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| Photographed by Lawrence Schiller © Polaris Communications |
| Click photo to see more images from Marilyn Revisited. |
Schiller shot for Life, Paris Match, and other magazines from the 1960s through 1975. When the big picture magazines of the era folded, Schiller "cut the umbilical cord" with photography, only to become one of the most intriguing personalities of the time -- a Zelig-like figure roaming through American culture at the end of the 20th century.
He has published books, including W. Eugene Smith's Minamata and Norman Mailer's Marilyn. He also collaborated with Mailer on The Executioner's Song and directed the television mini-series of that book, starring Tommy Lee Jones as killer Gary Gilmore. He produced and directed a TV movie about photographer Margaret Bourke-White starring Farrah Fawcett. He's been a consultant for NBC News, written best-selling books (American Tragedy, Perfect Murder, and Perfect Town) and even worked for the defense during the O.J. Simpson Trial.
"I knew Simpson well; my daughter used to baby-sit for the family," he says. "Every person deserves the right to a fair trial, even O.J., though he was certainly guilty."
After a heart attack in 1992, Schiller found himself unable to work in the motion-picture business. "I was uninsurable for films costing more that $5 million," he says, shrugging. In the past few years Schiller has been re-examining his photographic archive, which includes indelible images from films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as well as portraits of actors like James Earl Jones, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward.
But the big attraction at the moment is his images of Marilyn from 1962. That final shoot was actually the second time Schiller photographed the star. The first time was on the set of the movie Let's Make Love in 1960, when she had already emerged as an American movie icon. "Marilyn was sensual. But not beautiful," he says. "She knew how to handle her body. She knew how to handle her lips. With Marilyn, when everything was working, there was no one single element."
By 1962 Monroe was on the outs with her studio and facing competition from new sex symbols, especially Elizabeth Taylor, who was getting a million dollars for starring in Cleopatra for 20th Century Fox. (That costly film nearly put the studio out of business.) Monroe was getting only $100,000 a picture. "So, coming to Marilyn the second time around I knew I was coming to somebody who was living on eggshells," Schiller says.
Two other photographers were on the set that day: William Reed Woodfield, from Globe Photos, and Jimmy Mitchell, a studio employee. "I started shooting with a long lens," Schiller recalls. "All of a sudden she came up to the edge of the pool and she didn't have the top of the swimming suit on. I shot 11 or 13 rolls of black and white and four rolls of color. It happened in two hours."
Recognizing an enormous marketing opportunity, Schiller and Woodfield combined their take to sell worldwide. "I told him, 'Bill, two sets of photos will just drive down the price. One set, and we control the market for these pictures." Mitchell's images remained at the studio, unused.
Marilyn herself later approved Schiller's images, using sheers to cut up the negatives she didn't like. "She was a very intelligent business woman about these things," says Schiller.
Schiller saw Monroe again on August 4, stopping by her house in Brentwood to discuss plans for a photo shoot for Playboy. "She was out in the garden, pulling up weeds. She seemed at peace with herself," he says. That night he went to Palm Springs and was awoken the next morning with word of her death. "I couldn't believe that I was there talking so simply with her," he says.
Over the next four decades most of the negatives sat in boxes in Schiller's office. Hugh Hefner purchased several negatives for his private collection, providing scans of them for the new group of prints. Schiller scanned his own negatives. The prints themselves were made on silver-gelatin paper with a De Vere 504 DS Digital Enlarger.
"I'm seeing things in these new prints that I was never able to see before -- textures and details in the light areas, especially," says Schiller.
Marilyn herself remains luminescent.
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