My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe - Hardcover

Miracle, Berniece Baker; Miracle, Mona Rae

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565120701 ISBN 13: 9781565120709

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1994

Synopsis

Few people know that Marilyn Monroe had a sister, and even fewer know the story of their relationship during Marilyn's rise from obscurity to fame. In MY SISTER MARILYN, Berniece Baker Miracle, working with her daughter Mona Rae, tells the story she has kept private for fifty years. The book includes more than forty photographs of Marilyn and her family and friends. "This portrait of Marilyn is irreplaceable."--Entertainment Weekly. A LITERARY GUILD SELECTION.

About this title

About the Author

Berniece Miracle was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Kentucky. She has worked as a manufacturing inspector, costume designer and bookkeeper. Mona earned graduate degrees from University of Florida and Nova University. She studied acting with Lee Strasberg. Read about her forthcoming publications at MonaRaeMiracle.com

From Booklist

One can hardly blame the cynical reader for eying a new biography of Marilyn Monroe and thinking, "Right, I'm sure there are some things we don't know about her." In fact, this biography, written by Monroe's half-sister, Berniece Baker Miracle, and Miracle's daughter, isn't really a biography of Marilyn Monroe at all. No, it's a biography of Norma Jeane Baker, and there turns out to be plenty we don't know about her. Berniece and Norma Jeane were half-sisters, born seven years apart to their mother, Gladys, who eventually would be diagnosed as schizophrenic. At her father's insistence, Berniece lived with him from age four; Gladys' mental breakdown necessitated Norma Jeane's stay with several foster families. The girls did not learn of each other until Berniece was 19 and Norma Jeane 12. But once each did discover the existence of the other, they stayed in close contact--both before and after Norma Jeane became MM--writing letters (many of which are reproduced here), visiting, and just being family. Without disclosing a lot of dirty laundry, this is a deeply intimate book, one that makes Monroe come alive more fully than the earlier tell-alls that focused on her acting career. Both through her own letters, and in her sister's reminiscences, Monroe emerges not merely as a troubled star but as a woman concerned throughout her life with family, a warm and vulnerable woman eager to maintain a relationship with those who care about her. To be illustrated with photographs from the Miracles' personal collection. Ilene Cooper

Edition details

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1565120701
• ISBN 13: 9781565120709
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 238