{"id":476504,"date":"2026-05-31T19:22:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T19:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/476504\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T19:22:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T19:22:30","slug":"photographer-shares-portraits-of-the-iconic-marilyn-monroe-during-her-untimely-final-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/476504\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographer Shares Portraits of the Iconic Marilyn Monroe During Her Untimely Final Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Monroe<\/p>\n

Monroe and co-star Yves Montand discuss the opening scene of \u201cLet\u2019s Make Love\u201d on set, 1960. (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

In May 1962, Lawrence Schiller arrived on the set of Something\u2019s Got to Give, the film that would be Marilyn Monroe<\/a>\u2019s last. The 25-year-old photographer was there on assignment for Paris Match magazine and, though he\u2019d already met Monroe two years earlier on the set of Let\u2019s Make Love, he believed that shooting her this time could lead to his breakthrough. \u201cYou\u2019re already famous,\u201d he told the iconic actor, \u201cnow you\u2019re going to make me famous.\u201d Monroe teasingly replied: \u201cDon\u2019t be so cocky. Photographers can be easily replaced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Schiller remained on set with Monroe, intimately chronicling the last few months of her life without realizing it. In the early morning hours of August 5, 1962, she was discovered unresponsive in her bed, having overdosed on barbiturates the night before. \u201cI just didn\u2019t understand it. Marilyn Monroe was dead at 36,\u201d Schiller wrote. He had just visited her in Brentwood the day before, on August 4. Still, even in the wake of her probable suicide, he had something to remember her by: a treasure trove of photographs.<\/p>\n

As Monroe\u2019s 100th birthday approaches on June 1, 2026, Taschen<\/a> is preparing to reissue Schiller\u2019s photographic memoir Marilyn & Me<\/a>, originally published in 2012. The volume gathers more than 100 images from the photographer\u2019s archive, including rare outtakes from Something\u2019s Got to Give and behind-the-scenes glimpses\u2014literally\u2014into Monroe\u2019s life. In that sense, we are afforded a privileged view of Monroe, not just as an actor, but as a person in her own right. Across each page of the book, she commands our attention, her presence radiant, magnetic, and, perhaps above all, unexpected. We witness moments that may seem incongruous with the public persona that Monroe cultivated, seeing her in at once casual and deeply personal scenes.<\/p>\n

One particularly compelling chapter, for instance, catalogs Monroe\u2019s 36th birthday, which was celebrated on set on June 1, 1962. The images seem jovial if not tender, with Monroe smiling behind a birthday cake filled with sparklers and laughing while perched on actor Wally Cox\u2019s lap. She\u2019s beaming and drinking\u2014it \u201cdidn\u2019t take long for the champagne to have its effect,\u201d according to Schiller\u2014but there\u2019s a melancholy underlying the photographs. \u201cThe atmosphere wasn\u2019t festive,\u201d Schiller admits in the book. \u201cShe got no presents. There was more a feeling of gloom than of happiness. And what I noticed was how few people from the studio and among her personal friends were there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schiller\u2019s recollection casts Monroe in a different light, one far removed from the glitz and glamor she otherwise embodied for the sake of others. It hints at the eventual fate that she faced just two months later and, by extension, the pain that flowed beneath the surface. That sensation is only heightened later in the book, where we encounter a color portrait that Schiller had taken of Monroe on the set of Something\u2019s Got to Give. On August 17, 1962, about two weeks after her death, Life magazine ran the photograph as its cover.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was stunned,\u201d Schiller writes. \u201c[It was] the picture where she looked like she was breathing in a little more air, the ethereal shot where she looked like an angel. It\u2019s the Marilyn I most remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an exercise in memory and remembering, Marilyn & Me is an evocative tribute to a photographer\u2019s muse, however short-lived. But, as a portrait of an actor\u2019s tragic downfall, of the anticipation of it, the memoir is almost haunting. We know, each and every time we flip a page, that any given photograph may be Schiller\u2019s last of Monroe. But that\u2019s precisely what makes the book so successful. Because what is a photograph if not an attempt to capture something fleeting?<\/p>\n

Marilyn & Me is currently available for pre-order via Taschen\u2019s website<\/a>. The book will officially be published on June 1, 2026, the 100th anniversary of Monroe\u2019s birth.\n<\/p>\n

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe\u2019s birth, Taschen is reissuing Lawrence Schiller\u2019s photographic memoir\u00a0Marilyn & Me on June 1, 2026.
\n\"Monroe<\/p>\n

Monroe celebrates her 36th birthday on the set of \u201cSomething\u2019s Got to Give\u201d with co-stars Wally Cox (l.), Dean Martin (r.), and Martin\u2019s driver (standing). (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

\"Monroe<\/p>\n

Monroe on the set of her last film, \u201cSomething\u2019s Got to Give,\u201d in May 1962. (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

\"Monroe<\/p>\n

Monroe celebrates her 36th birthday on set, June 1, 1962. (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

\"Monroe<\/p>\n

Monroe in her dressing room, on the set of \u201cLet\u2019s Make Love,\u201d 1960. (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A spread from \u201cMarilyn & Me\u201d by Lawrence Schiller, published by Taschen. ($80<\/a> via the publisher\u2019s website)<\/p>\n

The book gathers more than 100 images from Schiller\u2019s archive, including outtakes from the set of\u00a0Something\u2019s Got to Give, Monroe\u2019s last-ever film.
\n\"Monroe<\/p>\n

Monroe with acting coach and confidant Paula Strasberg, 1962. (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

\"Monroe<\/p>\n

Monroe in \u201cSomething\u2019s Got to Give,\u201d May 1962. (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

\"Schiller\u2019s<\/p>\n

Schiller\u2019s May 1962 portrait of Monroe appeared on the August 17th cover of Life Magazine that same year. She had died only two weeks earlier, on August 4, 1962. (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

\"Monroe<\/p>\n

Monroe on the set of her last film, \u201cSomething\u2019s Got to Give,\u201d in May 1962. (Courtesy Taschen and Holden Luntz Gallery)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The cover of \u201cMarilyn & Me\u201d by Lawrence Schiller, published by Taschen. ($80<\/a> via the publisher\u2019s website)<\/p>\n

Taschen: Website<\/a> | Instagram<\/a><\/p>\n

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Taschen.
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