Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 1 21.03.12 13:35 marilyn & meme A Memoir in Words & Photographs ou’re already famous, now you’re going “ to make me famous,” photographer Lawrence Schiller said to Y Marilyn Monroe as they discussed the photos he was about to shoot of her. “Don’t be so cocky,” Marilyn replied, “photographers can be easily replaced.” The year was 1962, and Schiller, 25, was on assignment for Paris Match magazine. He already knew Marilyn — they had met on the set of Let’s Make Love — but nothing could have prepared him for the day she appeared nude during a swimming pool scene for the motion picture Something’s Got to Give. Marilyn & Me is an intimate story of a legend before her fall and a young photographer on his way to the top. Schiller’s original text and extraordinary photographs take us back to that time, and to the surprising connection that allowed Marilyn to bond with a kid from Brooklyn, a kid with a lot of ambition but very little experience. Schiller’s is a story that has never been told before, and he tells it with tact, humor, and compassion. The result is a real and unexpected portrait that captures the star in the midst of her final struggle. Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 2 21.03.12 13:36 Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 3 21.03.12 13:36 Marilyn was a photographer’s dream subject with her clothes on and even more stunning with them off. She was a week away from her thirty-sixth birthday, and she looked as good as she had ever looked. — lawrence schiller when lawrence schiller proposed a new book on marilyn monroe we wondered, why another? Yes, the world is familiar with Schiller’s famous photographs of the swimming pool scene from Something’s Got to Give or Marilyn’s birthday party on set, but we were surprised by the hundreds of strips of film from the photographer’s archives that had never seen the light of day. Frame after frame, we could feel the heat between her and Yves Montand on Let’s Make Love, the trust she had in acting coach Paula Strasberg, the fun she had with co-stars Dean Martin and Wally Cox, and the utter devastation of Joe DiMaggio at her funeral. Even more surprising was the power of the text, a coming-of-age story that fit hand in glove with the pictures. And paired with over a hundred photographs from two of Monroe’s final films, most of them never published before, what at first glance seemed like old news soon turned into an important publishing event. Now, 50 years after Monroe’s untimely death, TASCHEN is publishing Lawrence Schiller’s story as a signed, numbered monograph limited to 1,962 above Lawrence Schiller and Marilyn copies. But while Marilyn & Me may look like an art book, it reads like a Monroe on the set of Something’s Got to Give, 1962. The film, which was never true-life novel. Schiller’s writing demanded the widest possible audience. So, finished, would be her last. for the first time in our publishing house’s history, we are partnering with previous spread and opposite “When another publisher, the esteemed Nan A. Talese, whose eponymous literary I looked over the script,” writes Schiller, “it didn’t take me very long to find the one imprint at Knopf Doubleday in New York will simultaneously publish a scene I was sure I wanted to shoot.” Even small reader-friendly memoir edition. Whether with the photographs or after director George Cukor was done with the day’s shooting, Monroe continued to without, we think it’s a story you won’t be able to put down. pose for Schiller’s still camera. They were the first nudes the world had seen of the star in ten years. lawrence schiller began his career as a photojournalist for back cover and inside back cover Life, Playboy, and Paris Match, among others, photographing some of Recent discoveries from the photogra- the most iconic figures of the 1960s, from Lee Harvey Oswald to Robert pher’s archive include those from the first day he photographed Monroe. She F. Kennedy, from Ali and Foreman to Redford and Newman. His many caught his reflection in the mirror of her dressing room and stopped him in his book collaborations include the Pulitzer Prize-winning book with Norman tracks: “That’s not the best angle for me. Mailer, The Executioner’s Song; and he has written five New York Times If you go over there” — tilting her head slightly, indicating a spot to the left — best sellers. He has also directed seven motion pictures and miniseries “you’ll get a better photo, because the light will be better.” When a proofsheet was for television; The Executioner’s Song and Peter the Great won five Emmys. submitted to her for approval she crossed He is also the founder of The Norman Mailer Center & Writer’s Colony out almost every frame but the shot she had suggested. in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 4 21.03.12 13:36 Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 5 21.03.12 13:36 . Available in a Collector’s Edition and two Art . Both the book and clamshell box are covered in a Editions, totaling 1,962 copies, the year of Marilyn custom woven duchesse silk from one of the world’s Monroe’s death most distinguished silk mills, Taroni, of Como, Italy . Includes photographs of Marilyn on the sets of Let’s . Four foldouts, with one gatefold measuring a full Make Love (1960) and Something’s Got to Give (1962), 110 cm (44 in.) across “Like some real-life Zelig or her final film .Printed on archival-quality paper Forrest Gump, Schiller has a talent . Over two-thirds of the pictures have never been for popping up, inexplicably, published before or have been rarely seen in the middle of historic events. Schiller has phenomenal instincts Collector’s edition and even better luck.” No. 251–1,962 Edition of 1,712 numbered copies, — playboy, february 1997 Signed by Lawrence Schiller Silk cloth cover, packaged in a clamshell box XL-format: 29 x 39.5 cm (11.4 x 15.6 in.), 210 pages English language edition Translation booklets of the text available in German, French, and Spanish with purchase upon request isbn 978-3-8365-3624-0 list prices € 750 | $ 1000 | £ 650 ART EditionS Limited to two editions of 125 numbered copies, each with a numbered archive print, signed by Lawrence Schiller Print size: 29 x 39.5 cm (11.4 x 15.6 in.) Frame not included No. 1–125 Marilyn: Roll 11, Frame 12, May 1962 Archival black-and-white fiber-based silver gelatin print isbn 978-3-8365-3836-7 No. 126–250 Marilyn: Color 3, Frame 18, May 1962 Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315GS paper isbn 978-3-8365-3901-2 list prices € 1,500 | $ 2,000 | £ 1,250 opposite The box and book are covered in a duchesse silk from Taroni, famous in the fashion world for the elegance and quality of its fabrics. The oldest silk mill in Como, Italy, Taroni still employs 19th- century techniques of silk weaving and has supplied couturiers from Givenchy to Valentino for decades. Custom woven for this publication, the blue silk gives the feeling of the rippling blue water from Marilyn Monroe’s famous swimming pool scene, captured with such intensity and sensuality by Lawrence Schiller. following spread Monroe celebrates her 36th birthday on set. this teaser is produced at the actual size ^ using the same paper stock as the book. Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 6 21.03.12 13:37 Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 7 21.03.12 13:37 “I never wanted to be Marilyn — it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.” — marilyn monroe Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 8 21.03.12 13:37 Schiller_Marilyn_Teaser_v14.indd 9 21.03.12 13:37 chapter one Paula was like a Svengali to Marilyn. At work, her mother hen, her shadow. Paula believed in Marilyn, and that allowed Marilyn to believe that she could become a great actress. The Big Bad Wolf HEN I PULLED IN TO THE 20TH CENTURY FOX studios parking lot in Los Angeles in my station wagon in knowing that i needed time to ingratiate myself, i got to the April 1960, I kept telling myself that this was just another set a few days before the shooting of the pool sequence. Each motion W picture was like a new love affair. A friend of mine once described them assignment, just another pretty girl that I was going to photograph. But as “short sweet love stories.” I started my assignment by shooting Marilyn in fact it wasn’t just another assignment, and she wasn’t just a pretty girl. with her entourage and Dean Martin. They were decent shots and a good In 1956, when I was a college photographer, I had seen her angelic face warm-up for me to get known around the set and, little by little, zero in on the cover of Time magazine. After that, as I began to make my way on Marilyn. In the afternoon Pat Newcomb arrived and began clowning around with Martin. In between setups I had an opportunity to be in in photojournalism, I got assignments to shoot Jimmy Stewart and Lee Marilyn’s dressing room, even though I was not part of her entourage of Remick in Anatomy of a Murder and the dancer Julie Newmar in Li’l Gladys, Whitey, and Paula Strasberg, the wife of Marilyn’s drama coach, Abner, but it had never even occurred to me that I might get a chance to Lee Strasberg.