The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe

This “extraordinary” account of the superstar’s tragic death, and what led up to it, is “a relentless and detailed quest for the truth” (Lancashire Post).

In his illuminating, fascinating book, Keith Badman finally uncovers the truth about the iconic actress’s last years. It was a tough time—one in which Marilyn Monroe’s increasingly erratic behavior and dependence on alcohol and medication plunged her glittering movie career into drastic decline. Meticulously researched, the book reveals precisely how Monroe died at just thirty-six years of age, and shines a light on the suspicious delays on the night of her overdose—delays that indicate a cover-up. He discovers new details about her rekindled relationship with Joe DiMaggio, and the horrendous weekend she spent at Frank Sinatra’s Cal-Neva lodge, as well as why Fox refused to let her finish her final movie, Something’s Got to Give, and her distress at being imprisoned at the Payne Whitney psychiatric hospital.

Drawing on private, previously unpublished itineraries and original eyewitness accounts, Badman sheds new light on Marilyn’s involvement with John and Bobby Kennedy, and ends a six-decade-old mystery by telling the precise date of her first encounter with the president. The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe features a deluge of stories of which even die-hard fans will be unaware.

“[A] nearly day-by-day account of her life from June 1961 to her death in August 1962.” —Kirkus Reviews

Includes photos