Latest MM memorabilia

We have found a treasure trove of Monroe memorabilia including some "Vanity Fair" magazines I had not seen, and photographer Lawrence Schiller's memoir MARILYN & ME (see post below) covering that shoot on SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE in 1962 when he took those pool photographs which made the cover of LIFE magazine and are still fascinating now. 

This year too VANITY FAIR ICONS appeared, a choice glossy magazine for MM fanatics, with great text and photographs, including appraisals of the Strasbergs, De Maggio, Miller; excerpts from Tony Curtis's memoir, and Lawrence Schller's. and reports on those MM documents and possessions which were stored away after her death, and inherited by Lee Strasberg's third wife, who did not even know MM. 

The first serious writing on Monroe was probably that nice feature by David Robinson in that October 1962 issue of TOWN magazine, which I had when I was 16 - it was great to find it again recently on a vintage magazine site, it costs quite a lot now!  There was also that early fan mag, covering the MM years.

Back in the early sixties, we liked those early MM books, before the avalanche of them followed: that early one by George Carpozi; MARILYN, THE TRAGIC VENUS by Edwin P. Hoyt (first published in 1967),  and NORMA JEANE by Laurence Guiles with that silvery Beaton cover shot. THE FILMS OF MARILYN MONROE of course, Then the 1973 Norman Mailer tome certainly brought Marilyn into the mainstream, collecting as it did those major photographs by Milton Greene (which a lot of us had not seen before), and the pool pictures by Schiller, and some Eve Arnold shots, and that Mailer text cementing Monroe as the American Icon. Schiller, now 79, and a writer/producer, shot those pool pictures when he was 25. 

Eve Arnold's book on MM contains a wealth too, as does the Barris, Stern, Schiller books on those late photoshoots. The best of the later books is the enormous MARILYN IN THE FLASH, reviewed last year, covering her many public appearances. A lot of the other MM books are not worthwhile and just rehash the usual stuff or try to seek a new angle on her death. 
The books by her maid Lena Pepitone and by Susan Strasberg are worth reading though for different facets on the Monroe persona and life, James Spada's 1982 MARILYN:  A LIFE IN PICTURES is another nice one, and Donald Spoto's huge biography seems to get everything right

(No, Marilyn was not killed by the Kennedys. Her 'suicide' may have been accidental, after being fed all those barbiturates by different people over the years; and her psychiatrist Ralph Greenson and her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, may have had a hand in it.).

So, the Monroe industry goes on and on ..... 

RIP, continued ...

George Barris (1922-2016) at the grand age of 94. The uninitiated may wonder who, but Barris was maybe the last of those those great photo-journalists from the Golden Age - check Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby, labels below, and like them he too took some amazing photographs of Marilyn Monroe. I have lived with Barris's pictures since the '60s, and had some good prints, and like Arnold he also did a book of them. He was also good friend with MM and captures her nicely in his writings on her, He later moved to Paris. 

He of course took those final pictures of her in July 1962 on the beach at Mailibu and also at a house, showing that new sleek radiant Marilyn - who only had a month more to live .... so here's one or two of them again .... 
(lots more at MM label).



Rod Temperton (1949-2016) aged 66. Surprisingly the British songwriter and musician from Cleethorpes wrote those massive hits for the Michael Jackson albums OFF THE WALL and THRILLER, due to his association with Quincy Jones, as Temperton was part the funk band Heatwave in the '70s. I particularly liked his "Love Is In Control" and others for Donna Summer in '82, and George Benson's "Give Me The Night", James Ingram's "Yah Mo B There" as well as hits for Patti Austin and Herbie Hancock, and Quincy's THE DUDE and BACK ON THE BLOCK albums. We need to replay them.

ANOTHER Marilyn exhibition ....

A new Marilyn Monroe exhibition is opening in London at The Little Black Gallery (http://www.thelittleblackgallery.com)

and yes it is billing it as showing some rarely-seen images of MM - but of course they are not. These images (available as framed prints at rather stunning prices) have been available for a long time - and featured heavily in Norman Mailer's 1973 iconic book on Monroe. My teenage niece even has this MM image by Greene on her bedroom wall ...

The photos here are by two of the main photographers who knew and worked with her: namely Milton Greene who look some of the best portraits of her in the mid-1950s (he had become her friend and they set up her production company which made THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in 1956), and Douglas Kirkland who did those - yes, iconic - shots of her wrapped in that silk sheet, in 1961. (Other great MM photographers were - as mentoned before - Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby, George Barris who did those great beach photos with her in 1962, and Bert Stern whose "Last Sitting" caught a darker Monroe ...

The Greene pictures though are marvellous and certainly worth looking at. 

ANOTHER Marilyn book ...

Its arrived - MARILYN IN THE FLASH - the ultimate Marilyn picture book, a nice hefty tome too, Lets read the blurb:

Marilyn Monroe had a unique relationship with the press—the photographers, journalists, and columnists who followed her every move, helped carefully craft her public image, and made her one of the greatest stars in Hollywood history.

Photographically, Marilyn was at her most electrifying at public events. She was as spectacular in the posed candids of press photographers as in studio portraits or on the movie screen. She made any news photo a work of art simply by being in it, and more than any other star lived up to the promise of her screen image.

One of the most publicized actresses of her time, Marilyn actively sought out the press—which included the famous journalists and columnists Walter Winchell, Edward R. Murrow, Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Earl Wilson, Pete Martin, Sidney Skolsky, Elsa Maxwell, and Dorothy Kilgallen. It was a mutually beneficial relationship that lasted her entire career.

In Marilyn: In The Flash, acclaimed photographic preservationist David Wills brings together an unprecedented trove highlighting the work of some of the great press photographers and photojournalists of the twentieth century. This stunning collection includes many unpublished images (most beautifully restored from original prints, negatives, or transparencies), vintage magazine articles, original press clippings and press photo captions, behind-the-scenes notes, and photographic ephemera chronicling the media's lifelong love affair with Marilyn.

Featuring a foreword by Marilyn's friend and costar Robert J. Wagner, original interviews and recollections, retrospective quotes from key journalists, columnists, press agents, photographers, and others, this portfolio of images offers a fresh, indelible portrait of one of the most enduring icons in history and illuminates the special alliance she shared with the press as never before.

Lots of familiar stuff here, but some fascinating photos I had not seen before as well: MM with Judy Garland, MM with Maria Callas, MM with Isak Dinesen, MM with Dame Edith Sitwell etc. and, surprisingly, with Spanish director Luis Bunuel - she visited the set of his EXTERMINATING ANGEL during her visit to Mexico City in March '62.- lots of these have not been seen for decades. Theres also those photos with Rock, Ella, Marlene (not the one with Gina) and the one time she and Liz Taylor were snapped together, at that 1961 Sinatra concert ... 

Not a great analysis of the Monroe myth or career - there's plenty other tomes on those, but oodles of fabulous photographs.There are other good Marilyn picture books too. I still go for the 1962 George Barris photographs though, and the Eve Arnold and Bob Willoughby ones, who knew her well. The myth goes on - a perfect birthday present to myself. 

Lots more MM at labels .....

Some winter glamour ...

to brighten up a dull December day. Here's Sophia Loren - my Number One favourite - in Antigua back in 1979 - she was making a Michael Winner film there - FIREPOWER ?- which even I did not want to see. I did see her up-close that year though, when she promoted her first autobiography at Selfridges crowded department store in London, and got my copy of the book signed. 
She was still a star people wanted to see in the flesh so the store was mobbed, I had to fight my way to the front .... thanks for the smile Sophia. 

The photos are by ace photographer David Steen who died recently - like Bob Willoughby and Eve Arnold (see labels) in the '50s and '60s. Steen took some great showbiz photos in the '70s, you only have to google them.

The Misfits and those Sixties dramas

Nice to see THE MISFITS back in selected cinemas again, with a new poster (well, at the BFI Southbank in a new restoration extended run as part of their Monroe season) with interesting reviews in the papers, it seems Huston's 1961 drama (often seen as too melancholy and downbeat for some - lacking the savage humour of Tennessee's NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, another Huston hit - or Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?) so now THE MISFITS has been re-evaluated and appreciated, with its star power as potent as ever and its certainly a key Huston film.

 "Monroe and Clift are both truly remarkable, especially together" says The Daily Telegraph, at:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-misfits/review/

Against the odds a highly erratic Marilyn Monroe gives an extraordinary performance in John Huston's elegaic film  of Arthur Miller's script, conveying her character's great empathy with the cowboys (Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift) out of kilter with a modern, wages-based world, and her identification with the wild mustangs they're plannng to kill for petfood. Gable and Clift are also exceptional (as is Eli Wallach as the resentful car mechanic Guido) in roles that celebrate and subvert their screen images. 

I was obsessed about THE MISFITS for a long time, back in my twenties when back in that pre-video age before we could own copies of favourite films, I could never miss a screening. Apart from the cast, it has maybe the most perfect black and white photography, as lensed by Russell Metty (who did TOUCH OF EVIL among others) . It was a very difficult shoot, with all the world press covering it - including Magnum's Eve Arnold, who knew Monroe and later published her book on the film and its making - Eve Arnold label. I was a kid at the time and remember all the press coverage.  Like EAST OF EDEN, PLEIN SOLEIL or the later BLOW-UP, it was a film that just spoke to me .... particularly as the Monroe mythology took off in the early '60s. 

Gable seems sadly aged here, after his previous one IT STARTED IN NAPLES where he looks fine with Sophia Loren (over 30 years younger than him), Clift is of course marvellous as usual, after his great WILD RIVER with Kazan, and before going back to Huston for the questionable FREUD, Wallach (who lived on to 98, it was fascinating seeing him as a wizened old man) scores as the bitter, resentful Guido using the death of his wife to try to score with Marilyn's Roslyn, while Thelma Ritter is bliss as the Reno landlady used to the ways of those cowboys. As in ALL ABOUT EVE (which of course Marilyn was also in as Miss Caswell) she vanishes from the film too soon.

Thats another fascinating thing about THE MISFITS - its a mere ten years from those bit parts in Huston's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and Mank's ALL ABOUT EVE in 1950 to her final completed role here, filmed in 1960, as Miller's heroine. She has some great moments here, hugging the tree or relating to the dog, and just with Gable and that marvellous ending with them in the car .... its a very affecting moment. (She did though look marvellous in the uncompleted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, back with Fox and Cukor). 
The scenes with the horses too are perfectly done and perfectly Huston. 

It is of course a great early Sixties black and white drama, along with other favourites like ALL FALL DOWN, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Demy's BAY OF ANGELS, Malle's LE FEU FOLLET, Losey's THE SERVANT, Huston's NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, Nichols' WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? etc. Sixties dramas, we love them. 
More on THE MISFITS at label.  

NIGHT OF THE IGUANA

Coming up (before my 1,500th post): A STAR IS BORN and those Fifties dramas / REBECCA at 75 / A new MR RIPLEY at 60 / Bette Davis / Flora Robson / Diana Dors / Dorothy McGuire - the perfect mother / British B-movies continued / and back to Marcello, Romy, Catherine, Dirk, Antonioni, Lee Remick  et al ...

Something for the weekend ....

Another chance to use this stunning photograph of Joan Crawford, by ace Magnum photographer Eve Arnold - from a new book on her; EVE ARNOLD: MAGNUM LEGACY. 

I have done several posts on Arnold (who died in 2012 three months short of her 100th birthday - she was born in 1912) on her work with the Magnum photo-agency and had published several books, including one on Marilyn Monroe - Arnold had covered the shoot of THE MISFITS in Nevada in late 1960 and also did several shoots with Marilyn in the '50s, they seemed to get on well.

She also did a wonderful book (FILM JOURNAL) on the various locations she covered in the '50s and '60s when she photographed almost everybody from Mangano to Loren and Anouk to Vitti and Vanessa - she must have been as prolific as Bob Willoughby as she too was on the sets of some of my favourite movies such as BLOW-UP, MODESTY BLAISE and JUSTINE. Check the Eve Arnold label for lots more of her wonderful images, from that great era of the photo-journalists for  magazines like LOOK and LIFE.

Party people

A rare '60s shot of Antonioni with Vanessa Redgrave AND Monica Vitti, so rare I had not seen it before.. 

An end of year round-up of some of our favourite Showpeople, once again, for recent viewers. More on these at Showpeople label.   (Our favourite photo of Vivien Leigh, Kay Kendall and Lauren Bacall out on the town with their GBF (gay best friend) Noel Coward in 1959, is now at the right hand sidebar.)

Julie Christie, Catherine Deneuve and Ursula Andress, the hot girls around town in 1966, at that year's Royal Film Performance, where they are lined up to meet The Queen. Warren Beatty and Leslie Caron were also in the line-up (as per other photos here, Showpeople label) ....  are the girls comparing frocks or how to wear those long gloves ?

Our favourite pic of those 1962 Oscar winners Gregory Peck who got his from 1961's Sophia Loren, and Joan Crawford who graciously accepted for the missing Anne Bancroft (much to Bette Davis's chagrin, who had been nominated for their BABY JANE) with studly 1961 winner Maximilian Schell, who looks like Joan's hot date for the night. So there is Joan clutching an Oscar with the winners, while Bette fumes backstage ...

Rock with Gloria Swanson and Tallulah Bankhead at the premiere of PILLOW TALK ! Rock and Tallu must have had a gas .... and here again is Rock on location in Italy in 1957 as was Dirk Bogarde, I imagine the two heart-throbs are discussing the size of their respective closets ... between them Rock and Dirk must have known/met just about everybody.

Sophia Loren never met Marilyn Monroe, but Rock and Gina did, as Gina got to Hollywood before Loren. Here's Gina and MM in 1955 I imagine, maybe during the filming of THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH? Marlene also met Marilyn, as in this 1952 shot. In 1966 Marlene met Elizabeth Taylor, in this Bob Willoughby photograph, during WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF. one imagines Marlene must have known at least 4 of Taylor's husbands ...

Another odd Royal line-up: Barbra Streisand with James Caan (FUNNY LADY perhaps?) with James Stewart and Lee Remick (who had of course teamed in 1959's ANATOMY OF A MURDER) .... Barbra broke with protocol by asking the Queen why they had to wear gloves.

And a delicious shot of Romy Schneider and Horst Buchholz when they were young in MONPTI, way back in 1956. Love those swimming trunks ... 
 And again that car load of talent at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival: Loren, Delon, Schneider.

Dirk & house-guests ...

Its Artic Monday here and the snow has turned to sleet. Nice to be back in, with HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON on television once again, with Stanwyck & Sam Fuller's 40 GUNS coming up next, and SHIRLEY VALENTINE on later tonight, when one can say the lines along with the great cast while enjoying a vodka or two ....

We also dug out Dirk Bogarde's book "Cleared for Take-off" which has been an amusing/fascinating read once again, as Dirk discusses his various friends and house-guests. Kay Kendall of course became a more or less permanent house-guest of his in the '50s (as detailed in his "Snakes & Ladders" tome). This book finds him putting up Ingrid Bergman in 1964 when she was returning to the stage in Turgenev's A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY in Sussex.

The play of course was such a hit, everybody wanted to see Ingrid (and that great cast including Michael Redgrave, Emlyn Williams, Fay Compton and Jeremy Brett) that it transferred to London where it played for 8 months and where I saw it in 1965, one of my first theatre outings in London, and (being a bit of an autograph hound then) got all the cast signatures on the programme. In fact I got Ingrid's twice, from a later play she did with Kenneth Williams. I also saw her at the National Film Theatre several times, once at a screening of CASABLANCA where she was telling us about its making and how it was just another potboiler to them at the time. 

Ingrid was always a pleasure to meet and Dirk captures her perfectly here. He is in country squire lord-of-the-manor mode here (from that era of his big country houses), picking mint from the garden for cook, and putting a guest bedroom and bathroom plus his parlourmaid Hilda at Ingrid's disposal for her stay (plus a new telephone line), Hilda had to look after Ingrid's clothes and washing, and clean her rooms, so she got a salary increase for that. Eve Arnold (in her book "Film Journal") captures them nicely in this great shot (above). Dirk also tells us about the night JFK was killed when Fred, his valet, burst in to the room half dressed with the news. Dirk tells him to "tell the kitchen" (staff, presumably) while he turns on the tv. 
 

Dirk was also marvellous at his NFT lecture in 1970 (left) where I met him afterwards and got that signature (Bogarde label), and also at a 1992 reading from his books at the National Theatre. Actor John Fraser's book (he was Bosie to Peter Finch's Oscar in the 1960 film, and was in Dirk's THE WIND CANNOT READ in 1959) from 2004 has a great chapter on Bogarde and offers a completely different view on the Bogarde's home life, as well as a terrific chapter on a night out with Bette Davis at her most in 1965 - Davis was making THE NANNY at the time with Fraser's pal Jill Bennett, they ended up in a nightclub meeting The Beatles. Ringo Starr was impressed to meet Bette as his mother loved her films! The then openly gay Fraser was also in EL CID among others.

Soon: Ingrid's last role as Golda Meir in GOLDA.

R.I.P.s

Cornel Lucas (1920-2012). Just like Jack Cardiff was the great British lensman and pioneer of Technicolor and photographed those Powell & Pressburger classics like BLACK NARCISSUS, RED SHOES as well as PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN - his contemporary Cornel Lucas was the great stills photographer for that age of glamour at the Rank Organisation. 
He photographed all the main stars of the late 40s and 50s, including some great shots of Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Simmons, the young Anouk Aimee, Dirk Bogarde, Diana Dors in that mink bikini in Venice (it was rabbit, actually), and the Rank starlet (and a favourite of mine) Belinda Lee, whom he married in 1955. Their marriage only lasted 3 years though, she was killed aged 26 in a car accident in 1961 - Cornel though lived to be 92. Such is the hand fate deals us ... Lucas though was one of the great stills photographers, up there with the likes of Eve Arnold or Bob Willoughby (see labels).
Below, his stills of Dors, Bogarde, Marlene, Katharine Hepburn, Belinda Lee, above left.

 

Joe Melia (1935-2012). Another stalwart of the British stage, television and screen. Best known as the photographer in the film of OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR, he was also in PRIVATES ON PARADE and was the mime killed by Rosella Falk in MODESTY BLAISE. Like Victor Spinetti, who also died this year, he was of Italian parentage, and was a fixture on the London stage (A DAY IN THE DEATH OF JOE EGG, Tony Richardson's THE THREEPENNY OPERA with Vanessa Redgrave), as well as films like FOUR IN THE MORNING, TOO MANY CROOKS.

Bill Tarmey (1941-2012) forever Jack Duckworth in the long runnging soap CORONATION STREET. As the gruff, henpecked husband of Vera Duckworth (Elizabeth Dawn) for more than a quarter of a century, Tarmey became half of one of the most famous couples on British television. As portrayed by Tarmey and Dawn, the bickering Duckworths inherited the mantle of Stan and Hilda Ogden as the Street’s most ramshackle couple: he the perpetual layabout, she the formidable, but ultimately forgiving, scold. Bill was also a singer, having emerged from the tough school of the northern clubs and cabaret circuit.  I once had a dance with his screen wife Vera when she was appearing in the clubs in London in the '80s. 

Clive Dunn (1920-2012), also 92, one of the last of the DAD'S ARMY regulars. He was Lance Corporal Jones and was supposed to be at least 70, but when in 1968 Dunn won the role, the actor was only 48. He also had a pop hit:  "Grandad", a ballad of such sickening sentimentality that it rocketed instantly to No 1.