Marilyn Monroe 1926-1962
Bill ‘Moose’ Skowron, who played first base for the New York Yankees from 1954-62, has recalled having dinner with the DiMaggios:
“I was so nervous, I shaved four times that day, Marilyn was a lovely woman, nothing like the characters she played in the movies. She wanted to learn about baseball and asked a lot of good questions.”
George Barris, one of Marilyn’s last photographers, will appear at the opening night of ‘Happy Birthday Marilyn’ at the Andrew Weiss Gallery, Los Angeles, on June 1st.
“These photographs are very dear and personal to me. Marilyn was much more than a photography subject, she was a friend. She had an inner light that comes through in her images, even many years later, and I am pleased to work with the Andrew Weiss Gallery to share my experience of Marilyn with her fans and the public.”
Marilyn: Intimate Exposures, showcasing the work of the late Bruno Bernard and authored by his daughter, Susan Bernard, will be published in October by Sterling Signature.
Two previous books on this subject have already published: the now rare Requiem for Marilyn (1986) and Bernard of Hollywood’s Marilyn (1993.)
Intimate Exposures includes essays by Jane Russell and Lindsay Lohan, and can be pre-ordered from various retailers, including The Book Depository
Product Description
Includes frameable print!2012 is the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death, and this lavishly illustrated volume celebrates her enduring beauty through photographs by legendary Hollywood photographer Bruno Bernard. Bernard’s iconic photograph of Marilyn standing over the subway grate in a billowing white dress is synonymous with Hollywood glamour and sex appeal, and many of the images here have never before been published. They cover key moments in Marilyn’s life, including her first professional sitting in 1946, all enlivened by fascinating excerpts from Bruno’s journal.Fans of the blonde bombshell will also treasure the stunning, frameable print included with this keepsake book.About the Author
Susan Bernard, daughter of Bruno Bernard, is an author, producer, and president of Bernard of Hollywood Publishing/Renaissance Road, Inc. She preserves and internationally exhibits, publishes, and licenses her late father’s work, generating feature articles in The New York Times, Time,Newsweek, Vanity Fair, American Photo, Entertainment Weekly, and other journals. Bernard of Hollywood’s famous “Marilyn in White” photograph was chosen as the photographic Symbol of the Century in 1999 by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in its Fame After Photography exhibition.
- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Sterling Signature (October 4, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 140278001X
- ISBN-13: 978-1402780011
Details from Amazon
Thanks to Chris at Club Passion Marilyn
May 19 marked the 49th anniversary of Marilyn’s ‘Happy Birthday’ performance for President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, as Garrison Keillor noted in his Writers’ Almanac. (Unfortunately, while he reports on the event well, he has added three spurious quotes attributed to MM via the internet. )
Given all the confusion out there, it was refreshing to find a sound, intelligent analysis of some verified Monroe quotes from Jason Cuthbert over at MadeMan.
And talking of the eternal rumour mill, Lady Gaga – who really should know better – tweeted yesterday that ‘Government Hooker’, a track from her new album, Born This Way, “was inspired by Marilyn Monroe + political mistresses. I wonder what they were privy to + what they affected.”
An Actress Prepares, a recreation of Marilyn’s last interview by Irina Diva, is coming to the New End Theatre in Hampstead, London, playing from June 14-July 10.
The Seven Year Itch is one of Marilyn’s most enduringly popular films, yet for some reason it is rarely included in cinema revivals (Some Like it Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and The Misfits are all frequently shown.) So I was glad to hear of a recent outdoor screening via the San Diego Reader.
Over at Pop Matters, Oscar-watcher Matt Mazur challenges the Academy in Best Actress Rewind: 1959. Contending that Elizabeth Taylor deserved to win for Suddenly Last Summer, he also states that Marilyn should have been nominated for Some Like it Hot. (Actually, Marilyn won a Golden Globe. Simone Signoret won the Oscar that year for Room at the Top, while Marilyn was filming Let’s Make Love with her husband, Yves Montand.)
Stories My Father Told Me: Notes From the Lyon’s Den, by film critic Jeffrey Lyons, looks back at the career of New York Post gossip columnist, Leonard Lyons. (More details on the book at Abbeville Press.)
The photo above shows Marilyn at a birthday party for Jackie Gleason with Lyons and his wife, Sylvia, at Toots Shor’s sports bar, NYC (favourite haunt of ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, who escorted Marilyn that night), in February 1955.
“When Lyon’s son Jeffery turned 16, his father arranged for Marilyn Monroe to call him. ‘This was a year and a half before she would serenade President Kennedy. I like to think she rehearsed with me,’ he said.”
Full review at New York Post
At Nassau County Museum of Art , NY, through to September 4.
‘Beauty Culture’, a new exhibition at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, includes a sub-section devoted to Marilyn Monroe and her many imitators.
Photographers Bert Stern, Bob Willoughby, and Joe Shere, who all worked with Marilyn, are listed among the contributors.
“Marilyn Monroe has been awarded her own subtopic — ‘The Marilyn Syndrome’ — in which images of Kate Moss, Lindsey Lohan and Anna Nicole Smith, all channeling Monroe, are displayed with several pictures of the actress. A quote from Gloria Steinem seems to sum up the mystique and status of the late movie star: ‘The woman who died too soon became the woman who would not die.'”
‘Black Dahlia and White Rose’, Joyce Carol Oates’ short story for the LA Noire anthology – imagining a young Marilyn sharing an apartment with the doomed Elizabeth Short in 1947 – has been published in the Daily Telegraph.
Marilyn’s ubiquitous ‘subway scene’ from The Seven Year Itch features in a new interactive exhibit, ‘The Spirit of New York’, at Madame Tussaud’s on West 42nd St, NYC.
Two films featuring Marilyn will screen at the Prytania Theatre, New Orleans, as part of their Classic Movies series: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (June 4, 5, and 8th) and All About Eve (June 11, 12, 15.)