London, Mar 29 (ANI): Silver-screen goddess Marilyn Monroe had a troubled marriage with playwright Arthur Miller that finally drove the actress towards her end, revealed a new tell-all book on the duo.

Titled ‘The Genius And The Goddess’, the book by author Jeffrey Meyers is based on his lifelong friendship with Miller.

The immaculately researched and clearly formulated investigation is the result of hours of conversations between the author and the playwright, prior to his death in 2005.

Monroe’s 1956 wedding with Miller was the Pulitzer Prize winner’s second of three marriages, while the then 30-year-old actress was exchanging the vows for the third and last time.

In the book, Meyers graphically details what went wrong in the couple’s relationship.

Meyers said that initially, Miller thought that he understood the little girl buried beneath Monroe’s starry baggage, and saw his talent as the true inspiration for her future artistic glory.

However, Monroe had said that she planned to give up her career, and settle down as a housewife and mother.

“When I married Miller, one of the fantasies I had in my mind was that [through him] I could get out of Marilyn Monroe,” the Daily Express quoted the actress as saying later in life.

Miller told Meyers of his new wife confessing to him: “I hate [Hollywood], I don’t want it any more, I want to live quietly in the country and just be there when you need me. I can’t fight for myself any more.”

With films, like ‘Niagara’, ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’, ‘How To Marry A Millionaire’, ‘The Seven Year Itch and Bus Stop’, to her credit, Monroe was a phenomenon at the time of her marriage.

But, in less than 20 years, Monroe had undergone 12 abortions. She had also had two miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy, seven suicide attempts, and regular hospital treatments.

Frequent hospitalisation and a basic inability to remember two words together took a toll on her Hollywood career.

And thus, the couple shifted to remote 325-acre estate in Roxbury, Connecticut, to savour the delights of domesticity.

But, rural bliss soon turned into domestic hell-Miller, the philosophical genius, regressed into a DIY freak, obsessed with the plumbing and Monroe, the world’s most famous film star, just freaked and took to drinking and drugs.

Later, in 1961, Monroe starred in ‘The Misfits’, which was Miller’s own script and his last chance to recreate their early dream of a joint creative life.
Monroe’s character in the film, Roslyn, was sensitive, introspective and emotional but also a force for good for the man in her life, Gay, played by Gable-quite reminiscent of the Hollywood beauty’s own personality.

Miller thought that exposing her trauma would help the inner nightmare evaporate.

But Monroe, who was high on drugs and alcohol and suffering the torments of self-hate, humiliation and rejection as she lost Miller, saw it as a vicious attack on her very soul.

After the film, the couple pulled the string from their relationship.

Miller told Meyers that he did try to save her, but “unfortunately, I didn’t have much success. I represented betrayals and misplaced trust. She was beyond help. A person’s got to save himself.”

Marilyn Monroe made no more films; her erratic behaviour led to her being fired from the set of ‘Something’s Got To Give’.

Three months later, on August 5, she was dead from an overdose of barbiturates.

Miller, the man who came closest to touching Monroe’s heart told Meyers: “[Marilyn was] one of those tragic persons launched on a short trajectory, the self-consuming rocket.” (ANI)