A brilliant combination of visual-book glamour and meticulous scholarship, the most comprehensive study of Marilyn Monroe ever published

Marilyn Monroe's status as one of the most recognizable icons of the twentieth century is undisputed--her life was both glorious and tragic, and her legacy is still pondered by everyone from film scholars to pop culture mavens. Now, with The Marilyn Encyclopedia , Adam Victor has assembled all the information a Marilyn fan could ever want, and written a virtual Encyclopedia Britannica of Marilyn's extraordinary legend and legacy. Fans and scholars finally have easy access to specific information on Marilyn's life and times, including complete information about her films, quotes from reviews, anecdotes, gossip, and famous sayings; entries touching on all of Marilyn's relationships (husbands, lovers, family members, directors, co-stars); catalogs of her clothing; and complete information on her recordings. Times, dates, and places; surgeries, Kennedys, and conspiracy theories--simply everything is here.

Through astute research and crisp writing, Victor traces Marilyn's inexorable path to iconhood, creating a compelling anatomy of fame in our century. The book also includes an up-to-date bibliography, a list of fan clubs, web sites, and--of course--hundreds of photos and illustrations, many of them rare, some simply never seen before. Marvelously stylish and incomparable in scope and depth, The Marilyn Encyclopedia will satisfy even her most ravenous fans.

Which Marilyn do you know?

Clark Gable on Marilyn:

"She's a kind of ultimate, in her way, with a million sides to her, each one of them fascinating, completely feminine, and femininity without guile. Everything Marilyn does is different from any other woman, strange and exciting, from the way she talks to the way she uses that magnificent torso."

Jean Negulesco, directing Marilyn in How to Marry a Millionaire

"Marilyn, don't try to sell this sex thing, you are sex! You are the institution of sex."

Milton Greene (photographer) on Marilyn:

"I thought I'd seen them all. . . . But I'd never seen anyone with that tone of voice, that kindness, that real softness. . . . Later I was to find out that she was schizoid--that she could be absolutely brilliant or absolutely kind, then, the total opposite."

Betty Grable on Marilyn:

"Why, Marilyn's the biggest thing that's happened in Hollywood in years. The movies were just sort of going along, and all of a sudden, Zowie, there was Marilyn. She's a shot in the arm for Hollywood."

Marilyn on Sex:

"No sex is wrong if there's love in it. But too often people act like it's gymnasium work, mechanical."

Marilyn on Clark Gable:

"The place was full of so-called men, but Clark was the one who brought a chair for me between the takes."