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aenigma – Images and stories from the movies and fashion

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Marilyn Monroe

Richard Avedon – art and commerce

Richard Avedon was one of the all-time-great fashion photographers. For decades after his emergence onto the scene in 1946, he was a dominant influence on the industry thanks to the energy, imagination and willingness to take risks that he brought to his work.

Fashion was where Avedon made his name. It was also his undoing – at least in his own mind. He came to regard it as “merely” commercial, whereas what he really wanted was to be, and be seen as, a serious artist. So he turned his attention to portraiture, using fashion commissions to fund his endeavours.

But such was Avedon’s reputation in the field of fashion that despite all his efforts it continued to dominate his image for most of his career.

Mrs Alfred G Vanderbilt by Richard Avedon
1966. Mrs Alfred G Vanderbilt in new Mainbocher evening look. Photo by Richard Avedon. Read more.

Avedon – fashion and portraiture, two sides of a coin

At first sight, Avedon’s portraits seem to be the polar opposite of his fashion work. A distinguishing characteristic of a typical Avedon fashion shot is its energetic high spirits. By contrast, what distinguishes many Avedon portraits is the bleak, unflinching, often inquisitorial dissection of his subjects’ vulnerabilities. His portraits are rarely kind, let alone flattering. More than occasionally, they shock his subjects.

But look more closely and you’ll discover a dark seam of existential angst running through Avedon’s fashion work too. He’s all too aware that beauty can be isolating and that it fades. You can see that in the expression of Dorian Leigh as she looks at herself in the mirror in a photo taken in 1949 at the beginning of Avedon’s career. Pathos is more to the fore in his 1955 shot of Dovima with Émilien Boulione and a clown. But nowhere is his existential angst more explicit than in In Memory of The Late Mr and Mrs Comfort, a harrowing editorial for the November 6, 1995 issue of The New Yorker.

In an interview quoted in Avedon Fashion 1944–2000, he traces the underlying anxiety in his fashion work back to his experience as a boy growing up in a home dominated by women:

I watched the way in which they prepared themselves to go out, what clothes meant, what makeup meant, what hair meant, what men meant. That anxiety was a very important thing that I tried to work into the magazines. And very often they [the photos] were rejected.

Avedon – the great storyteller

Another common denominator between Avedon’s fashion and portrait studies is drama and stories. Throughout his life, he never passes up an opportunity to go to the theatre, the ballet and the movies. He’s also an avid reader. All this helps to provide inspiration and fuel his own creativity

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima by the great pyramids at Gizeh

1951. The model for this shoot, published in the May and June 1951 issues of Harper’s Bazaar, is Dovima, whose face reminds Avedon of the...

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima by the great pyramids at Gizeh

1951. The shoot takes place during Avedon’s honeymoon with his second wife, Evelyn, whom he marries on 29 January 1951. So presumably Evelyn is lurking...

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima at the mosque of Mohammed Ali, Cairo

1951. Winthrop Sargeant, in an article for the November 8, 1958 issue of The New Yorker, observes that like all Avedon models,...

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima at the feet of the pharaohs

1951. According to Winthrop Sargeant, Dovima is so overcome by the grandeur of her Egyptian role that she undergoes a mystical experience....

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima at the Temple of Karnak, Luxor

1951. In a memo to Avedon about the Egypt shoot, Diana Vreeland (Fashion Editor at Harper's Bazaar) writes, “Dick, before you plan these pictures, just...

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The stories are most evident in his fashion editorials, especially the iconic series of images he creates for Harper’s Bazaar to showcase the Paris collections, and which in the process help transform the image of the city after World War II. In A Woman Entering a Taxi in the Rain, an article published in the November 8, 1958 issue of The New Yorker, Winthrop Sargeant remarks:

His leading lady must always be involved in a drama of some sort, and if fate fails to provide a real one, Avedon thinks one up. He often creates in his mind an entire scenario suggested by a model’s appearance. She may be a waif lost in a big and sinful city, or a titled lady pursued in Hispano-Suizas by gentlemen flourishing emeralds, or an inconsolably bored woman of the world whose heart can no longer be touched – and so on. Avedon models play scene after scene from these scripts, and sometimes helps out by actually living an extra scene or two. The result is extraordinary for its realism – not the kind of realism found in most photography but the kind found in the theatre.

Think Elise Daniels with street performers and Suzy Parker and Robin Tattershall.

The mood of those shots might feel improvised, but the shoots themselves are far from spontaneous. They take a great deal of preparation: research into locations, sketches of proposed shots and test photos. On the day, Avedon coaxes and cajoles his models into the personas and poses he has in mind, chatting to them, joking with them and, crucially, telling them the stories he wants them to act out. He’s a bundle of energy, enthusiasm and inspiration and he won’t take no for an answer.

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Twiggy photographed for Vogue by Richard Avedon

Twiggy – annotated working print

1968. A working print of a variant of a photo of Twiggy that appeared on page 60 of the July issue of Vogue. The wax...

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Twiggy – final print

Twiggy – final print

1968. A variant of a photo of Twiggy that appeared on page 60 of the July issue of Vogue captioned:

Looking like a picture, left:...

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Hiro, once upon a time an assistant of Avedon, says:

Dick was the most brilliant of all the flashes that illuminated my professional path. His impatience was an inspiration in itself. The preparation he made for each sitting, the perfectionism – sharp, like a scalpel. And then the way he directed. His personality, which helped him clinch every shot. His timing. This man created the modern woman – the Avedon Woman.

In Avedon’s portraits, the drama is in the eyes, faces and expressions of his sitters, usually accentuated by ascetic, plain white backgrounds. More often than not the drama is dark, and not just by coincidence. Before the shoot, Avedon researches his subject and forms a view of what he wants his portrait to convey. And he seems inexorably drawn to his sitter’s vulnerabilities and failings – the skull beneath the skin.

He’s fond of telling a story of how he took his celebrated photo of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The challenge: find a way of getting them to drop their guard – the happy, smiling “Ladies Home Journal cover faces” they would present for their portrait in contrast to the expressions he’s seen as he stalked them at the casino. He wants his portrait to reveal their “loss of humanity.” When he turns up at their NYC apartment for the shoot, he notices their pug dogs, which they adore. So he sets everything up, gets the couple into position and says, “If I seem a little hesitant, a little disturbed, it’s because my taxi ran over a dog.” Both of their faces drop, he clicks the shutter and catches the expression he’s looking for.

It turns out that this story might itself be made up. Either way, it gives us an insight into the store Avedon sets by stories. It also illustrates another aspect of what Avedon is like and how he captures images like no others – he is an arch manipulator, charismatic and ruthless, who knows what he wants from a shoot and also how to get it.

That applies not just to individual shoots but also to Avedon’s legacy and the brand he is determined to create for himself. He’s perfectly prepared to edit his archive, destroying photos that don’t fit with the narrative he wants to create for himself. And when he talks about his experiences, it’s not always clear where fact ends and fancy begins. Indeed, according to Norma Stevens, his studio manager:

Dick would sometimes make merry with the facts—he even joked that if he ever wrote an autobiography he would call it Here Lies Richard Avedon. He said, “There is no truth, no history – there is only the way in which the story is told.”

Avedon at work on Funny Face
1956. Richard Avedon (right) at work on Funny Face. Read more.

Avedon – the Hollywood connection

Not only do many of Avedon’s fashion shoots seem to come straight out of a movie, they even inspire one. Funny Face is based loosely on the exploits of Avedon and his first wife, Doe, played by Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Avedon is retained as a consultant for the movie, revealing some of his working methods, providing tips on lighting and on Audrey Hepburn’s wardrobe, and creating title credits and backgrounds plus a montage of freeze-framed fashion.

Funny Face and Avedon’s work as a stills photographer for The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and Some Like It Hot (1959) bridge his fashion and portrait work, with one of his greatest portraits being of Marilyn Monroe lost in thought.

For hours she danced and sang and flirted and did this thing that’s – she did Marilyn Monroe. And then there was the inevitable drop. And when the night was over and the white wine was over and the dancing was over, she sat in the corner like a child, with everything gone. I saw her sitting quietly without expression on her face, and I walked towards her but I wouldn’t photograph her without her knowledge of it. And as I came with the camera, I saw that she was not saying no.

On a lighter note is Avedon’s virtuoso shoot – witty, stylish, extravagant – with Marilyn for the Christmas 1958 issue of LIFE magazine. The idea is to recreate the images of five stars from different eras. With his interest in theatre and the movies, this is right up the photographer’s street.

In every age the entertainment world produces an enchantress who embodies the fancies men dream by – the places they might have visited with her, music danced to with her, suppers shared with her. In the Gay Nineties, it was Lillian Russell, 160 opulent pounds of curvy Victorian womanhood. Then it was Theda Bara, representing all the women who came bursting from their stays in World War I with predatory eyes and heavy make-up into the new freedom. Afterward there was Clara Bow and Marlene Dietrich and Jean Harlow. Heiress today of the fabled five is Marilyn Monroe. On the following pages, in a stunning feat of re-creation, Marilyn impersonates her predecessors in their most enduring images.

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Lillian Russell by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Lillian Russell

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Marilyn’s sensitive, funny and loving impersonations start opposite with a radiant replica...

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Marilyn Monroe as Theda Bara by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Theda Bara

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

The movies’ first heavy-breathing temptress and the original vampire was Theda Bara...

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Marilyn Monroe as Marlene Dietrich by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Marlene Dietrich

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

This is Marlene Dietrich in the role that made her famous –...

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Marilyn Monroe as Jean Harlow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Jean Harlow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Jean Harlow always looked as if she were being bent backward over...

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The images here are scans of vintage black and white prints sent to a Hollywood producer, whereas the published versions are in colour.

Marilyn Monroe by Richard Avedon
1958. Marilyn Monroe as herself. Photo by Richard Avedon. Read more.

Avedon – fashion photography’s great innovator

One of the things that makes Avedon such a key figure in fashion photography is his ability to stay ahead of the curve. Fashion is by its nature so ephemeral that few photographers manage to remain current for more than about a decade. Avedon, almost uniquely, manages to evolve his approach to tap into the zeitgeist and reflect the changing times in which he lives. Perhaps that’s because he sees it as an important aspect of his remit.

I believe that the photographer’s job is to record the quality of the woman, of that moment he is working… Our job is always to report on the woman of the moment. The way she lives, the way she dresses. Our conception of beauty changes and is always changing.

Almost from the off, Avedon is pushing at the boundaries, getting his models to act rather than just pose, using blurred movement and soft focus when sharp focus and detail are what’s expected. According to Winthrop Sargeant, that was just the beginning:

The model became pretty, rather than austerely aloof. She laughed, danced, skated, gambolled among herds of elephants, sang in the rain, ran breathlessly down the Champs-Elysées, smiled and sipped cognac at café tables, and otherwise gave evidence of being human.

Some Avedon admirers date the turning point in his style from a celebrated photograph he made for Harper’s Bazaar in 1950, in which Dorian Leigh was shown bursting into laughter while throwing her arms around the winner of a French bicycle race. The picture created a sensation in the profession, since embracing sports heroes and laughing had not previously been thought suitable activities for fashion models, and the extent of its influence soon became clear as models began to appear everywhere embracing bicycle riders, matadors, coachmen, and Lord knows what else, in a state of hilarity. Next, Avedon, again a good jump ahead of the pack, started photographing models with handsome young men posing as their husbands, and then—most revolutionary of all—models wheeling children in perambulators or, to make the family scene complete, dangling them in baskets gaily held by the father, too.

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Andrea Johnson

Andrea Johnson

1946. This print comes from the collection of post-World War II supermodel, Andrea Johnson. The reverse is inscribed in pen "other shot Larry Avedon S449-2...

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The hand of Ara Gallant by Richard Avedon

The hand of Ara Gallant

1973. The smooth sloping shoulders (Beauty, youth), the manicured rough hand (The Beast, mortality), the balanced asymmetry… just the kind of unexpected magic and storytelling...

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It’s not so easy for us now to appreciate quite how startling Avedon’s work is for people at the time. Over several decades, particularly the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, he helps to define and advance accepted notions of beauty as well as pushing the limits of what’s acceptable in a fashion magazine (for example, his photo of Countess Christina Paolozzi topless in the January, 1962 issue of Harper’s Bazaar). Landmark shoots include:

  • Harper’s Bazaar, January, 1959 – China Machado, the first non-Caucasian model to shoot the collections and feature on the cover.
  • Harper’s Bazaar, September, 1962 – inspired by the coverage of Elizabeth Taylor’s affair with Richard Burton, the autumn collections shot as if by paparazzi and laid out like a pulp magazine.
  • Harper’s Bazaar, December, 1963 – Rebecca Hutchings, the first black model to appear in the magazine.
  • Harper’s Bazaar, January, 1965 – set in Ibiza, an editorial implying a ménage à trois.
  • Harper’s Bazaar, April, 1965 – a far-out mash-up of pop culture, space age and high fashion shot and edited by Avedon and billed as “a partial passport to the off-beat side of Now.”
  • The New Yorker, November 6, 1995 – In Memory of The Late Mr and Mrs Comfort, a dark and satirical fashion editorial starring Nadja Auermann and a skeleton in a tale of decadence and death.

Avedon – his achievement

The second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st were a time of social, political and cultural change. Avedon’s fashion work as well as his portraits are a commentary on those decades, probing and revealing what power and wealth, confidence and vitality, deprivation and helplessness look like and what they do to people – a unique legacy of penetrating and iconic images.

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Nylon dance dress by Wilson Folmar

Nylon dance dress by Wilson Folmar of Edward Abbott

1961. This photo (another copy is in the Hagley Digital Archives) is annotated in pencil on the reverse ‘253527’ and ‘RICHARD AVEDON’....

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Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson by Richard Avedon

Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson perched in a tree

1966. Two of the top models of the day, Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson, perch like birds in a tree in this photo published in...

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Penelope Tree modelling a Cardin collar by Richard Avedon

Penelope Tree modelling a Cardin collar

1967. This is the year that American-born model, Penelope Tree, moves to London to live with David Bailey. She’s 18 years old and it's...

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This piece is mainly about Avedon as a fashion photographer, but that’s not the half of it. Additionally, he created a whole series of influential advertising campaigns, the most notable of which starred 15-year-old Brooke Shields modelling a pair of Calvin Klein skin-tight jeans. He branched out into film and video. He initiated ambitious and important projects – In the American West is a great example. He ran a sizeable studio, which among other things acted as a kind of academy, training and inspiring generations of photographers. And through his exhibitions and books he helped raise the status of photography to challenge that of painting and sculpture in the minds of curators, collectors and the public at large.

Few photographers have the determination, the courage and the insightfulness to challenge themselves and their sitters to the extent that Avedon did. That is at the heart of his greatness.

Want to know more about Avedon?

Your preferred search engine will offer you many online sources of information and images.

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The Most Sought After Photographer in the World

1. The Most Sought After Photographer in the World

If you’re strapped for time and looking for an overview of Avedon's work, take a look at this four-minute documentary.

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Darkness and light

2. Darkness and Light

If you’d like to spend a bit longer finding out about Avedon, this documentary covers most aspects of his work and includes clips from interviews with him and people who knew him.

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Norma Stevens on Richard Avedon

3. An Insight into Richard Avedon

An overview of Avedon’s fashion work by his biographer and erstwhile studio manager Norma Stevens.

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Being shot by Richard Avedon

4. Being shot by Richard Avedon

Supermodel Kristen McMenamy, interviewed by photographer Nick Knight, recalls her experience of being shot alongside Nadja Auermann for one of Avedon's iconic Versace campaigns.

Here are four videos to watch here and a link to a fascinating and illuminating conversation between Philippe Garner and Michael Avedon, Richard’s grandson at ShowStudio. Plus, a handful of books worth looking up:

  • Avedon Fashion 1944–2000 by Vince Aletti, Carol Squiers and Philippe Garner is outstanding for both the images and the accompanying essays.
  • Richard Avedon: Made in France by Judith Thurman presents a collection of images made in Paris for Harper’s Bazaar during the 1950s, reproduced to the exact scale of the engraver’s prints made for Avedon, uncropped, on their original mounts, with all of the artist’s notations on both front and back.
  • An Autobiography: The Photographs of Richard Avedon is a major retrospective of images chosen by Avedon himself. There is hardly any text.
  • Norma Stevens’ and Steven Aronson’s biography, Avedon: Something Personal is a compelling and insightful portrait, laced with reflections on the great man by people who knew and worked with him. Bear in mind, though, that many of the details are disputed and it’s inconceivable that the author remembered her conversations with Avedon verbatim.
  • What Becomes a Legend Most: A Biography of Richard Avedon by Philip Gefter.
  • Focus: The Secret, Sexy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers by Michael Gross provides a context in which to assess Avedon’s achievements in the field of fashion photography.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Unknown model by Kenneth Heilbron
Kenneth Heilbron – mid-century fashion from Chicago
The Young Look in the Theatre by Norman Parkinson
Norman Parkinson – photographer and fantasist
Natalia Vodianova photographed by Paolo Roversi
Paolo Roversi – the beauty of intimacy
Paris after World War II – fact, fashion and fantasy

Filed Under: Fashion, Films, Photographers, Stars Tagged With: Andrea Johnson, Ara Gallant, Dovima, Funny Face, Hiro, Jean Shrimpton, Marilyn Monroe, Marisa Berenson, Penelope Tree, Richard Avedon, Suzy Parker, Twiggy

Short stories – for a quick break

Aenigma is all about images from the the worlds of fashion and the movies and the stories behind them.

Short stories is a good place to come if you don’t have time for one of the longer pieces. Below you’ll find a selection of shots that illustrate the range of subjects covered by aenigma. It’s a deliberately eclectic mix with, hopefully, something for everybody.

Use the filter buttons to home in on topics that might interest you, and then the Read more button to go to the whole story.

AllBehind the scenesEventsFashionFilmsPhotographersPressStars
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Bull shoots Gardner

Bull shoots Gardner

1945. Clarence Sinclair Bull, head of MGM's stills department, with his thumb on the shutter-release button, looks intently at Ava Gardner. The year is 1945, Ava is 23 years old...

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Marilyn Monroe nude

Naked and glistening

May 1962. Marilyn Monroe sits on the edge of a swimming pool on the set of Something’s Got To Give. In the film she swims naked, and to generate advance...

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Age after beauty

Age after beauty

1956. Odile Rodin is well aware of her greatest assets and dresses to set them off to perfection. Born Odile Bérard, she has adopted the artistic name of Rodin to...

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Photography as a sex act

Photography as a sex act

1966. David Hemmings, as Thomas, straddles the writhing Veruschka in a scene from Michelangelo Antonioni's cult film, Blow-Up. It's about a hip fashion photographer who believes he has unwittingly caught...

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Ava Gardner, Virginia Hill and friends celebrate Hallowe'en

Hallowe’en in Hollywood

1941. Ava Gardner and friends at a Hallowe'en party. This is Ava's (front left) first year in Hollywood and it will be another six until she makes her breakthrough as...

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Picasso chats up Bardot

Picasso chats up Bardot

April 1956. Brigitte Bardot takes time out from the Cannes Film Festival to visit Pablo Picasso in Vallauris. In the sunny garden outside his studio, Picasso, one of the 20th...

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Marriage on the rocks

Marriage on the rocks

November 1945. Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, at the zenith of their careers, are out on the town. But things aren't going well. He is giving her the most furious...

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Romantically linked

Romantically linked

1963. One of the 20th century's greatest, most glamorous and tempestuous romances, played out in the glare of the media spotlight. Lust, booze, ­diamonds, yachts, jealousy – it had them...

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Dressed to thrill

Dressed to thrill

1999. Sophie Marceau steals the show as Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough, the 19th James Bond film. Beautiful, elegant, sophisticated, complex – really just your average Bond...

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Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) cools off in the Trevi Fountain in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita

Midnight fantasy

1959. Dawn has yet to break as Anita Ekberg (as Sylvia in Federico Fellini's iconic movie, La Dolce Vita) wanders into the Trevi fountain in Rome. This iconic scene in...

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Gene Tierney and Oleg Cassini at a fancy-dress party

Gene Tierney and Oleg Cassini at a fancy-dress party

26 January 1941. Gene Tierney, dancing with Oleg Cassini, exchanges smiles with actress Ruth Hussey (dressed as a rag doll) and producer Raphael Hakim (a sheik), reputed to be...

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Ludmilla Tchérina with Salvador Dali

Truly, madly…

11 December, 1969. Salvador Dali and Ludmilla Tchérina attend The Paris Lido's new show, The Grand Prix. Dali, the mad surrealist artist, attributed his "love of everything that is...

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Not what the studio ordered

Not what the studio ordered

8 April 1937. Two Tinseltown stars are caught off guard – no artful lighting, considered poses, careful composition. A true candid and not what the studio ordered. Here's the story,...

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Fashion and film

Fashion and film

May 1956. Richard Avedon looks over photographs with Arlene Dahl. Avedon, one of the 20th century's greatest photographers, is in Hollywood as technical advisor for Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire...

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Other topics you may be interested in…

Donyale Luna – the fashion world’s wayward moon-child
Movie stars of the 1940s – talent, savvy, looks and luck
Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs Carrolls
Unsafe sex – the starlet’s dilemma

Filed Under: Behind the scenes, Events, Fashion, Films, Photographers, Press, Stars Tagged With: Anita Ekberg, Ann Rutherford, Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck, Bill Josephy, Blow-Up, Brigitte Bardot, Clarence Sinclair Bull, David Hemmings, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Tierney, La Dolce Vita, Ludmilla Tcherina, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Rooney, Odile Rodin, Oleg Cassini, Orson Welles, Pablo Picasso, Raphael Hakim, Richard Avedon, Richard Burton, Rita Hayworth, Robert Taylor, Ruth Hussey, Salvador Dali, Sophie Marceau, The World Is Not Enough, Veruschka, Virginia Field, Virginia Hill

Unsafe sex – the starlet’s dilemma

A photo inscribed to Dr Irving Ress by Janis Paige.
Around 1950. A photo inscribed to Dr Irving Ress by Janis Paige. Read more.

In the aftermath of World War II, unmarried women faced a hard dilemma when it came to sex. Damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.

In the words of a 16-year-old girl quoted by Michael Phillips in his article Women and the Sexual Double Standard of the 1950s:

How are you supposed to know what they want? You hold out for a long time and then when you give in to them and give your body they laugh at you afterwards and say they would never marry a slut, and that they didn’t love you but were testing because they only plan to marry a virgin and wanted to see if you would go all the way.

The pressures could be especially intense in the torrid and ultra-competitive world of the Hollywood studios, where the casting couch cast a long shadow and having a flexible attitude to sex could be the route to stardom or the road to perdition.

The inspiration for this piece is a collection of photos given to Dr Irving Ress by his clients. Dr Ress was an obstetrician who worked in Hollywood. Among the women who came to him for advice on pregnancy and childbirth were a number of movie stars and actresses. Perhaps they dedicated their photos to him spontaneously. More likely he was susceptible to their charms and asked them to contribute to his collection. Flattered by the request, they were happy to do so.

The predicaments and concerns they confided in him we can only imagine. But that’s not difficult in the context both the time (the 1940s and early ’50s) and the place (Hollywood).

Betty Grable by Frank Powolny
1943. Weapons of mass seduction. The image that made Betty Grable the number one pin-up girl of the World War II era. Read more.

Unsafe sex – the sexual revolution of the 1940s

20 years before the permissive society of the 1960s, a sexual revolution is taking place in the US in the 1940s.

The war years have already seen the flowering of the pin-up, perfected by the Hollywood studios and designed both to market their product and to boost morale by presenting an all-American view of the sweetheart waiting back home for the soldiers and sailors — the girls worth fighting for. As the GIs return, they also bring with them pornography from Europe and Asia.

In the late-1940s “camera clubs” are formed to get around laws restricting the production of nude photos. The clubs claim they exist to promote “artistic photography”, but in reality… The years 1952 through 1957 see Bettie Page posing for Irving Klaw, who distributes his pin-up and bondage shots by mail-order. And in 1953 Hugh Heffner publishes the first issue of Playboy.

At the same time, researchers are taking a new, more scientific interest in sex and sexuality. In 1948 the Kinsey Report, Sexual Behaviors in the Human Male and Sexual Behaviors in the Human Female, is published, shining a light on topics that have hitherto been taboo. Around this time, courses on human sexuality begin to appear on college campuses.

Sex is in the air. And in this context and after 15 years of depression and war, it’s hardly surprising that young people are less inclined than their parents to defer to traditional restraints on their behavior. Between 1941 and 1953, the overall rate of single motherhood more than doubles. But it’s not a straightforward matter of celebration, liberation and hedonism holding sway.

The post-World War II years bring with them a new period of economic and sexual anxiety. The US faces a major housing crisis. Juvenile delinquency supposedly reaches epic proportions. Both Republicans and Democrats go after Alfred Kinsey and comic books (Batman and Wonder Woman are accused of promoting homosexuality and lesbianism). The mood is one of pride and depression, valour and self-doubt, stoicism and vulnerability. Welcome to the heyday of film noir.

Unsafe sex – damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t

Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs Carrolls
1947. In The Two Mrs Carrolls, Barbara Stanwyck is a victim of her husband. But his portrait of her seems to reflect the period’s underlying ambivalence and paranoia about women.

Meanwhile, women face a tricky dilemma. Leaving aside social attitudes to women having sex outside marriage (boys will be boys so that’s okay), contraceptive techniques are crude and unreliable. So women in relationships are playing with fire – always susceptible to getting pregnant or picking up a sexually transmitted disease.

It’s no wonder that women are strongly motivated to get married at the first opportunity (during the 1950s, the average age of women at marriage is 20). But there’s always the chance that they’ll make a bad choice and end up with a violent and abusive partner. And guess what? Domestic violence is rarely punished and there are no laws against rape in marriage. Which is hardly surprising given that police forces have no special domestic-violence units or policies.

The alternative – walking out – is unlikely to be a bed of roses. Single mothers and divorcees don’t have the same rights to state aid as widows with children so money is a problem. If they can get a job, it’s likely to be menial and low-paid. In other words, there’s a good chance those women end up ostracized and impoverished.

Marilyn Monroe
1950. Like most Hollywood actresses, Marilyn Monroe is a manufactured product. Read more. Photo by Frank Powolny.

Unsafe sex – the honey trap

Pretty girls are drawn to Hollywood like gazelles to a watering hole, where the lions and hyenas lie in wait. Some wannabes, such as Judy Garland, arrive under the influence of ambitious and domineering parents. Most are talent-spotted – Ava Gardner via a portrait photo in a New York photographer’s studio window, Lana Turner at a soda fountain – or so the story goes. Models (like Hazel Brooks) and theatre actresses (like Ella Raines) are popular prey.When they arrive in Tinseltown, they are young and innocent. And, like lambs to slaughter, onto the production conveyor-belt they go. Each is given a name (Frances Ethel Gumm becomes Judy Garland, Betty Joan Perske is rechristened Lauren Bacall ), a more or less fanciful back-story, a makeover and a contract.

What next for our aspiring starlet? A series of photo sessions with plenty of cheesecake shots and, if she’s lucky, a few bit parts. Her fate is down to a combination of factors, not the least of which is the relationships she manages to establish. Which brings us, or rather her, to the casting couch. Three of Hollywood’s foremost lechers in the 1940s are Harry Cohn, Darryl F Zanuck and Howard Hughes.

Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, is a blustering, foul-mouthed, abrasive taskmaster and acts like a tyrant. His office contains an enormous desk for him, and small seats for his visitors, enabling him to tower over them. On his desk is a photo of Benito Mussolini, whom he greatly admires. He also has ties to organized crime and is friendly with mobsters such as Chicago gangster John Roselli. Cohn enjoys using concealed microphones to eavesdrop on employees’ conversations, such as those of Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth during the filming of Gilda. Rita, Joan Crawford and Kim Novak are three of the better-known actresses who manage to build careers for themselves in spite of rejecting his advances.

Bette Davis and Howard Hughes
1938. Bette Davis with predator Howard Hughes. Read more.

Darryl F Zanuck, Cohn’s counterpart at 20th Century-Fox, is widely credited with inventing the “casting couch”. In Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Last Tycoon, Leonard Mosley quotes a startling recollection of the mogul’s long-term associate Milton Sperling:

You know that Darryl was mad about women. Everybody talked about it in Hollywood and the rumor was that his prowess as a cocksman was just unbelievable. I don’t know whether it was true or not. I was a shy young man, a bit backward in that regard. I guess, but even I knew that every day at four o’clock in the afternoon some girl on the lot would visit Zanuck in his office. The doors would be locked after she went in, no calls were taken, and for the next half hour nothing happened – headquarters shut down. Around the office work came to a halt for the sex siesta. It was an understood thing. While the girl was with Zanuck, everything stopped, and anyone who had the same proclivities as Zanuck, and had the girl to do it with, would go off somewhere and do what he was doing. I honestly think that from four to four-thirty every day at Fox, if you could have harnessed the power from all the fucking that was going on, you could have turned the tides at Malibu. It was an incredible thing, but a girl went in through that door every day.

Howard Hughes is not just a film producer and the owner of RKO Pictures; he is a business tycoon, engineer and pioneering aviator. He has a “secret” house near his LA home where he “interviews” would-be starlets. Rumour has it that he’s had affairs with a host of young actresses including Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, Ava Gardner, Carole Lombard and Ginger Rogers. Jane Greer’s career hits the buffers when she rejects his advances.

It’s not just the studio heads and producers who are in on the act. Agents, actors, publicists and others are all circling.

But back to our aspiring starlet… Assuming she makes it onto the big screen, the studio, fan magazines and gossip columnists work together to paint an attractive picture of her. By providing details of her domestic life, the studio enables fans to feel as if they can get close to the real person. Articles and photos of her home, her clothes, the events and parties she attends and so on, add grist to the mill. As does the slightest suggestion of romance – but only if our starlet is single.

It’s essential that there’s no hint of scandal. To that end, the studio enlists “fixers” to clean up potential embarrassments such as a drug addiction or an extra-marital affair. That is why it’s important for our starlet to tow the line and keep on the right side of her bosses. Otherwise they could hang her out to dry.

Jane Greer by Ernest A Bachrach
1945. Jane Greer, a talented actress as well as a beautiful woman, has her career wrecked by Howard Hughes, whose advances she rejects. Photo by Ernest A Bachrach.

The trouble is that temptation is everywhere. If you want to get a sense of the corrupt and corrupting forces that are rife, just read the novels of Raymond Chandler. Carmen Sternwood, for example, Lauren Bacall’s wild, drug-addicted younger sister exploited by pornographers and blackmailers in The Big Sleep, is an object lesson in what can become of a girl who gets in with the wrong crowd. In My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars, Scotty Bowers, an ex-Marine who works as a bartender at Hollywood parties, paints a picture of the LAPD vice squad prowling the hills in their patrol cars, looking for parties and opportunities to arrest the participants.

Even big stars are vulnerable to scandal. Ingrid Bergman is one of the most-loved stars in America but all that changes overnight when, in spite of having a husband and a daughter, she gets pregnant by Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Colorado Senator Edwin C Johnson takes to the floor of the Senate to denounce her as “a powerful influence for evil.”

And if our starlet fails to make the grade? She might be relegated to the stock character pool, kept around to “pleasure” visiting executives, or just spat out.

Unsafe sex –and what of Dr Ress and his clients?

It is in this glittering and sleazy environment laced with opportunity and danger that some at least of Dr Ress’s clients seek to make their way.

Of the twelve young women who dedicate photos to Dr Ress, seven taste a modicum of success, meet and romance a few of the ‘beautiful people’ and come through (relatively) unscathed, as far as we can tell. “Tommye” Adams crashes and burns – hers is a cautionary tale if ever there was one. Virginia Walker dies tragically young. The other three are mysteries.

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Angela Greene

Angela Greene

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "For Doctor Ress With sincere thanks and appreciation – Always, Angela."

Angela Greene is born in 1921, grows up in Flushing, New York,...

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Constance Dowling

Constance Dowling

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "To Dear Dr. Ress – I hope this was worth waiting for – Love, Connie Dowling".

Constance Dowling has come to Hollywood via...

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Doris Dowling

Doris Dowling

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "To Dr. Ress. With great affection and appreciation. Doris Dowling (yr. new daughter)".

Doris Dowling has followed her sister, Constance, from Broadway to...

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Kay Aldridge

Kay Aldridge

1947. Inscribed “Irving Ress, With great appreciation, Kay Aldridge, 1947”.

Kay inscribes this photo two years after retiring. Her career began 13 years earlier –...

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Janis Paige

Janis Paige

1945. Inscribed "To Dr. Ress, My dearest thanks and appreciation for being such a wonderful friend to me. With love, “The Brat” Janis Paige"

Janis...

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Lynn Merrick

Lynn Merrick

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "If there’s a doctor in the house, I hope it’s DR. RESS! Best Always, Lynn Merrick"

Lynn, blonde and blue-eyed, dedicates this photo...

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Charmaine du Rois

Charmaine du Rois

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "To my favorite Doctor and friend, sincerely always, Charmaine Du Rois".

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Diane

Diane

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "For my beloved doctor – the best in the world and a dear friend – Thank you for my beautiful little girl –...

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Abigail

Abigail “Tommye” Adams

8 March 1944. Inscribed "To Dr. Ress:– All my deepest affection. Tommye".

In May 1944, three months after inscribing this photo to Dr Ress, Tommye...

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Marta Linden

Marta Linden

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "To Irving. On account you’re such a love! Marta".

Marta Linden doesn’t hang around for long in Hollywood. Between 1942 and 1945 she...

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Liliana Chanel

Liliana Chanel

Around 1950. Inscribed "A Irving, sperando di conservare per sempre la sua meravigliosa amicizia. Liliana".

A label on the back of the photo identifies the...

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Virginia Walker

Virginia Walker

1945. Inscribed "For my very favorite doctor. Virginia".

This photo is issued by 20th Century-Fox to promote A Royal Scandal (1945), a film about the...

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Information about the doctor himself is thin on the ground, apart from a brief entry in Wikipedia. But we do catch a tantalizing glimpse of him in Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931-1946 by Tom Weaver and Michael Brunas. They recount an incident involving Australian actress Betty Bryant, cast by Universal as the female lead in The Jungle Captive (1945).

Around 1948. A photo inscribed to Dr Irving Ress by Betty Bryant. Read more.

Australian actress Betty Bryant, recently signed by Universal to a term contract, was originally chosen to play the female lead in The Jungle Captive (1945).

On August 30, 1944, one day before production began, she appeared in the office of associate producer Morgan B. Cox and informed him that she didn’t know whether she could find a babysitter to stay with her two year old on certain nights she was scheduled to work. On the first day of shooting she was unprepared, and on the second day she arrived 40 minutes late, just in time for a reprimand from director Harold Young.

To quiet the actress’ maternal apprehensions, her physician Dr Irving L. Ress, Hollywood’s “obstetrician to the stars,” was summoned. In private, Dr. Ress emphatically told Cox that there was nothing about motion pictures or motion picture people that he could admire. According to Ress, all the men in the movie business were concerned primarily with “making” any and all women in any way connected with the industry. Bryant was drawn into the argument and Ress nearly succeeded in creating a scene.

Over the next several days this embarrassing situation continued, with Ress hanging around the set, creating disturbances, careening around the darkened lot in his car and, in the words of Cox in a 16-page September 12 memo), “acting more like a thwarted lover than a reputable doctor.” Cox concluded in his memo that Bryant, slightly ill throughout much of this ordeal and genuinely apologetic for the entire situation, was a victim of circumstances over which she had little control. Of course the boom was inevitably lowered on the hapless actress, and she was bumped. (In his September 9 Los Angeles Times column, Edwin Schallert sugar-coated the incident, reporting that Bryant had gotten ill and “has to go in the hospital for observation and treatment.”) Amelita Ward replaced her in the picture, which ran two days over schedule (wrapping on September 16), probably as the result of the turmoil created by the mysterious Dr. Ress.

Clearly the good doctor has a jaundiced view of the industry. And who, other than the studios and their stooges, could really blame him?

Want to know more?

Two important sources for this piece are a blog about Women and the Sexual Double Standard of the 1950s (apparently no longer available online) and “Silent” Sexual Revolution Began In 1940’s and ’50s, an article by Alan Petigny.

For the lowdown on Hollywood, Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema by Anne Helen Petersen is a great read. Or you could take a look at Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars by Scotty Bowers. For an online article, there’s a Daily Express article on Hollywood’s dirty little secret.

For more about the individual actresses, Wikipedia, IMDb and Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen are excellent starting points.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Carole Landis publicity photo for Secret Command
Carole Landis – die young, stay pretty
Corinne Calvet – men behaving badly
Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a passionate embrace
Gilda – the movie that made Rita Hayworth into a bombshell
Sex and power – Nazism in 1970s cinema

Filed Under: Behind the scenes, Stars, Studios Tagged With: Abigail Adams, Alfred Kinsey, Angela Greene, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Bettie Page, Betty Bryant, Betty Grable, Charmaine du Rois, Constance Dowling, Darryl Zanuck, Doris Dowling, Dr Irving Ress, Harry Cohn, Howard Hughes, Ingrid Bergman, Irving Klaw, Janis Paige, Kay Aldridge, Liliana Chanel, Lynn Merrick, Marilyn Monroe, Marta Linden, pin-up, Playboy, sex, starlet, Virginia Walker

Marilyn Monroe – the tragic star who morphed from Norma Jeane

Marilyn Monroe is such a legend. What can one say about her that hasn’t been said before? And yet she absolutely has to feature on any website about movies and fashion.

So my angle here is to compare the photos and accounts of two different photographers. André de Dienes captured Marilyn as Norma Jeane at the beginning of her career (she adopted the name Marilyn Monroe in 1946 but didn’t change it legally until ten years later). Bert Stern took some of the last photos of her in 1962, six weeks before her death.

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Norma Jeane with a bow in her hair photographed by André de Dienes

Norma Jeane with a bow in her hair

Paradise Cove, November 1945. Paradise Cove is a secluded beach north of Malibu. It's where André took Marilyn for their first shoot, the day after...

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Marilyn Monroe wearing a black hat photographed by Bert Stern, June 1962

Marilyn Monroe modelling a hat

Bel-Air Hotel, Hollywood, June 1962. A great composition, this – Marilyn's face framed by the black diagonals of her hat and collar. And the combination...

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The expressions and smiles are miles apart – the touching candour of 1945 has given way to a more calculated allure in 1962.

Both photographers were completely besotted by Marilyn – clearly her charisma wasn’t merely an on-screen phenomenon. Men simply found her irresistible, as André recounts in his journal, writing about an early road trip with her:

We were hardly on the outskirts of Los Angeles when the police patrol stopped me for faulty driving. Norma Jeane was sitting close to me and the policeman might have felt jealous! She felt very indignant. In her sweet voice she riposted to the policeman that he was a crook and that we had done nothing wrong. The man, part seriously and part joking, said to Norma Jeane that if she cared to stay there for the night he would not make us pay the fine.

I paid twenty dollars and we continued the trip. That was only the first proposal she got on that trip. Amazingly, at various places we stopped, people began proposing to her. A garage mechanic said he would give his left arm if she should stay and become his wife. A miner in the mountains said he wanted her and would give her everything he had. A young farmer said he was looking for a woman of her beauty! The owner of a motel proposed to her! And the haberdasher where I stopped to buy her jeans went nearly out of his mind wanting to see Norma Jeane try on various garments in the little dressing closet. Like a magnet, she attracted all men!

Not surprisingly, both André and Bert fantasised about photographing Marilyn naked – the former couldn’t bring himself to do so, but the latter could and did. On the other hand, André became Marilyn’s lover, Bert couldn’t bring himself to do so.

André’s first encounter with Norma Jeane – foretold in the stars

In 1945, André de Dienes picked up the phone to two agents. He was looking for models for a nude photography project he was planning. He was in a hurry because a fortune-teller had predicted there was a girl in Hollywood “waiting for me to photograph her!”

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Norma Jeane wearing a short-sleeved shirt and jeans photographed by André de Dienes

Norma Jeane in a short-sleeved shirt and jeans

1945. During their road trip, André and Norma Jeane stopped at a farm where she fed the animals. Here she flashes a coy, come-hither smile...

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Marilyn Monroe draped in chinchilla photographed by Bert Stern, June 1962

Marilyn Monroe wrapped in chinchilla

Bel-Air Hotel, Hollywood, June 1962. Defiant, defensive or just play-acting? Here Marilyn collaborates with Bert to subvert Vogue's intention of a more formal fashion shot....

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The body language is so different – there’s a beguilingly shy nonchalance about Norma Jeane in 1945. In 1962, Marilyn looks raddled, exhausted but infinitely more beautiful. She’s like some kind of tragic heroine.

The second agent, Emmeline Snively, announced that there was a very pretty girl in her office, waiting for her first modelling assignment and promised to send her around right away. Later that afternoon, Norma Jeane, 19 years old, arrived at André de Dienes’ bungalow.

Norma Jeane wore a pale pink sweater, tight to her body, and her curly ash-blonde hair was tied around her head with pink ribbon. … She reacted, responded to everything I said. She started to look around in my room examining all the pictures I put on the walls, and began asking questions. … She was utterly sincere: she did not wish to speak about herself, except when I asked her my own questions. She was sincere in wanting to know who I was, what I was doing with my life… and I began to amuse her exceedingly with all sorts of stories that ran through my mind, and I kept dishing them out to her. I still remember it so clearly as if it happened just recently. …

I came straight to the point in our conversation, asking her whether she would like to come to travel with me. We would would go by car to explore the Vast West, and take pictures everywhere – – glamour photos for magazine covers, and nudes, too!

I had a stack of large enlargements of photos I took of movie stars the year before, and some nudes, and Norma Jeane looked through them with great approval. She was excited, and wanted to pose for me. And she asked “Would you like to see my figure?” In a jiffy, she grabbed her hatbox, went to the adjoining room (the bedroom) to put on a bathing suit, and smiling, beaming with happiness, she swirled around the center of the living room, happy to be able to show me her beautiful figure.

A day later, I took her to the beach to take pictures of her, and again and again I photographed her each day. My mind was made up for sure; I wanted to take her away from Hollywood right away on a long trip. Just go with her anywhere, everywhere! I felt completely enamored by her.

Bert’s first encounter with Marilyn Monroe – a lightning bolt from the heavens

By the time Bert encounters Marilyn ten years later, she’s already a star. It will be another seven years before he photographs her for Vogue.

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Norma Jeane sitting in a country road photographed by André de Dienes

End of the road for Norma Jeane

1945. This is not the only occasion on which André photographed Norma Jeane on a highway, but for me it's the best. I love the...

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Marilyn Monroe modelling a black dress photographed by Bert Stern, June 1962

End of the road for Marilyn Monroe

Bel-Air Hotel, Hollywood, June 1962. Another shot from this series appeared in Vogue to illustrate Marilyn's obituary. By the time Bert took it, the shoot...

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She’s sitting in both shots, but the postures speak volumes.  In 1945 Norma Jeane is energised, ready for the next adventure. In 1962 Marilyn is exhausted,  with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

The first time I saw her was at a party for the Actors Studio, in New York City. It was 1955. A friend and I had been invited, and when we walked in, there she was: Marilyn Monroe.

She was the center of attention. All the men were around her, and all the light in the room seemed focused on her. Or was the light coming from her? It seemed to be, because she glowed. She had that blonde hair and luminous skin, she wore a gleaming sheath of emerald green paint.

“Look at that dress,” I said to my friend.

“I hear they sew her into it,” he said.

How would you get her out of it, I wondered, with a razor blade?

I’d laid eyes on Marilyn Monroe only moments before and already ideas about taking her clothes off were going through my mind.

I walked toward her, not with any intention of speaking to her, just in a trance of pure attraction. I had about as much control over myself as a moth flying around a candle. I wasn’t more than three or four feet away when she turned and smiled in my general direction, her dress shooting green stars. I was dazzled. I didn’t question why she would be smiling at me. At that instant I fell under her spell. It was a moment I wanted to go on forever.

Want to know more about Marilyn Monroe?

I’ve drawn heavily on two main sources. The first is Photo De André De Dienes, a reproduction of André’s notebook. It’s currently out of print, but an edited version is available as André de Dienes. Marilyn Monroe. My second source is Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting.

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Norma Jeane with a radiant smile photographed at Tobay Beach by André de Dienes

Norma Jeane with a radiant smile

Tobay Beach, Oyster Bay, 1949. In this photo, taken four years on from the 1945 series, Norma Jeane is turning into Marilyn Monroe. Perhaps the...

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Marilyn Monroe with pearls and sparkle photographed by Bert Stern, June 1962

Marilyn Monroe with pearls and sparkle

Bel-Air Hotel, Hollywood, June 1962. This image is from the final sequence that Bert took. It's fabulously glamorous and intimate. And it's also enigmatic –...

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By 1949, Norma Jeane is playing the part – she knows just how to dazzle with her smile and is evidently relishing the experience. In 1962, she’s playing the part again – but who knows what is going through her mind?

Other topics you may be interested in…

André de Dienes – desert frolics
Carole Landis publicity photo for Secret Command
Carole Landis – die young, stay pretty
Sabrina in a black strappy dress
Sabrina – Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe

Filed Under: Photographers, Stars Tagged With: André de Dienes, Bert Stern, Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jeane

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