Icon (hardback)

"Does anyone really want to know what caused the death of Marilyn Monroe?" The long afterlife of cultural and cinematic icon Marilyn Monroe has created a tragic paradox. In this post-truth era, Monroe has been recast as a victim of powerful men, a virtual simulacrum of desire and death. The sensational narrative constantly regurgitated in media reports, books, and documentaries rests on a stacked deck of hearsay and outright lies. Conspiracy theories offer asimplistic, yet tantalizing, framing device for the abundance of information hurled at us by global mass media. In an explosive takedown, Gary Vitacco - Robles - author of Icon: The Life Times, and Films of Marilyn Monroe - unpacks the falsehoods perpetuated by a rogues' gallery of shadowy opportunists. With surgical skill, he separates fact from fiction, probable theory from outlandish rumor. As a practicing psychotherapist, the author is uniquely qualified to re-examine Monroe's lifelong struggle with mental illness and spiraling addiction to medications liberally prescribed by successive doctors. In this definitive study - based upon decades of research, legitimate sources, the never-before-released Los Angeles District Attorney's investigation, and police investigations from 1962, 1975, and 1985 - the reader is presented with facts to finally learn the truth about how Monroe died and who was responsible.