The Genius and the Goddess

A frank and revealing portrait of Arthur Miller, as viewed through the lens of his relationship with Marilyn Monroe. The Genius and the Goddess, based on Jeffrey Meyers' long friendship with Arthur Miller and extensive archival research from Washington to Los Angeles, is a portrait of a marriage. The greatest American playwright of the twentieth century and the most popular American actress both complemented and wounded one another. Marilyn Monroe was a doomed personality whose tragic end was inevitable. Miller experienced creative agony with her. Their five-year marriage, from 1956 to 1961, coincided with the creative peak of her career, yet private and public conflict caused both of them great anguish. This book explains why they married, what sustained them for five years and what destroyed them; the effect of the anti-Communist witch-hunts on their marriage; and the impact of Marilyn on Miller's life and art. The fascinating cast of characters includes Marilyn's co-stars- Sir Laurence Olivier, Yves Montand and Clark Gable; her leading directors- John Huston, Billy Wilder and George Cukor; and her literary friends- Dame Edith Sitwell, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov. Meyers offers an incisive account of the making and meaning of The Misfits, which destroyed their marriage. But Marilyn remained Miller's tragic muse and her character, exalted and tormented, lived on, for the next forty years, in his work.

About the Author :
Jeffrey Meyers is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has recently been given an Award in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has written extensively on literature, film and art; his books have been published on all six continents, and twenty-five of them have been translated into twelve languages. His biography of Samuel Johnson appeared in 2008. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Review :
Explosive ... Offers an intriguing insight into his playwright friend's fascination with the actress and charts the trajectory of a relationship doomed to self-destruct A frank and revealing portrait Entertaining ... Meyers is a literary academic who also writes about film stars ... With Monroe and Miller, he combines his specialisms Meyers's immaculately researched and clearly formulated investigation is based on a lifelong friendship between the author and Miller and is the result of hours of conversations with the playwright prior to his death in 2005 Here perhaps for the first time is a biographer who has got Marilyn's measure A rigorously researched, incisively written and fascinating book Meyers is very good One of the least likely liaisons in showbiz, the marriage between Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller followed a predictable trajectory which Jeffrey Meyers illuminates with fascinating filigree.