Exhibition reveals the happy side of Marilyn Monroe

Published on Tuesday 3 February 2004 00:00

A NEW exhibition of Marilyn Monroe photos, many of them previously unpublished, has opened in Berlin, showing the screen icon in some of her happiest, most off-guard moments.

Shot by Sam Shaw, Monroe’s favourite photographer and a lifelong confidant, the pictures span 1954 to 1958, a time when Monroe tried to shed her blonde, sex-bomb image and moved to New York to study acting. There she met the playwright Arthur Miller, who became her third husband in 1956.

"You see a very calm and relaxed Marilyn Monroe, almost merry - and very much in love," said Thomas Lardon, the show’s organiser. "That’s the special thing about it."

Even Mr Shaw rarely got unscripted glimpses of Monroe, who died of a drug overdose on 5 August, 1962 at 36. But tender spontaneity comes through in black-and-white photos of her and Miller strolling on a New York street, cruising in an open-top car, rowing a boat in Central Park or lolling on the grass in a frilly white outfit.

Others show her frolicking at Amagansett beach in 1957, just before filming began for the comedy Some Like it Hot.

Mr Shaw met Monroe - real name Norma Jean Baker - when she was an unknown aspiring actress between Hollywood jobs at 20th Century Fox.

Shaw died in 1999, leaving a huge archive of images of show stars at his home in upstate New York. Mr Lardon, a Berlin-based art-house publisher, had the idea for an exhibit and accompanying book on the Monroe trove and after months of pursuit bought the rights from Mr Shaw’s son, Larry.

Mr Lardon says it shows Monroe at a time when she was "stable and strong" and in control of her life. "She was not the Monroe who was being pushed back and forth by everybody," he said. "It corrects our image of her a bit."