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Marilyn and the Hollywood Beach Beauties

Several photos of Marilyn are featured in Hollywood Beach Beauties, a new book from David Wills (author of MM: Metamorphosis and Marilyn in the Flash.) Eagle-eyed fans will know that the back cover photo, as shown above – taken by Laszlo Willinger circa 1951-52 – has been colorized (by Olga Shimina), as other photos from the same session show that Marilyn’s two-piece wasn’t red.

 

In an interview with Stephanie Nolasco for Fox News, David Wills shared his thoughts on the ultimate California girl:

“I don’t know if she thought much about it at the time, because I know later in her career she didn’t want to be associated with that, but it certainly helped her get a lot of attention. You look back as early as 1945 and she was posing in bathing suits.

Then at a certain time, she didn’t want to do that anymore… So for the last 10 years of her life, you rarely saw her posing in bathing suits. Only a few occasions, like the ones taken by Sam Shaw, which are in the book … But professionally at some point, she just stopped.”

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Switched On: Marilyn in the Sixties

This photo of Marilyn boarding a Pan-Am flight to Mexico City at Miami International Airport on February 21, 1962 is published in a new book, Switched On: Women Who Revolutionised Style in the 60s, by David Wills, author of MM: Metamorphosis and Marilyn in the Flash.

“MM’s personal style loosened up in the last months of her life, as she played a wife and mother for the first time in the aborted Something’s Got to Give. Now paler, blonder and more refined – her features and body transformed by an extreme weight loss – she resembled a beautiful ghost. Marilyn indulged her fondness for Pucci prints, Jax slacks, and Ferragamo high-heel mules, perhaps sensing in her new home life – in the first home she ever owned – a saner existence within reach. This was not to be: a Hollywood legendary was made tragically eternal instead.”

Here are some more photos from the same day, including one of Marilyn kissing goodbye to Joe DiMaggio.

Marilyn will also feature in Wills’ next book, Hollywood Beach Beauties: Sea Sirens, Sun Goddesses, and Summer Style 1930-1970, due for release in June 2018.

“Hollywood Beach Beauties highlights the sexy, carefree attitude of the summer, the elegant seaside couture, and the enchanting and alluring beauty of the female form. Included here are candid and stylish photographs featuring stars of yesterday such as Elizabeth Taylor, Rita Hayworth, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Tate, Raquel Welch, Sophia Loren, Dorothy Dandridge, and Nancy Sinatra.”