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The Genius and the Goddess
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Books by Jeffrey Meyers
BIOGRAPHY
A Fever at the Core:The Idealist in Politics
Married to Genius
Katherine Mansfield
The Enemy:A Biography of Wyndham Lewis
Hemingway
Manic Power: Robert Lowell and His Circle
D.H. Lawrence
Joseph Conrad
Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy
Scott Fitzgerald
Edmund Wilson
Robert Frost
Bogart:A Life in Hollywood
Gary Cooper:American Hero
Privileged Moments: Encounters with Writers
Wintry Conscience:A Biography of George Orwell
Inherited Risk: Errol and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Vietnam
Somerset Maugham
Impressionist Quartet:The Intimate Genius of Manet and Morisot, Degas
and Cassatt
Modigliani
Samuel Johnson:The Struggle
CRITICISM
Fiction and the Colonial Experience
The Wounded Spirit:T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom
A Reader’s Guide to George Orwell
Painting and the Novel
Homosexuality and Literature
D.H. Lawrence and the Experience of Italy
Disease and the Novel
The Spirit of Biography
Hemingway: Life into Art
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
T.E. Lawrence:A Bibliography
Catalogue of the Library of the Late Siegfried Sassoon
George Orwell:An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism
EDITED COLLECTIONS
George Orwell:The Critical Heritage
Hemingway:The Critical Heritage
Robert Lowell: Interviews and Memoirs
The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Reader
The W. Somerset Maugham Reader
EDITED ORIGINAL ESSAYS
Wyndham Lewis:A Revaluation
Wyndham Lewis by Roy Campbell
D.H. Lawrence and Tradition
The Legacy of D.H. Lawrence
The Craft of Literary Biography
The Biographer’s Art
T.E. Lawrence: Soldier,Writer, Legend
Graham Greene:A Revaluation
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The Genius and
the Goddess
ARTHUR MILLER AND
(cid:2)
MARILYN MONROE
Jeffrey Meyers
HUTCHINSON
LONDON
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Published by Hutchinson 2009
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Jeffrey Meyers 2009
Jeffrey Meyers has asserted his right under the Copyright,Designs
and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent,resold,hired out,or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition,including this condition,being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
Hutchinson
Random House,20Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
www.rbooks.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg.No.954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780091925499
The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC),
the leading international forest certification organisation.All our titles that are printed on
Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo.Our paper procurement
policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment
Mixed Sources
Product group from well-managed
forests and other controlled sources
www.fsc.org CCeerrtt nnoo.. TTTT--CCOOCC--22113399
© 1996 Forest Stewardship Council
Typeset in Bembo by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Grangemouth,Stirlingshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd,St Ives plc
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Contents
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
1. First Encounter (1951) 1
2. Marilyn’s Traumatic Childhood (1926–1946) 8
3.A Star Is Born (1947–1954) 25
4. Image and Identity (1950s) 50
5. Joe DiMaggio (1952–1954) 65
6. Miller’s Path to Fame (1915–1949) 86
7. Secret Courtship (1954–1955) 97
8. New York and the Actors Studio (1954–1956) 112
9. Betrayal and Guilt (1950–1956) 126
10.Witch Hunt (1956–1958) 139
11. Marriage and England (1956–1957) 153
12. Heading for Disaster (1957–1960) 168
13. Billy Wilder and Yves Montand (1958–1960) 190
14. Making The Misfits (1960) 208
15. The Misfits: Life into Art (1960) 227
16. Something’s Got to Give (1961–1962) 241
17. Suicide (1962) 260
18. Miller’s Tragic Muse (1964–2004) 277
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viii The Genius and the Goddess
Appendix: Marilyn’s Illnesses and Hospitalizations 297
Notes 299
Bibliography 325
Index 331
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Illustrations
1. Norma Jeane and her mother,Gladys Baker,Los Angeles beach,
1928
2. Norma Jeane and her first husband, Jim Dougherty, 1943
3. Arthur Miller, Norman Rosten, Hedda Rosten and Mary
Slattery Miller, 1940 (Patricia Rosten Filan)
4. Miller with Mary and his children, Jane and Robert, 1953
5. Marilyn and Johnny Hyde, late 1949
6. Marilyn and Natasha Lytess, c.1952 (© Bettmann/Corbis)
7. Marilyn and Louis Calhern in The Asphalt Jungle, 1950
(© Underwood & Underwood/Corbis)
8. Marilyn with Anne Baxter,Bette Davis and George Sanders in
All About Eve, 1950 (© Bettmann/Corbis)
9. Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio, 1953
10. Marilyn entertaining troops in Korea, February 1954
(© Bettmann/Corbis)
11. Marilyn with Milton and Amy Greene, 1955
12. Lee, Paula and Susan Strasberg, 1963 (© Bettmann/Corbis)
13. Marilyn in airport bathroom,April 1955 (Eve Arnold:Magnum)
14. Marilyn, signed studio photo, 1956 (Charlene Hess)
15. Marilyn in The Seven Year Itch, 1955 (© Bettmann/Corbis)
16. Marilyn and DiMaggio at premiere of The Seven Year Itch,June
1955 (© Sunset Boulevard/Sygma/Corbis)
17. Miller and Marilyn on their wedding day,with his parents,June
1956 (© Bettmann/Corbis)
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18. Miller and Marilyn,July 1956(© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis)
19. Miller and Marilyn in English garden, July 1956
(© Bettmann/Corbis)
20. Marilyn and Billy Wilder making Some Like It Hot, 1958
(© Bettmann/Corbis)
21. Marilyn with Isak Dinesen and Carson McCullers, February
1959 (© Bettmann/Corbis)
22. Miller and Marilyn with Simone Signoret and Yves Montand,
January 1960 (© John Bryson/Sygma/Corbis)
23. Marilyn with President Sukarno, 1956
24. Dr. Ralph Greenson, c.1960
25. John Huston,Marilyn and Miller on the set of The Misfits,1960
(Frank Taylor Archive)
26. Frank Taylor, Miller, Eli Wallach, Huston, Montgomery Clift,
Marilyn and Clark Gable on the set of The Misfits, 1960
(© Underwood & Underwood/Corbis)
27. Gable and Marilyn in The Misfits, 1960 (© Bettmann/Corbis)
28. Miller and Marilyn estranged in Reno hotel room, 1960
(© Bettmann/Corbis)
29. Marilyn’s crypt,Westwood Memorial Park,1962 (Valerie Meyers)
30. Miller and Elia Kazan, c.1963 (© Bettmann/Corbis)
31. Barbara Loden and Jason Robards in After the Fall, 1964
(Inge Morath © The Inge Morath Foundation/Magnum)
