Dreamer. Bombshell. Icon.

There have been hundreds of biographies written about the star of Some Like It Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Misfits. Publishing one hundred years after her birth, Andrew Wilson’s biography of Marilyn Monroe is a kaleidoscopic tour of her life told through 100 captivating snapshots.

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, she had an uncertain and unforgiving upbringing with a mentally unwell mother, an absent father and cruel foster parents. She grew up in Los Angeles and would dream about Hollywood, believing that acting would be her one-way ticket to a different reality. Her dream was so powerful that she transformed herself into the ultimate goddess of the silver screen, and her image has been branded into the collective consciousness. Men lusted after her, and women wanted to be her. All her life, she wanted to be happy – and loved.

We are thrown into the setting of old Hollywood, where actresses were expected to sleep with producers, agents and studio executives. We see a young Marilyn navigating these treacherous waters as she attempts to free herself from the constraints of Twentieth Century-Fox and forge her own path, as well as the joys – and sorrows – brought on by her marriages to baseball star Joe DiMaggio and famous playwright Arthur Miller.

Marilyn Monroe was also full of surprises. She was highly intelligent and well-read, and formed long-term friendships with poets, philosophers, playwrights and political activists, such as with the avant-garde poet Edith Sitwell and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Spending seven years at the Actors Studio, trained by Lee Strasberg, she worked hard to dismantle the common perception that she was nothing more than a pretty face.

In the concluding chapters, Andrew Wilson walks us through what he believes happened on 4 August 1962 – the night she died after a suspected drug overdose. Were the Kennedys involved, or was she just let down by those closest to her?

I WANNA BE LOVED BY YOU is a revealing and nuanced portrait of the life, death and afterlife of an icon who still fascinates us today.