Marilyn Monroe »

Paul Duncan found himself in the right place at the right time as South Africa came into its own with creative design and decor a few years ago. He was the highly successful editor of Conde Nast House & Garden and has had the opportunity to work with the best local and international photographers - notably Fritz von der Schulenberg - as well as art directors and features writers to capture the outstanding interiors put together by interior designers such as Graham Viney, Stephen Falcke, Stefan Antoni and Boyd Ferguson, architects like Johann Slee and Silvio Rechs and inspired homemakers from Sandton to Graaff Reinet to Plettenberg Bay. Paul Duncan is now Head of Design, Menswear & Homeware at Woolworths and as involved with design and South African innovation as ever, with more books in the pipeline.

F. X. Feeney is a screenwriter and critic based in Los Angeles. His film credits include The Big Brass Ring, based on a story by Orson Welles, and Frankenstein Unbound, directed by Roger Corman, whilst his reviews have appeared in L.A. Weekly and other publications. F. X. has also written Taschen's Michael Mann and Roman Polanski.

“Forget everything you think you know about this person,” Elia Kazan cautioned, in his autobiography. The icon we cherish under the name Marilyn Monroe was in truth the inspired creation of a smart, voluptuous, star struck and self-motivated fantasist named Norma Jean Mortenson. A pure product of Hollywood, she abides across time as brightly as two other self-inventors, Charlie Chaplin and Cary Grant. Few things make an afterlife blaze more mythically than a sexual reputation—ask Cleopatra. Norma Jean paid a huge price to become Marilyn, yet here she is—still setting the bar high for all other would-be goddesses.

Movie Icons is a series of photo books that feature the most famous personalities in the history of cinema. These 192-page books are visual biographies of the stars. For each title, series editor Paul Duncan has painstakingly selected approximately 150 high quality enigmatic and sumptuous portraits, colorful posters and lobby cards, rare film stills, and previously unpublished candid photos showing the stars as they really are. These images are accompanied by concise introductory essays by leading film writers; each book also includes a chronology, a filmography, and a bibliography, and is peppered with apposite quotes from the movies and from life.