Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting

Product Information

In 1959 Stern married the ballerina Allegra Kent, who was celebrated for creating roles for George Balanchine. They started a family and Stern set up a studio for his high-concept advertising and fashion shoots, but the work took its toll. He eventually became addicted to amphetamines and moved to Spain to recover in the 1970s. Stern grew up in Brooklyn. At the age of 16 he started work in the mail room at Look magazine. “I loved that job,” he says — but he was destined for bigger things. Even when people come to see me talk, they have certain set notions," Kannamma told AFP. "It is only when they hear what I have to say and see me in person that they can get past the fact that I am a transgender." Around the same time as the Cleopatra shoot Stern received a call from Glamour with an offer to shoot for them. “I really had my heart set on working for Vogue,” he says, but made a deal with the art director. “If I shot for Glamour I could shoot for Vogue.” But by the early Seventies Stern’s exhausting, Blow-Up-like lifestyle — fueled by amphetamines and shadowed by overhead costs—had drained him. He was hospitalized; his marriage crumbled. Broke, he left New York for Spain. He had lost virtually everything.

I've wanted to write this article for nearly a month now and I thought it would take no time at all to gather the details of those infamous few days in 1962 when Bert Stern and Marilyn Monroe spent intimate hours at the Bel-Air Hotel. But oh, was I wrong. I had been digging for insider information, watching every documentary and reading every article, when my mother-in-law found me a copy of The Last Sitting, written by Bert Stern himself. Only in reading that book did I find out all the juicy details.

Bert Stern was the last person to photograph Marilyn Monroe before she died, 39 years ago this month. An exclusive interview with Salon.

Bert Stern was a 32-year-old, red-blooded Brooklyn-born boy and he was going to ball Marilyn Monroe. Yes, sir! It was 1962. Stern was cruising the streets of L.A. in a pink Thunderbird convertible, a case of '53 Dom Perignon in the trunk. Bubbly for Marilyn. Earlier, Stern had reserved them Suite 261 at the Bel-Air Hotel. He planned to get Marilyn drunk and coax her to drop her clothes and then ... He wanted to make love with her, but there was the job he'd come to L.A. to do -- to take Monroe's photograph for Vogue magazine. "Making love and making photographs were closely connected in my mind when it came to women," he would later write. Since I was the art director of the magazine I figured I might as well shoot some of the pictures — [so] I became the Art Director and photographer.” Only Richard Avedon plays that stuff," Stern retorted. Hours went by. He coaxed her into taking her pants off  keep playing with the scarves. Finally, Stern realized it was 7 in morning. He let Monroe get dressed. She left. "I thought my love affair with Marilyn Monroe was over," Stern remembers. "I was very happy. The pictures were worth more to me than some kind of personal experience. I was already married. I never thought I'd meet her again."

We all know that many others besides Marilyn Monroe died or crashed to make the 1960s be the 1960s. Bert Stern, himself, just barely made it through that decade alive. He'd go on to become the 1960s fashion photographer of New York. His style of camera-as-phallus inspired the first photographer-standing-over-the-model scene in "Blow Up." Stern was responsible for Twiggy's brief reign as fashion's pop starvation princess. After Andy Warhol had lunch with Stern for the first time, the former returned to his office and was gunned down.Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean, on June 1 in Los Angeles, California. She had just turned 36 at the time of the photo shoot. Bert Stern‘s pictures of Marilyn Monroe, now known as “The Last Sitting”, are some of the most memorable images depicting the actress. Bert Stern’s daring attitude in creating a unique Vogue spread combined with his adoration for the actress produced fantastic images that served more so as poetic offerings to the concept of love and the power of a muse, leaving both photographer and viewer transfixed by Monroe’s unequivocal beauty.

Bert Stern was born on October 3 in Brooklyn, NY. He was a whopping age of 33 when he got this break-of-a-lifetime. Based in New York, Stern continued to shoot the most famous models, musicians and actors throughout the 80s and 90s, including Madonna and Kate Moss. He repeatedly returned to the Last Sitting photographs, which have been reprinted in many books including a Taschen publication that pairs Stern's photos with Norman Mailer's controversial 1973 biography of Monroe. Like Bailey's, Stern's 60s portraits feel direct and natural, and their effervescence is representative of the youthful explosion taking place across the creative industries in that decade. These, to me, are the most stunning, because it is clear Marilyn is at her most comfortable and uninhibited. What about the photos of Marilyn with the orange X over her face? What is that about? The legendary photographs of Marilyn Monroe from Bert Stern’s “The Last Sitting” are the subject of this exhibition at Staley-Wise Gallery.After being discharged from the service at war’s end, Stern was undecided whether to pursue art direction or still photography. Flair had closed and Bramson now worked for a small advertising agency, Lawrence C. Gumbinner. He invited Stern to experiment with him on a campaign for Smirnoff vodka. The company wanted to switch from drawings to photography. Stern shot test stills for layouts — which were approved — and when Irving Penn turned down the job Stern was awarded the campaign. As the decade drew to a close, he opened and outfitted the first photo super studio where he made photographs for prestigious editorial clients and advertising campaigns — conveyer belt style — working on as many as seven shoots a day. He also began to experiment with his own self-funded “art” projects. As Stern writes in The Last Sitting: “There were two Bert Sterns. One was the Bert Stern who had been accused of playing it close to the edge… Who had married his first wife with his fingers crossed…who thought his second, real marriage was over six months after it began…who had an appointment with blond destiny. That Bert Stern would gamble everything he had for a night with Marilyn Monroe. The other was Bert Stern, husband father, provider photographer who was going to get the picture, get out of there, go home to his wife and baby, and live happily ever after.” takes pride in only kissing Marilyn after she just about managed to say "no" before she passed out on the bed after a grueling day of shooting

August 6, 1962: Vogue September issue was on press about to be printed when news broke of Monroe's death.He then looked at his subject and was surprised. Monroe had a scar. She'd had a gall bladder operation six weeks before. He remembered Liz Taylor had been marked as well  a long tracheotomy scar along her throat. He recalled Diana Vreeland telling him, "I think there's nothing duller than a smooth, perfect-skinned woman. A woman is beautiful by her scars." He didn't buy it when Vreeland said those words, but here he was with a half-naked Marilyn Monroe. How could argue with that opinion now? Bert Stern: Original Mad Man’ opened in New York on April 5, 2013. A gallery show coinciding with the film opened on April 4 at the Staley-Wise Gallery, New York.