Becoming Marilyn

On the surface we know everything about her. A much-coveted actress, this sex symbol adulated by all was a total star whose life and career were perfectly staged, especially by men. But in the twenty-first century, in a time of rereadings and of buried voices that can finally speak up, we can begin to understand how Norma Jeane Baker became the icon we all remember as Marilyn Monroe.

Situating the story in a post-#MeToo era, Michèle Dominici retraces the trajectory of an immortal, sacred star — between self-invention and the fight for fame — and, in the negative space, tells of the violence of a system: that of the studios and of Hollywood, incredibly brutal toward women.