Just in time to benefit from the Marilyn Monroe mania surrounding the new Michelle Williams film “My Week With Marilyn” — and, to a lesser extent, the recent Milk Gallery exhibition “Picturing Marilyn” — the new tome “Norman Mailer, Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe” fuses text from Norman Mailer’s historic 1973 biography of the actress with Bert Stern’s photographs from a 1962 Vogue magazine shoot six weeks before her untimely death.
Lawrence Schiller, a collaborator with Mailer on several projects, came up with the idea for the 278-page book, the visual focus being Stern’s three-day photo shoot with Monroe at the Bel Air Hotel. Never before had Monroe allowed a photographer to have such intimate access to her, allowing for stunning, cup-runneth-over-with-beauty images. The images show a sexy Monroe — some images under the sheets, others of the actress topless, along with more classic photographs of the actress.
With a starting price of $1,000, this piece of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia doesn't come cheap. But the combination of Mailer’s text and Stern’s photographs allows for an inside look into the complex and tragic sex symbol who still holds sway over the cultural zeitgeist almost 50 years after her death.
Click on the photo gallery above to see a selection of Bert Stern’s images from “Norman Mailer, Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe,” available at taschen.com.