THE PHOTO SHOOT
In the summer of 1962, LIFE magazine sent two journalists to spend time with Marilyn Monroe—one to listen, one to look. Writer Richard Meryman conducted what would become her final interview, recorded 2 weeks prior to photographer Allan Grant arriving at her Brentwood (LA) home for what would be her last formal photo shoot and the only one at her new house. Though the sessions were done separately, they now stand as companion pieces: Meryman capturing Marilyn's voice, Grant capturing her image.
​​
In an essay from 1997, Allan Grant reflected on that extraordinary afternoon—offering a firsthand account of Marilyn’s mood, presence, and the quiet beauty of a moment that has only grown more powerful with time. Below is an excerpt from Allan's essay, THE DEATH OF MARILYN MONROE. Stay tuned for updates on the release of the full essay.
​​
Thirty-five years ago on August 5th, 1962 the world lost Marilyn Monroe. I cannot think of anyone whose passing caused more shock, confusion, and stunned disbelief than Marilyn Monroe's. Her death was heartbreaking because one could not help but feel that she had been cheated out of what life promised her and, her sudden death had deprived her and her many fans of what might have been. Then too, Marilyn was beautiful, sexual and desirable. The shock of her sudden death at age thirty-six was almost unbearable. It came to us with the impact of a personal tragedy or a catastrophe in nature. Her beauty and her sweetness of spirit had brightened the world of untold millions of men and women. Thankful of what they saw of her, they found life sweeter because she lived and sadder because she died. LIFE magazine cried out that "her death has diminished the loveliness of the world in which we live..." Every important European magazine put her on their cover and gave her nearly endless pages in tribute to her.
​​
Where LIFE's memorial issue gave her eleven pages, Paris Match gave thiry-six pages to "La plus grand star du monde." It is quite unusual for a great star to die so young. To find anything approximating Marilyn's death you would have to go back to the death of Rudolph Valentino in 1926 - coincidentally the year Marilyn was born. And surely, James Dean in his sudden and tragic death in 1955 at the young age of twenty-four, when his speeding Porsche crashed into another vehicle killing him instantly. And, although he had made only three films, he became an icon. But in these incidents, we all knew how they died. There was no mystery to be solved.
​​
Thirty-five years have sped by with an unrelenting swiftness and the mystery remains. Who or what killed Marilyn? New books appear every few years timed for release at whatever anniversary looms in the future, most of them spinning new lies - each one more sensational than the last. This terrible tragedy has, unfortunately, turned into a cheap "who done it...? The Kennedy affair had to be stopped so maybe Bobby had her killed - that was the one that had been presented in different startling scenarios over the last twenty years.
​​
We will never know for sure if Marilyn took that lethal dose of barbiturates - or accidentally overdosed. Eunice Murray, the live in psychologist who discovered her body, told me some weeks after the tragedy that Marilyn depended on barbiturates to control her chronic insomnia and she had been drinking a lot at the time. The list of worldwide movie personalities who have died through the years from the deadly mix of prescription drugs and alcohol, either accidentally or intentionally, is well known throughout the film community.
​​
We all know that during the last summer of her life, Marilyn Monroe was having major problems - beyond those of the usual movie star's temperament. But all she said and did would seem to indicate that she was facing them courageously.
​​
In early June, Marilyn was fired from her last film, "Something's Got To Give!", Twentieth Century Fox claiming that she had been constantly late for work or had not shown up at all. Marilyn said she was ill, unable to work. She was also drinking quite a bit and she was rumored to be mentally unstable. It was a desperately lonely time for her.
​
While her lawyers negotiated , Marilyn stayed at home, living in the Brentwood house she had recently purchased and was in the process of furnishing and, sometimes in her New York apartment. Years later the world learned that she was also "living" in a private hell as the result of her alleged love affairs with Jack and Robert Kennedy, attracting the attention of Sam Giacana and the Mafia. But whatever her worries during the last two months of her life she seemed determined to prove that she still had a life to live and to refute those rumors she made herself available to three major magazines - Vogue, Cosmopolitan and LIFE...LIFE was the last to approach her.
