Like her art, Marilyn Monroe was rooted in paradox: she was a powerful star and a childlike waif; a joyful, irreverent party girl with a deeply spiritual side; a superb friend and a narcissist; a dumb blonde and an intellectual. No previous biographer has recognised - much less attempted to analyse - most of these aspects of her personality. Lois Banner has. Since Marilyn's premature death in August of 1962, the appetite for information about the star has been insatiable. Biographies of Marilyn abound, and whether these books are sensational or flawed, Marilyn's fans have always come out in bestselling numbers. This time, with Lois Banner's Marilyn the fans won't be disappointed. This is no retread of recycled material. As one of the founders of the field of women's history, Banner reveals Marilyn Monroe in the way that only a top-notch historian and biographer could. In researching Marilyn, Banner's credentials opened doors. She gained access to Marilyn intimates who hadn't spoken to other biographers, and to private material unseen, ignored, or misinterpreted by her predecessors.With new details about Marilyn's childhood foster homes, her sexual abuse, her multiple marriages, her affairs, and her untimely death at the age of thirty-six, Marilyn is, at last, the nuanced biography Marilyn fans have been waiting for.