How Marilyn Monroe Gave a Smart Gloss to Her Image - The New York Times

Skip to contentSkip to site indexBook Review Today’s PaperWhat to ReadFind Your Next BookFantasyScience FictionThrillersRomanceAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTCritic’s NotebookSome Like It Literary: How Marilyn Monroe Gave a Smart Gloss to Her ImageIt was all about self-improvement for the actress, who was born a century ago next week. Two new volumes shed light on the books she collected and the intellectual she married.Share full article256Marilyn Monroe in her Hollywood apartment in 1952. A new book catalogs the 400 volumes she took with her from home to home.Credit...Philippe Halsman/Magnum PhotosBy Alexandra JacobsMay 24, 2026

See more of our coverage in your search results.Encuentra más de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de búsqueda. Add The New York Times on GoogleAgrega The New York Times en Google The best-seller list bows to Reese Witherspoon. Sarah Jessica Parker judged the Booker Prize. And Kate Hudson reared up recently in a New Yorker video praising Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”But long before actors put the Botox in BookTok there was Marilyn Monroe, who might be celebrating her own hundred years on June 1, had her life not ended at 36 in a haze of barbiturates and jumbo tabloid type in 1962.There is little new to say about her films or fashion. But what of her literary influence?In MARILYN AND HER BOOKS: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe (Gallery, 290 pp., $30), Gail Crowther attempts to debunk Monroe’s dumb-blonde reputation through the Murphy door of her private library. (A few selections from which will be auctioned by Julien’s in June, along with the front gates to the house where she died — welcome, guests! — and a used pot of rouge that at this writing had already been bid up to $3,500.)The star owned over 400 books, moving them with her from dwelling to dwelling. They range widely in genre, from “The Little Engine That Could,” by Watty Piper, possibly bearing her juvenile scrawl, to “Look Homeward, Angel” and other works by Thomas Wolfe, to Russian literature (she hoped to play Grushenka in a movie version of “The Brothers Karamazov”). There is a copy of “The Tales of Rabbi Nachman,” by Martin Buber — Monroe converted to Judaism when she married the playwright Arthur Miller — and four copies of Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.”Sensitive about not graduating from high school, Monroe studied world literature in an adult-extension program at U.C.L.A. “If you are ignorant, books won’t laugh at you,” she said poignantly.As if to combat a public perception of ditziness, she was often photographed in the popular magazines of the day with her bobbed nose in a book, or browsing in a bookstore (where, according to Miller, a male customer once began masturbating as she was mouthing the words to some E.E. Cummings poetry). But she was rarely queried about her reading habits by journalists. Her eternal quest was for self-improvement, underscored also by the dumbbells she hoisted well before Jane Fonda made it fashionable. (A set is currently $1,250 at Julien’s.)Marilyn and Her Books Save to your reading list:Want to readHave read“It is worth considering that much of Marilyn’s reading was her attempt to ‘better’ herself,” Crowther writes, noting the absence of certain best sellers of the day in the collection. “If she felt a genre was not going to help with that, or worse still, if she would become a joke for reading it, then it may go some way to explain why she avoided it.”It is refreshing to contemplate Monroe as reader, for as muse she has been stretched thinner than the diaphanous scarves in a Bert Stern photo. Someone so holographic is far more humanized by what was on her shelves than by some rotten rouge or the moth-eaten, Kardashian-appropriated frocks from her closet.Fact and fiction have mingled recklessly at least since 20th Century Fox changed her name from Norma Jeane Dougherty, the surname of her first husband. Her second husband was the Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggio.Her biographers have included, ignominiously, Norman Mailer (Pauline Kael’s pan of his effort, in these pages, is itself a classic) and, restoratively, Gloria Steinem. Her ups and downs, with emphasis on the salacious Kennedy overlaps, have been novelized by, among others, Joyce Carol Oates (“Blonde”), Michael Korda (“The Immortals”) and James Patterson.ImageMonroe with her third husband, the playwright Arthur Miller, in 1956.Credit...Carl T. Gossett Jr./The New York TimesThe breakup of her marriage to Miller helped inspire his controversial play “After the Fall,” among the wide range of topics covered in THE ARTHUR MILLER TAPES: A Life in His Own Words (Cambridge University Press, 322 pp., $29.95), a new collection of interviews conducted over 30 years by Christopher Bigsby.Miller himself hedged on the connection. “The play is really about the death of love, and how one walks away from that and still feels some grip on existence,” he told Bigsby. “To be sure, you wouldn’t know that from the way the play was handled in the press. But that is what it is about.”The playwright did little to shore up Monroe’s intellectual reputation — newspapers referred to the couple as “the Goddess and the Genius” or “the Egghead and the Hourglass.” Indeed, he probably helped erode it.“With the possible exception of Colette’s ‘Chéri’ and a few short stories,” Miller wrote in his 1987 memoir “Timebends” (well worth revisiting), “I had not known her to read anything all the way through.”The Arthur Miller Tapes Save to your reading list:Want to readHave readCrowther quotes this indignantly, but not Miller’s further comment in “Timebends,” that his wife disliked a story of Bernard Malamud’s for portraying rape, which she had experienced, without sufficient knowledge. Presaging the #OwnVoices movement, “she could not suspend her disbelief toward fiction, wanting only the literal truth, as from a document,” he wrote.Yet writers of all stripes were unusually drawn to her. Monroe was friends with Dorothy Parker, a previous subject of Crowther’s, and had a soupçon of her wit, once telling a reporter, “Men seldom jump hurdles for girls who wear girdles,” and declaring, “I read poetry to save time.”Carl Sandburg brought Monroe antique bronze wind chimes to hang around her pool. No great shakes in the kitchen (despite owning a stained copy of “The New Joy of Cooking” that eventually sold to a private collector for $29,900), she prepared for a visit from Dylan Thomas, according to her then-roommate Shelley Winters, by scrubbing lettuce leaves with a Brillo pad.She dined on oysters and champagne with Carson McCullers and Isak Dinesen, who likened her to a lion cub; and summited with Edith Sitwell, who remarked that “in repose her face was at moments strangely, prophetically tragic, like the face of a beautiful ghost. A little spring-ghost, an innocent fertility daemon, the vegetation spirit that was Ophelia.”In fact, Monroe had hankered for this role along with, at various points, those of Juliet and Lady Macbeth; read Cordelia opposite Anton Chekhov’s nephew Michael as Lear in an acting class; and even dreamed of mounting a Marilyn Monroe Shakespeare Festival.“She showed an interest in intellectual subjects which was, to say the least, disconcerting,” remarked the acidulous George Sanders, who appeared with her in “All About Eve.” “She was somebody in a play not yet written.”Alexandra Jacobs is a Times book critic and occasional features writer. She joined The Times in 2010.Read 256 commentsShare full article256Related ContentAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSite IndexSite Information Navigation© 2026 The New York Times CompanyNYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapCanadaInternationalHelpSubscriptionsManage Privacy Preferences

The intellectual life of Marilyn Monroe, as explored through the collection of her books and her literary associations, offers insight into her pursuit of self-improvement and the construction of her public persona. New volumes examine the 400 books she collected, revealing a diverse range of genres she engaged with, including works by authors such as Watty Piper and Thomas Wolfe, as well as Russian literature, suggesting aspirations for roles like Grushenka. Her engagement with philosophical and spiritual texts is also evident, as she owned works like Martin Buber's The Tales of Rabbi Nachman and multiple copies of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, reflecting a pursuit of deeper understanding. Monroe pursued formal education in world literature at UCLA, reflecting a philosophy that learning combats ignorance. She viewed reading as a means to enhance herself, believing that knowledge would protect her from ridicule, which explains why she selectively avoided certain popular bestsellers if she feared them would undermine her standing. This intellectual curiosity provided a layer of humanity to her public image, moving beyond superficial concerns of fashion or appearance.

The interplay between Monroe and literary figures also influences the narrative of her life. Her relationship with Arthur Miller, for instance, was complicated by literary themes, as Miller noted that he was unaware of the extent of her reading. This observation highlights how literary engagement was intertwined with personal relationships, affecting the perception of her intellectual capacity. Despite the limited direct commentary from her husband on her reading, writers were drawn to her, and her interactions with literary figures, such as Dorothy Parker, suggest a shared wit. Her stated preference to read poetry to save time further points to an active, if sometimes constrained, engagement with the written word. Furthermore, her intellectual interests extended to dramatic roles, as she expressed a desire to experience literary characters, dreaming of playing roles like Juliet or Lady Macbeth, and even envisioning a personal Shakespeare Festival. These literary aspirations suggest an internal drive for the complexity and depth often associated with high literature, which contrasted with the superficial aspects of her celebrity. Ultimately, the collection of books and her intellectual pursuits provide a framework for understanding the multifaceted nature of Marilyn Monroe beyond her iconic cinematic and fashion presence.