A Dangerous Woman: The Life, Loves, & Scandals of Adah Isaacs Menken, 1835-1868, America's Original Superstar Book

Marilyn Monroe might never have become the legend she did without America's original tragic star: actress and poet Adah Isaacs Menken (1835–68). In a century remembered for Victorian restraint, Menken's modern flair for action, scandal, and unpopular causes—especially that of the Jewish people—revolutionized show business. On stage she was the first actress to apparently bare all. Off stage she originated the front-page scandal and became the world's most famous, highly paid actress—the darling of New York City, San Francisco, London, and Paris. At thirty-three this femme fatale mysteriously died. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, at her bedside, composed a farewell poem.

A Dangerous Woman is the first book to tell the entire fascinating story of Menken. Born in New Orleans to a "woman of color" and to a father whose identity is debated, Menken became a true daughter of Texas in her teens, learning to shoot and ride. Eventually she moved to the Midwest, where she became an outspoken protégé of the rabbi who founded Reform Judaism. Adah wrote heartfelt verse and essays in defense of the Jewish people. Later, in New York, she became Walt Whitman's ally and a revolutionary figure in her own right. During the Civil War she was arrested as a Confederate agent—and became America's first pin-up superstar.

Menken married and left five husbands. She could sing and dance, and she was a wonderful comic. She was fond of gambling the night away dressed in men's evening clothes. She rode horses astride, took and discarded lovers, and wore revealing sheath dresses in an age of hoop skirts. Ultimately, this naughtiest of Victorians—who fought racial, religious, and gender oppression in her own time, and today represents sexual liberation for men and women alike—paid dearly for success.