Marilyn by Milton

She really was the most photographed woman ever, and this stunning new tome THE ESSENTIAL MARILYN MONROE with 280 full page photographs covers only 1953 to early 1957.

There have been other great Monroe picture books, but nothing tops this. Milton H. Greene was MM's friend, confidant and business partner - they produced two films; BUS STOP and THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL as he helped her break out of her 20th Century Fox contract, and did at least 50 photograph sessions with her.

A lot, in fact most, of these are new to me - only a few have been published before  - like the iconic "ballerina" shot which even my teenage niece had on her bedroom wall - mainly in Norman Mailer's 1973 biography which brought all the main photographs together, including Greene's stunning "black session" shots never published during her lifetime. Greene was one of the ace photographers of the era and his son Joshua has curated this massive tome, and its a reasonable price too. The restored images just don't look 60 years old.

It shows Greene as up there with the other key Monroe photographers like Eve Arnold, George Barris, Bert Stern, Jack Cardiff, Lawrence Schiller (the 1962 pool pictures), Sam Shaw, Cecil Beaton etc, each capturing a different Marilyn. 
By 1957 Marilyn had moved on to marrying Arthur Miller and the Greene pictures were shelved. 

Massively recommended. Just don't drop it on your foot, like I did yesterday! 

Milton H. Greene (1922-1985), famous for his fashion photography and celebrity portraits from the golden age of Hollywood, met Marilyn Monroe on a photo shoot for Look magazine in 1953. The pair developed an instant rapport, quickly becoming close friends and ultimately business partners. In 1954, after helping her get out of her studio contract with 20th Century Fox, they created Marilyn Monroe Productions, Inc. Milton and Marilyn were much more then business partners, Marilyn became a part of the Greene family. By the time their relationship had ended in 1957, the pair had produced two feature films, in addition to more than 5,000 photographs of the iconic beauty. There was magic in Milton and Marilyn's working relationship. The trust and confidence they had in each other's capabilities was on full display in each photo.

Greene passed in 1985, thinking his life's work was succumbing to the ravages of time. His eldest son, Joshua, began a journey to meticulously restore his father's legacy. A photographer himself, Joshua spent years researching ways to restore his father's photographs as well as cataloging and promoting Milton's vast body of work all over the world. As a result, Joshua established "The Archives," a company committed to the restoration and preservation of photography. After spending nearly two decades restoring his father's archive, Joshua Greene and his company are widely regarded as one of the leaders in photographic restoration and have been at the forefront of the digital imaging and large-format printing revolution.

Now Joshua Greene, in conjunction with Iconic Images, presents The Essential Marilyn Monroe: Milton H. Greene, 50 Sessions. With 280 photographs, including many never-before published and unseen images, newly scanned and restored classics, as well as images that have appeared only once in publication, Greene's Marilyn Monroe archive can finally be viewed as it was originally intended when these pictures were first produced more than 60 years ago. These classic sessions - 50 in all - cover Monroe at the height of her astonishing beauty and meteoric fame. From film-sets to the bedroom, at home and at play, Joshua has curated a lasting tribute to the work of a great photographer and his greatest muse.

Poignant and powerful, joyful and stunning - these breathtaking images of an icon stand above all the rest. The Essential Marilyn Monroe: Milton H. Greene, 50 Sessions is sure to be a book that will become the platinum standard in photography monographs.

5th August 1962

I suppose we should mention that Marilyn Monroe departed on this date 55 years ago, in 1962. I remember it well, being 16 at the time, and we had seen her BUS STOP that Saturday night, 4th August, at our small town cinema in Ireland - while events must have been unfolding in Los Angeles.

Sunday the 5th I was sitting in a deck chair in the garden with the radio on, when a newsflash came on air ... it was hard to believe at the time, and course there were no rolling news channels or internet then, so we had to wait for the papers next day.

The first of the Marilyn features began unrolling that year - I loved (and still have) this late 1962 magazine, the swish upmarket London magazine TOWN, the first to feature those beach pictures by George Barris and a nice appreciation by David Robinson. This issue fetches quite a price now, as per my previous posts on it - MM labels.  

As with James Dean, one wonders what might have been - both Doris Day and Jeanne Moreau turned down Mrs Robinson in THE GRADUATE - could Marilyn have done it? or those 70s Ellen Burstyn roles in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW or ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE ... she might have been ideal if she could face getting older and being in her forties. THE MISFITS shows she was moving into black and white dramas, away from the fluff Fox was still casting her in ...

Next: Marlon in ONE-EYED JACKS - brilliant or bizarre?

Marilyn's birthday

She would have been 91 today.   This little magazine from 1958 (I would have been 12) was really my first exposure to the Monroe myth - how vividly I remember that red swimsuit cover, and couldn't wait to get to see HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE and all the other MMs then .... 

Lots more MM at labels ...

Back to 1957 with ....

When I was 11 in 1957, a favourite movie magazine - one of the American fan ones - was maybe called "Screen Stories", featuring stories and photos from the current movies. This particular issue featured RAINTREE COUNTY, THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR, LOVING YOU, FUNNY FACE and others -- I can still visualise it. This week two of these re-surfaced, the Marilyn and the Elizabeth saga. Of the two I think Marilyn came out the winner.

Both had been working hard throughout the early Fifties, Liz having four movies out in 1954, but once GIANT catapulted her into the  major league, she slowed down to one prestige film a year .... as did Marilyn, who had formed her own production company with Milton H Greene, after moving to New York and was seeking more important projects, than the fluff 20th Century Fox saw her in. Terence Rattigan's play, THE SLEEPING PRINCE, seemed the ideal choice, with Laurence Olivier directing and co-starring, and a good British cast, filmed in England in 1956. We have covered that in detail before here, particularly when the film MY WEEK WITH MARILYN came out. Looking at it again now it is utter delight.

It is a totally different Marilyn from her Fox movies, ace cameraman Jack Cardiff photographs her lovingly, she had never looked better and proves herself a delightful comedienne, holding her own with Olivier, whose sly portrayal is a joy too. Marilyn in that skintight white dress, with the white choker necklace, and the nice period detail. 
Good to see Richard Wattis in a good role for once, and Marilyn with Jean Kent, Maxine Audley, Gladys Henson, Vera Day and with that forgotten actor Jeremy Spenser as the young prince,  (All covered at labels). Of course the production was notoriously difficult with Marilyn's delays and insecurities, but none of it shows on the screen. Its a pleasure to sink into any time. 

RAINTREE COUNTY on the other hand is now a colossal bore and did Taylor no favours. Her damaged southern belle is no Scarlett O'Hara, and the film is a plod through the usual Civil War dramatics. 
Eva Marie Saint is wasted, but we get lots of the young Lee Marvin, Rod Taylor, Nigel Patrick. Montgomery Clift seems to stumble through it, We wonder which scenes were before and after his car accident. He and Taylor though did look great in Bob Willoughby's photos from the set, and seemed to be enjoying themselves, The film was never given the full dvd release initially, as though MGM did not want to bother with it. At least Liz had those Tennessee Williams roles lined up next: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, while Marilyn went back to Billy Wilder and the immortal SOME LIKE IT HOT. Liz may have been the dramatic actress, but Marilyn could sing, do comedy and musicals, as well as dramatics, and seems to have endured better.

Monroe and Taylor would be in contention again five years later in 1962 when CLEOPATRA and MM's SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where making the headlines .... 

Festive cheer 3

O HENRY’S FULL HOUSE – This 1952 20th Century Fox compendium of 5 O Henry stories has never surfaced anywhere during my years here in England, so when I saw it on Amazon I just had to get it, and its quite nice if nothing very special. Odd for a film about one writer’s work it is introduced by another: the much better known John Steinbeck (whom I had not seen on film before) who links the stories. It has that early ‘50s Fox look and a lot of those young Fox players of the time, but the most interesting sequence is a practically wordless one of hobo Charles Laughton trying to get back into jail for the winter – Marilyn Monroe appears for maybe a minute as the streetwalker he insults, and its just great seeing them together.
Oddly enough the story directed by Howard Hawks works least of all and is rather bizarre - but Fox stalwarts Henry Hathaway, Jean Negulseco, Henrys Koster and King direct the other episodes: cop Dale Robertson having to arrest old school pal Richard Widmark (guying his tough guy image) is a lively diversion; poor newly weds Jeanne Crain and Farley Granger trying to afford Christmas presents is nicely touching; and sisters Anne Baxter and Jean Peters play in an amusing anecdote with Gregory Ratoff.
Its a nice little diversion for this time of year. 

Latest MM memorabilia

We have found a treasure trove of Monroe memorabilia including some "Vanity Fair" magazines I had not seen, and photographer Lawrence Schiller's memoir MARILYN & ME (see post below) covering that shoot on SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE in 1962 when he took those pool photographs which made the cover of LIFE magazine and are still fascinating now. 

This year too VANITY FAIR ICONS appeared, a choice glossy magazine for MM fanatics, with great text and photographs, including appraisals of the Strasbergs, De Maggio, Miller; excerpts from Tony Curtis's memoir, and Lawrence Schller's. and reports on those MM documents and possessions which were stored away after her death, and inherited by Lee Strasberg's third wife, who did not even know MM. 

The first serious writing on Monroe was probably that nice feature by David Robinson in that October 1962 issue of TOWN magazine, which I had when I was 16 - it was great to find it again recently on a vintage magazine site, it costs quite a lot now!  There was also that early fan mag, covering the MM years.

Back in the early sixties, we liked those early MM books, before the avalanche of them followed: that early one by George Carpozi; MARILYN, THE TRAGIC VENUS by Edwin P. Hoyt (first published in 1967),  and NORMA JEANE by Laurence Guiles with that silvery Beaton cover shot. THE FILMS OF MARILYN MONROE of course, Then the 1973 Norman Mailer tome certainly brought Marilyn into the mainstream, collecting as it did those major photographs by Milton Greene (which a lot of us had not seen before), and the pool pictures by Schiller, and some Eve Arnold shots, and that Mailer text cementing Monroe as the American Icon. Schiller, now 79, and a writer/producer, shot those pool pictures when he was 25. 

Eve Arnold's book on MM contains a wealth too, as does the Barris, Stern, Schiller books on those late photoshoots. The best of the later books is the enormous MARILYN IN THE FLASH, reviewed last year, covering her many public appearances. A lot of the other MM books are not worthwhile and just rehash the usual stuff or try to seek a new angle on her death. 
The books by her maid Lena Pepitone and by Susan Strasberg are worth reading though for different facets on the Monroe persona and life, James Spada's 1982 MARILYN:  A LIFE IN PICTURES is another nice one, and Donald Spoto's huge biography seems to get everything right

(No, Marilyn was not killed by the Kennedys. Her 'suicide' may have been accidental, after being fed all those barbiturates by different people over the years; and her psychiatrist Ralph Greenson and her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, may have had a hand in it.).

So, the Monroe industry goes on and on ..... 

Marilyn by the pool

Its been fascinating reading once again about those final months of Marilyn Monroe's life in 1962, which contained some of her best photo sessions and images. MARILYN & ME by Lawrence Schiller, a nice pocked size memoir, is a particular treat though it includes none of his colour shots of MM and that blue pool and  blue bathrobe. "Vanity Fair" though has printed a lot of them, and they are included in several of the MM books, particularly the Norman Mailer 1973 opus. The black and white shots are terrific though. 

So, in March 62 Marilyn had that trip to Mexico (meeting the likes of director Luis Bunuel - there is a photo of them in the MARILYN IN THE FLASH tome (along with pictures of her with Garland, Callas, and more). 

In May she was filming SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, and looked great in the surviving footage, as per previous reports. This was when Schiller shot the pool images and other shots of her at that time, and later he took that photo of Joe De Maggio at her funeral.  His text is interesting too on meetings with her showing her determination to oust Elizabeth Taylor from the world's press. This was also when she sang Happy Birthday to the President at Madison Square Gardens, before the film was cancelled. 

In June she did the Bert Stern THE LAST SITTING images, containing some great shots.

In July she did the George Barris beach photos at Malibu, generally regarded as the last pictures of her - lots more on these too at MM label. And she also gave that final interview to LIFE magazine - here is a link to that text of her interview with Richard Meryman. 

http://www.marilynmonroe.ca/camera/mags/life62.htm

As Schiller (who first worked with her on LETS MAKE LOVE in 1960, when he was 23) says in his book, each photographer captures a different Marilyn - from the early shots by Andre De Dienes, though the great pictures by Milton Greene, Cecil Beaton, Jack Cardiff, Eve Arnold, Bob Willoughby, Stern, Barris, Avedon, Sam Shaw, and himself - each captures a different facet and look of hers. 

Then the events of August 4/5 unfolded. There was one final picture, which journalist Anthony Summers thought fit to include in his GODDESS book "investigating" her death, rehashing all the supposed rumours - a hot topic then fascinating the conspiracy nuts - that morgue shot, which once seen, is hard to unsee.
This 1992 Bonhams auction catalogue is a rich trove of all the MM photos from those early and final shoots. 

Showpeople: favourite fotos

Part of our Showpeople strand here - see label for previous - focusing on some fascinating snaps of Marilyn, Marlon and Sir Larry .....

I like this shot of MM with Olivier and Susan Strasberg, taken in 1956 when Strasberg was playing in THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK on Broadway, and before Monroe and Olivier had started THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in London. Marilyn looks marvellous here but Olivier and Strasberg seem to have eyes only for each other - the young Miss Strasberg (a friend of MM's due to Marilyn being at her father Lee's Actors' Studio) was it seems already romancing Richard Burton, so maybe had a thing for British actors ....

Marlon and Marilyn have been snapped together several times too, here at the premiere of EAST OF EDEN in 1955, and photographed by Milton Greene (who did those great mid-50s shots of Monroe) and also on the set of DESIREE in 1954, where MM is wearing a dress from THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS, being filmed by Fox at the same time.

Coming Up: several more on Monroe, after reading Lawrence Schiller's memoir on shooting those pool pictures from the uncompleted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, and some new Monroe magazines, like the VANITY FAIR ICONS issue on her, 

RIP, continued ...

George Barris (1922-2016) at the grand age of 94. The uninitiated may wonder who, but Barris was maybe the last of those those great photo-journalists from the Golden Age - check Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby, labels below, and like them he too took some amazing photographs of Marilyn Monroe. I have lived with Barris's pictures since the '60s, and had some good prints, and like Arnold he also did a book of them. He was also good friend with MM and captures her nicely in his writings on her, He later moved to Paris. 

He of course took those final pictures of her in July 1962 on the beach at Mailibu and also at a house, showing that new sleek radiant Marilyn - who only had a month more to live .... so here's one or two of them again .... 
(lots more at MM label).



Rod Temperton (1949-2016) aged 66. Surprisingly the British songwriter and musician from Cleethorpes wrote those massive hits for the Michael Jackson albums OFF THE WALL and THRILLER, due to his association with Quincy Jones, as Temperton was part the funk band Heatwave in the '70s. I particularly liked his "Love Is In Control" and others for Donna Summer in '82, and George Benson's "Give Me The Night", James Ingram's "Yah Mo B There" as well as hits for Patti Austin and Herbie Hancock, and Quincy's THE DUDE and BACK ON THE BLOCK albums. We need to replay them.

Another Marilyn exhibition - I'm going to this one ...

Marilyn Monroe: The Legacy of a Legend is the latest MM exhibition of her dresses, letters, jewellery etc. and is currently on here in London at The Design Centre in Chelsea Harbour,, until June 20 and admission is free. I do not know The Design Centre, but I think I will be heading there before too long - we will file a report.  MM of course would be 90 today 1st June ! The legend goes on .....

As the flyer puts it:

"Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, in collaboration with Julien’s Auctions, presents a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most enduring screen icons. Epitomising the high glamour of 1950s Hollywood, take a journey through Marilyn Monroe’s life and work, transported into her world through the lens of style, fashion, photography and film. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see original designs from the David Gainsborough-Roberts collection, featuring costumes worn by Marilyn in seven notable films such as ‘Some Like It Hot’ and ‘No Business Like Show Business’, as well as never-seen-before personal treasures. In a stunning contrast between Marilyn’s private life and her dazzling public persona, personal papers including her journals, handwritten letters, drawings and poetry from the Lee Strasberg estate reveal her intellectual curiosity, vulnerability and humanity. Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour is a leading platform for a broad spectrum of creative disciplines. A world-leading destination for excellence in luxury interiors, it supports cuttingedge expression across the design agenda, making it a natural home for this event. This will be the first, and only time, that these remarkable pieces are available for public viewing in the UK. Following a worldwide tour, they will go on sale at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles on 19 – 20 November."

More info at their site:  http://www.dcch.co.uk/Overview

Marilyn by Lee & and that 1962 film that wasn't ...

Marilyn Monroe would be 90 this year. Yes, I know, its impossible to imagine her - or James Dean - being "old" now - they are forever young, preserved in amber in that Golden Age: the 1950s and early '60 for Marilyn. Would she have aged like her once room-mate Shelley Winters? Would he have aged like Brando ? 

What is astonishing now is looking once again at those test shots for the uncompleted 1962 Fox film SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where she looks simply radiant and totally gorgeous - a new sleek. slim, svelte slimmed-down Marilyn for the new decade, a few months before that still mysterious death - compare with how chubby (by today's standards) she looked in the second half of the 1950s: in that skintight white dress she spends most of THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in, those Orry-Kelly (see below) creations in SOME LIKE IT HOT, how her looks and weight varied in LET'S MAKE LOVE in 1960, or in THE MISFITS in '61 ... I like this pensive shot of her on set in that dress in 1962.

Here also is what remains of SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, mainly Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse, and that pool scene which Marilyn did, her intention was to get Liz Taylor (shooting the wildly expensive CLEOPATRA in Rome) off the covers of the world's magazines - 
she certainly succeeded there. We still find those pictures and footage fascinating. Liz of course was getting a million from Fox while Monroe was still on her contract salary and this would be her final Fox comedy - it looks as if it would have been more fun than her last one, the rather dull and tedious LET'S MAKE LOVE ...  I somehow never wanted to see MOVE OVER DARLING, Fox's reworking of the material for Doris Day in 1963 ...

Right: MM and Curtis on the set of SOME LIKE IT HOT ....

Here too is that 1987 documentary hosted by our Projector favourite Lee Remick  (four years before her own death in 1991....) - maybe the best of the Monroe documentaries - fascinating seeing one star commenting on another and of course Lee, back in 1962, had been named as replacing Marilyn in the Cukor film - which it seems was a bargaining ploy to get Marilyn back - it was the only film Fox had in production apart from the ruinously expensive CLEO .... I have the video-cassette of the Monroe/Remick documentary, shame its not on dvd. 
Left: that Nov1962 issue of British TOWN magazine with some of those last photos of Marilyn on the beach at Malibu, shot by George Barris - more on these at MM labels. We love those photos here ...I had this magazine when I was 16, it now fetches astronomical prices on the internet, I have seen it on eBay for £100, or £299 on a vintage magazine site - luckily I snapped up another copy of it last year for £40 ! 

Orry-Kelly - he's back ...

A hefty 420 page tome landed on my coffee table yesterday - Orry-Kelly's memoirs from 50 years ago - in a glamorous book crammed with photos and Orry's true story of his youth in Australia and move to New York in 1932 when he took up with another aspiring young man: Archie Leach from Bristol. They moved in together as they pursued their respective careers. The penny-pinching Archie of course became Cary Grant (who later moved in with Randolph Scott to save rent money ...) - we get Orry's take on all that, as he of course became one of the leading dress designers in Hollywood: the book's full title is: WOMEN I'VE DRESSED - THE FABULOUS LIFE AND TIMES OF A LEGENDARY HOLLYWOOD DESIGNER.

Reading the rave review in the weekend papers I felt this had to be a con, a fake concocted by some hack - but its the real thing. Orry's 50 year old memoir was found in a pillowcase by his great-niece in her laundry room, and its been given the full gloss treatment by reputable publishers Allen & Unwin, and is well worth the price for the photos alone.  

Orry (1897-1964) was a costume designer per excellence (he was chief costume designer at Warner Bros from 1932 to 1944) and won an Oscar three times (AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, LES GIRLS, SOME LIKE IT HOT); he dressed Hollywood's leading ladies including Bette Davis in all her great movies (JEZEBEL, DARK VICTORY, NOW VOYAGER etc), Ingrid Bergman in CASABLANCA, he was great friends with Fanny Brice, Kay Francis and Roz Russell, he liked Olivia  but clashed with her sister Joan, loved working with Kay Kendall and has some delicious stories on making LES GIRLS, a particular favourite of ours here - see label - and also clashed with Marilyn Monroe when designing those incredible dresse for her on SOME LIKE IT HOT, where he also dressed Jack and Tony in those 1920s costumes .... he also did THE CHAPMAN REPORT, SWEET  BIRD OF YOUTH, GYPSY, AUNTIE MAME and so many more.

He did several Billy Wilder films and when he died of liver cancer in 1964 pall bearers at his funeral included Cary, Tony Curtis, Wilder and Cukor. 

He had quite a wild time when young in Sydney - he was 17 when he moved there -  and we get it all in detail, before his move to the States. Its page 160 before he arrives in Hollywood .... and became one of the great designers, on a par with Adrian, Irene Sharaff, Edith Head, Travis Banton, Jean Louis ... he often worked on as many as 60 films a year. We get some Garbo stories, and he used to dine with Cukor, Cole Porter, and the Hollywood elite. He did have a problem with alcohol in his later years ... but comes across as as a happy, likeable guy - widely perceived to be gay, but he kept that under wraps here - well, it was written over 50 years ago (and Cary was still alive). So, highly recommended .... there will hardly be a more glamorous book this year.  

It is also going to be a film: WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED, directed by fellow Australian Gillian Armstrong, who writes the foreword here. That should be fascinating too.