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