Marilyn Monroe Confidential: An Intimate Personal Account

All I could say is that I have read a few books about Marilyn,but if you are a fan this is a MUST to buy, Lena Pepitone makes you go back in time to the years she was with Marilyn living in New York and through her last years although she talks alot of when Marilyn was a starlet and her early days in Hollywood,Marilyn was a very lonely person it is a very sad book, when I got to the last page I cried, Lena gives lots of details of how Marilyn lived,all she wanted was to make people happy ,her marriage with Arthur Miller how unhappy she was,and how she had a poster of Joe DiMaggio and sang to him,how she wanted Frank Sinatra to marry her, which never happened.Great book I truly recommend it.

This book, written by Marilyn Monroe's seamstress/maid, who spent almost every waking hour with the star during the last six years of her life, is a true find. To find out that Marilyn was a "bastard" child whose mother abandoned her was astonishing. It makes you wonder what the world of entertainment would be like had that mother aborted the child instead of given birth to Marilyn! "I was a mistake," Marilyn tells Lena. "My mother didn't want to have me." THAT's a push for pro-lifers if I ever heard one. (And I've always been pro-choice, although I could never personally have an abortion). Interesting in this book is that Marilyn had a son when she was 15, and no one in Hollywood or anywhere ever tried to track him down. Marilyn didn't want to, Lena says, because she felt he already had his life and she didn't want to "disrupt it." Marilyn had such a low opinion of herself. She didn't see herself as beautiful and voluptuous. She saw herself as fat. She struggled with weight throughout her life -- in fact, Lena found herself many times having to "let out" dresses so they would still fit Marilyn, who ate when she was depressed. Marilyn Monroe fits the perfect image of the compulsive overeater, who might have benefited from such programs as Overeaters Anonymous, if they were around at the time.Marilyn constantly told Lena she was jealous of the poor maid's "normal" life, a good husband, beautiful young children. Marilyn admitted that she got to modeling and then acting the old-fashioned way -- prostitution. "Singers, actors, prostitutes. What's the difference? It's all rotten."While Marilyn Monroe was making so much money just being beautiful and funny in movies, what she really wanted was to be taken seriously. She just could never get serious roles.Her political attachments to people such as Frank Sinatra and the Kennedy boys (JFK and Bobbie) led some actors, such as Tony Curtis, to make the comment: "Kissing her was like kissing Hitler."Lena tells all, in a very fast-reading way. One interesting note is that Marilyn liked to hang around her apartment absolutely nude. And when she went anywhere -- she never wore a bra and panties. This led to a hilarious remark by Marilyn about how much more shocking that famous photo of her in a movie standing over a vent that blows her white dress up and shows her panties would have been had she been dressed normally! Marilyn's death was a true shocker to Lena, which makes other researchers' belief that Marilyn was murdered ring true. Lena had seen Marilyn take her plethora of sleeping pills with alcohol, etc. Lena had been there when Marilyn almost overdosed in a desperation to sleep. But at the time of her death, Marilyn was happy, not having to use medication to sleep and was going strong in her career. Anyone interested in Marilyn Monroe should find this book, as it's priceless!

I was pretty young when I read this book but it left an impact on me. One that I wish I could come to terms with once I read this book again. I lent it to someone and never got it back. Once I saw that it was out of print, it didn't surprise me at all. It was a pretty outrageous look at the world's most beloved bombshell by none other than the person who took the most care of her. That is what I found to be the most provocative of all. That her own friend would write such personal stories. I found it to be insightful, if true.

When first released, "Marilyn Monroe Confidential" was widely and, IMO, unfairly criticized for passing mentions of MM's habits. However, taken as a whole, the book is warm and sympathetic and it is evident Lena Pepitone thinks of MM as a good person. Still, it is a maid's eye view and as the old saying goes, "No man is a hero to his valet." If Pepitone is telling the truth, MM frequently went without showers, baths, and -- in private -- clothes and lacked the usual embarressment connected with burping and breaking wind. Seen in context, these are minor personal flaws in a woman who was good-hearted, generous, and kind.