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Fragments was originally formatted for hardcover publication, and though every effort has been made to simulate the original book’s layout and design features for the electronic edition, the arrangement of the e-book text does not always correspond to the original version. The transcripts of Marilyn Monroe’s writing feature text in various colors, indicating where editors have made corrections for clarity; on a black and white device, the alterations will not be differentiated. Finally, to adapt the book to an electronic format, image resolution has been reduced. For higher resolution versions of all of the images, please consult the hardcover edition.

CONTENTS

Editors’ note

Personal note (1943)

Undated poems

“Record” black notebook (around 1951)

Other “Record” notebook (around 1955)

Waldorf-Astoria stationery (1955)

Italian agenda (1955 or 1956)

Parkside House stationery (1956)

Roxbury notes (1958)

Red livewire notebook (1958)

Fragments and notes

Kitchen notes (1955 or 1956)

Lee and Paula Strasberg

Letter to Dr. Hohenberg (1956)

Letter to Dr. Greenson (1961)

Written answers to an interview (1962)

SUPPLEMENTS

Some books from Marilyn Monroe’s library

The favorite photo

Funeral eulogy by Lee Strasberg

Chronology

Literary constellation

Acknowledgments

EDITORS’ NOTE

Norma Jeane Mortenson was born under the sign of Gemini, and she described herself as having two natures: “Jekyll and Hyde, two in one.” Even the initials of her stage name (which, according to one story, were suggested to her by the clearly visible “M”s formed by the lines of her palms) supported this duality, as did the pseudonym, Zelda Zonk, that she used while escaping incognito from Hollywood to New York.

In her lifetime, under pressure from the studios, the media created a joyful and radiant image of Marilyn Monroe, even to the point of making her out to be a “dumb blonde.” One remembers her parts in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, How to Marry a Millionaire, and Let’s Make Love. Anything contrary to this artificial image was not welcome. There was no room for a melancholic Marilyn. The icon was not allowed to have an opposite side.

Yet, like a medal, she did have two sides. The sunny and luminous one of the sparkling blonde, and the darker one of the excessive perfectionist who sought absolutes and for whom life (work, friendships, and love affairs) could only lead to disappointment. “I think I have a gay side in me and also a sad side,” Marilyn confided in an interview.

Her friend Marlon Brando expressed perfectly the shock people felt when her death was announced: “Everybody stopped work, and you could see all that day the same expressions on their faces, the same thought: ‘How can a girl with success, fame, youth, money, beauty…how could she kill herself?’ Nobody could understand it because those are the things that everybody wants, and they can’t believe that life wasn’t important to Marilyn Monroe, or that her life was elsewhere.”

There are thousands of photographs of this icon. Her image has been used in many, sometimes brutal, ways. But in this book a new world of truthfulness and overwhelming clarity is being thrown open. A hitherto unknown and unseen Marilyn is revealed.

On her death in 1962, Marilyn Monroe’s personal possessions were bequeathed to Lee Strasberg, and when he in turn died in 1982, his young widow, Anna Strasberg, inherited this large and uncataloged collection, which included dresses, cosmetics, pictures, books, receipts, and so forth. Many years later, while sorting out Lee Strasberg’s papers, she found two boxes of poems and other manuscripts written by Marilyn. Not knowing what to do with these, she asked a family friend, Stanley Buchthal, for advice. Some months later, at an art collectors’ dinner, Stanley told Bernard Comment, a French essayist and editor, about Anna Strasberg’s find in order to get his opinion of the