The Genius and the Goddess

The Genius and the Goddess, based on Jeffrey Meyers long\nfriendship with Arthur Miller and extensive archival research from\nWashington to Los Angeles, is a portrait of a marriage. The\ngreatest American playwright of the twentieth century and the most\npopular American actress both complemented and wounded one another.\nMarilyn Monroe was a doomed personality whose tragic end was\ninevitable. Miller experienced creative agony with her. Their\nfive-year marriage, from 1956 to 1961, coincided with the creative\npeak of her career, yet private and public conflict caused both of\nthem great anguish. This book explains why they married, what\nsustained them for five years and what destroyed them; the effect\nof the anti-Communist witch-hunts on their marriage; and the impact\nof Marilyn on Miller s life and art. The fascinating cast of\ncharacters includes Marilyn s co-stars: Sir Laurence Olivier, Yves\nMontand and Clark Gable; her leading directors: John Huston, Billy\nWilder and George Cukor; and her literary friends: Dame Edith\nSitwell, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov. Meyers offers an\nincisive account of the making and meaning of The Misfits, which\ndestroyed their marriage. But Marilyn remained Miller s tragic muse\nand her character, exalted and tormented, lived on, for the next\nforty years, in his work.

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