An Evening with Marilyn

Perhaps it was her girlish, whispery voice; or the way her eyes danced when she smiled; or how she seemed to have an unearthly glow about her. Whatever the reason, Marilyn Monroe remains one of the most glamorous, seductive, and charming women in Hollywood history. Worshipped for her sexuality, adored for her vulnerability and innocence, Marilyn is a celebrated movie icon whose persona continues to enthrall and delight her loyal fans. Marilyn’s ethereal beauty and irrepressible charisma are captured here in a sequence of sensual portraits taken over the course of one extraordinary evening in 1961 when she was thirty-five, just a year before her tragic death. On assignment for Look magazine to photograph the movie star for its twenty-fifth anniversary cover, Douglas Kirkland shot Marilyn in the intimate confines of an unmade bed. The result is a series of some of the most spontaneous and flirtatious photographs ever taken of this film legend. Moody, grainy, and evocative, these images are accompanied by Kirkland’s own recounting of the story behind the photo shoot. Together his words and pictures tell the seductive tale of a brief and unforgettable encounter between a handsome freshman photographer and the sexiest woman in Hollywood history.