised collaboration of creative energy and personal redemption, her from an image of dim-witted libido and him from emotional constraint, but five years of disappointment and eventual near destruction. Meyers, who has written extensively on the arts, relies on interviews and archival research to offer an in-depth look at a tempestuous marriage. Monroe’s troubled background included abandonment, drug addiction, and promiscuity. His background was more conventional, marked by success until his marriage to the starlet brought the attention of HUAC. Among the fascinating characters in their lives: Elia Kazan, John Huston, Billy Wilder, Lee and Paula Strasberg. During the marriage and even after her controversial death in 1962, Monroe was Miller’s tragic muse and the subject of several of his works, including The Misfits. A fascinating look at an incongruous match. --Vanessa Bush

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0252035445
• ISBN 13: 9780252035449
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384