The short answer: Nothing. To measure a biography against the totality of a life, as is seemingly a new goal, makes about as much sense as saying an automobile is inadequate because it can’t fly.
Like certain actors — Laurence Olivier comes to mind — biographers work from the exterior toward the insides of characters. Olivier and Marilyn Monroe visit Susan Strasberg backstage when she was starring in ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ on Broadway. The production closed June 22, 1957. International News Photos via Wikimedia Commons
