Norman Mailer, Rebecca West, Susan Sontag, and Jill Craigie to studies of American culture, genealogy, children’s biography, film, and literary criticism. He has authored more than 500 articles on American and European literature and history. His latest books are Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews, a biography of Dana Andrews published in September 2012, and the biography American Isis: The Life and Death of Sylvia Plath, released in January 2013.One of Rollyson's favorite Hollywood biographies, as told to the Wall Street Journal:
My StoryRead about another book on Rollyson's list.
by Marilyn Monroe (1954)
Monroe closely collaborated on this memoir with screenwriter Ben Hecht, who got to know her while working on the scriptof "Monkey Business" (1952), a film that helped to perfect her dumb-blonde persona. Reissued in 2007 in a handsome illustrated edition, "My Story" dramatizes Monroe's traumatic childhood—a mentally ill mother, neglectful foster families, a dreary orphanage and an unhappy first marriage. Monroe's bitterness and candor are surprising in a memoir that appeared when studios dictated what their stars could say. Not surprisingly, her anger about being sexually abused as a child and her confession of suicidal feelings, haunting in their intimations, make riveting reading: "I was the kind of a girl they found dead in a hall bedroom with an empty bottle of sleeping pills in her hand."
Visit Carl Rollyson's website, blog, and Facebook page.
The Page 99 Test: American Isis.
My Book, The Movie: American Isis.
The Page 99 Test: Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews.
--Marshal Zeringue
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