| Product: |
My Week With Marilyn - Colin Clark |
| Date: |
21/05/07 (99 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Informative, great read, realistic portrayal of Marilyn
Disadvantages: The book might be hard to find
I have recently been rebuilding my Marilyn Monroe collection and have bought several books, so that I now have around thirty on her. Most are the standard biographies, full of facts we all know already and rumours we don’t believe. But this book is something different.
My Week With Marilyn is a memoir of Colin Clark, Alan Clark’s brother. Colin was third assistant director on the 1956 film The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier. He got the job mainly through being a family friend of the Oliviers and was expected to be loyal to Sir Larry on the film set. However, that was without factoring the allure of Miss Marilyn Monroe.
The movie was shot in London with a mainly British cast (including such stalwarts as Richard Wattis and Sybil Thorndike) and crew. Marilyn had come to London with her own little entourage – her new husband Arthur Miller, her drama coach Paula Strasberg and photographer Milton Greene amongst them. Milton and Marilyn had recently set up a production company together, so Milton was there to protect his business interests as much as anything.
It soon became apparent to Colin Clark that Marilyn was having many problems at this time. He deduced that a lot of these problems could be attributed to the amount of people who wanted Marilyn to do things their way. Everyone wanted a piece of the Monroe pie.
Marilyn and Arthur were staying in Parkside House for the duration of the film. Colin had been instrumental in organizing their stay in this lovely place and their staff there. So as soon as there was a problem, Colin was called over to the help. After an initial unexpected encounter with Marilyn, she begins talking to him and even confiding in him. Over the following week, they have an interesting time and Colin recounts this in the book.
He previously wrote The Prince, the Showgirl and Me, which details his work on the film over a longer period of time. My Week With Marilyn concentrates solely on the period of September 11th to the 19th, 1956, which was not written about in the first book.
Unlike other authors who may claim to have slept with Marilyn or even married her, Colin Clark does not come across as exaggerating his contact with the film star. He didn’t have sex with her and certainly has never claimed to have married her.
Clark’s account of his time spent with Marilyn is a beautiful tribute. He does not paint Marilyn as perfect; he is as honest about her faults as he is about her wonderful qualities. This means that the Marilyn Monroe portrayed in this book is a three-dimensional woman, not simply a pin up or a blonde bombshell; not only a troubled woman, but much more.
He describes her childishness, her ambitions to be a truly great actress, her dreams of being a good wife and mother. He explains how she invokes in him an urge to protect and save her – as so many people have mentioned over the years – but how, ultimately, he is unable to help as much as he would like.
He writes with tenderness and affection, with empathy and understanding and in this way, I believe the Marilyn that comes out of these pages to be a realistic and genuine one. The book is short – only 156 pages – but it brings out the real Marilyn so much better than those generic 600-page photo biographies that get churned out every year.
If, like me, you are cynical that someone remembers events so well, some forty-five years after they happened, he explains this in the introduction. Colin kept journals throughout the filming and also wrote a long letter to a friend, describing the events of this particular week.
I really enjoyed this book. It was easy to get into and I finished it in a couple of days, devouring the last third in one sitting. It really is a frank view of the movie industry of the time and reveals not only a fascinating portrayal of Marilyn, but also of the others present in and around the film. Arthur Miller, Milton Greene, Paula Strasberg, Richard Wattis, Vivien Leigh and especially Laurence Olivier all come across as real people with their own agendas. I certainly know much more about them now, than before reading the book.
Colin has a lovely way of writing. Everything is described as much as it needs to be, in order for the reader to get the feel of the event. But there is no pointless waffle or endless poetic descriptions which can make a book boring for me. This one held my interest all the way through.
I would definitely recommend this book and not only for Marilyn fans either. The only disadvantage is actually finding the book. The hardback edition was published in 2000, with the paperback version (which I have) coming out the following year. Amazon only has copies available from their marketplace, though very cheap. I got my copy from Ebay, where it was sold along with another Marilyn book for a bargain price of £1.99. The cover price is £6.99.
It’s rare for me to read a biography on Marilyn Monroe and feel I’ve glimpsed the real Marilyn, but I have done so twice this year. Besides My Week With Marilyn by Colin Clark, I also read an excellent book called Inside Marilyn Monroe by John Gilmore, which I would also recommend for anyone who wants to see underneath the blonde hair and sexy pout of an icon.
Later this year, British author Michelle Morgan releases her take on Marilyn and this also looks to be in depth and revealing the true person behind the image. Marilyn Monroe – Private and Undisclosed is due out in September.
Hopefully this will signal a new direction for the written word, so we can finally appreciate Marilyn for her talents, her personality and her charm, instead of merely a pretty accessory to admire on a poster.
Summary: An insight into a legend
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