Icon - update

Exciting news from Gary Vitacco-Robles, the price of the book has now been announced - the soft cover will be $39.95 and the Hardcover $49.95 (apparently the hardback edition will have a different cover to the paperback)
The ISBN for the soft cover is ISBN-10: 1-59393-554-4 and ISBN-13: 978-1-59393-554-2
And the book is starting to appear on the Bear Manor media blog. Click HERE to visit the blog and read about this much anticipated book.

More news as and when I get it.

Marilyn at Castle Galleries

On Saturday we went to Cardiff and visited Castle Galleries in the St David's Centre, the reason for this is currently there is an exhibition of  8 Marilyn prints from the Edward Weston collection on display. 

The 8 prints are gorgeous, but far to expensive for my budget, but if you have a Castle Galleries near you why not pop a long and pick up the free brochure?

Visit the Castle Galleries website by clicking HERE to locate your nearest one.

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Icon: The life, Times and Films of Marilyn Monroe by Gary Vitacoo-Robles

Coming Soon….

Icon: The Life and Times of Marilyn Monroe vol 1 by Gary Vitacco-Robles

I have to say that this is the most eagerly await book on Marilyn in a long time and, as you can tell from the title this book comes in more than one volume, Gary advises that he is expecting a release date anytime soon for vol 1 and the book is currently being typeset, and vol 2 has been written but there is no estimate for a release date as yet for that.

Icon will be published by Bear Manor Media a company that specializes in books on the performing arts.

As soon as I receive notice of the publishing date I will update you.

If you are on Facebook you can join the group Gary has set up for his book by clicking HERE

To visit the Bear Manor Media site please click HERE

This is definitely going to be one of the must have books of recent times and is likely to leave the majority of other Monroe biographers green with envy.

MM Personal by Lois Banner and Mark Anderson

Published in 2011 this large coffee table books contains photographs of documents that have been hidden for years.

After Monroe’s death in August 1962, her business manager Inez Melson organised the auction of her house and contents, in that auction was a filing cabinet, Melson, using her nephews name purchased this cabinet for $25 and shipped it to her Hollywood Hills home.

 One of the many pages of receipts

One of the many pages of cancelled cheques

The telegrams that I personally would like to be able to see in their entirety.

There were in fact 2 filing cabinets in Melson’s care containing receipts, cheques, letters, telegrams and photographs, and many of them have been included here, photographed by Mark Anderson.

The documents give a real insight into Monroe the human being, with letters to Arthur Miller’s son Robert written as if from the Miller pet dog Hugo, receipts from book stores, maternity shops and pharmacies. Marilyn kept every receipt, making this book essential for fans

I personally like the letter from the mother of a solider who served in Korea, praising Marilyn for performing so close to the Front Line calling her ‘A real soldier’

Now in the sentence above I have advised this is a must for fans, and it is, however many of the documents have been photographed in groups and many of the items are obscuring other items and while I appreciate that it would be impossible to publish every single one in the book individually the depth of my interest in Monroe means I am frustrated at having to crane my neck to make out information on the receipts and in case of  the telegrams there is a 2 page spread (above) in which the only part of the telegram viewable is the top, not the message contained within – and this is the things I find most interesting, I want to know what the telegrams say!

Due to the way Inez obtained this archive it has now been returned to Anna Strasberg and the Marilyn estate to misgivings by fans as many believe that Mrs Strasberg in only interested in the money that can be made from Marilyn and not in Marilyn herself and while the archive was in the care of Melson and her descendants the archive was protected and safe, but yet a key clue to Marilyn and who she was as a person was clearly missing.

All in all 9/10

Highly recommended.

You can purchase this book on Amazon UK by clicking HERE

or from Amazon.com by clicking HERE