On October 29, at Christie's New York headquarters, a batch of "memorabilia" went on sale that included the sensual and historical images of the diva Marilyn Monroe in Beverly Hills by Douglas Kirkland and the camera with which he took them. The photographer tells us what that night in 1961 was like, a year before the death of the actress, although in, the end, no one bought the "The Exceptional Sale" lot.
It was a cloudy afternoon in mid-November 1961. At the doors of a Los Angeles studio, photographer Douglas Kirkland (Fort Erie, Canada, August 16, 1934) made considerable efforts to hide his nervousness at the imminent arrival of the most desired actress of the moment. He looked at his watch impatiently, and paced up and down the hall, even pinching his arm to make sure it wasn't really a dream. Two hours late, Marilyn Monroe appeared on the doorstep, resplendent as always and flanked by her usual retinue of attendants. Kirkland was 27 years old at the time and had a promising career ahead of him as a photographer for movie stars. In his early days, he had excelled as a portraitist of hockey players, but after a few months as Irving Penn's assistant in Manhattan, he felt ready to make the definitive leap to Hollywood.
Marilyn, for her part, had celebrated her 35th birthday with a bitter toast of barbiturates and an express move to Los Angeles after chaining her umpteenth love failure. Behind her were the luminaries of New York and the six years of intellectual distress that her last husband, the playwright Arthur Miller, had brought her. She was alone again and she felt free. Fragile and free. The props for the session had been agreed upon in advance by both parties: a bed with pristine white silk sheets, several Frank Sinatra vinyl records, and an arsenal of Dom Perignon bottles. The script, however, was not written. "As soon as Marilyn saw me, she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and, without wasting a second, she headed for the dressing room," Kirkland tells Fuera de Serie. "Once lying on the bed, and covering her B- with her shawl, she asked our companions to leave us alone. It was an unexpected decision that changed the course of events."
A MYTH TO BID
On October 29, Christie's House auctioned two of the photographs of that memorable meeting at its New York headquarters, in addition to the Hasselblad camera that Kirkland used to portray the actress and S- symbol. The images were published in a special issue of Look magazine (which was then celebrating its 25th anniversary), two of which are also included in the lot. "A few days before our studio date, I met Marilyn, her agent, and other colleagues from the magazine at her apartment in Beverly Hills," recalls the 85-year-old photographer. "I told him some ideas, and they all excited him. I suggested not using flash to avoid any distractions, and he gave me his blessing. With his characteristic good humor, he told me that with one sheet we would manage and that the rest would be seen. For my part, I vowed to treat her like the regal princess that she was." The result was a magical night in which the chemistry between Monroe and Kirkland permeated every single negative. "I would like to tell him that something happened between us," the author of the snapshots jokes by phone. "But the truth is that there is nothing to tell: everything took place with absolute professionalism."
It was not easy for her, however, to maintain her composure while Marilyn undressed in the privacy of the study or flirtatiously waddled under a semi-transparent fabric. "Any young man of my generation would have given his arm to have been in my place. I felt privileged, but not so much for being close to her as for having the opportunity to capture with my camera the essence of an extraordinary woman in all the senses". There were laughs, knowing looks, and warm whispers that blurred the camera lenses. "We walked together through the abyss of the night, controlling our impulses so that all that energy was channeled into images that would be historic."
