Arts & Entertainment

Images of Marilyn Monroe on display in New Hope during August

Marilyn Monroe, 1962 (Photo by ©Lawrence Schiller)

“You’re already famous, now you’re going to make me famous,” photographer Lawrence Schiller said to Marilyn Monroe as they discussed the photos he was about to shoot of her in 1962.

“Don’t be so cocky,” Monroe replied, “photographers can be easily replaced.”

Several days later, Schiller had not been replaced, and they were on the set of her last film, “Something’s Got to Give.”  That was when Monroe began her attention-grabbing plan: a poolside photo session in which she’d playfully exit the swimming pool without her bathing suit on.

Marilyn Monroe, 1962 (Photo by ©Lawrence Schiller)

Schiller’s pictures made headlines and the covers of magazines around the world, and then tragically, six weeks after they were published, she was gone.

Now, these photographs — and dozens of others Schiller made of Monroe and other Hollywood stars from Paul Newman and Robert Redford to Clint Eastwood, Barbra Streisand, and Alfred Hitchcock — will be on exhibit for the first time in Bucks County at the Gallery des Artistes in New Hope beginning Aug. 3.

“I’m excited to finally share my photographs with the community here,” says Schiller, who moved with his wife to Upper Makefield last September.

He had spent most of his life in California, and for the last 10 years lived in New York City.

Schiller with Monroe in 1962 (Photo by ©Lawrence Schiller)

“My office rent was costing close to $15,000 a month, and at 80, I didn’t want want to be working just to be paying rent,” Schiller explained. “I have a daughter that lives in Philadelphia, and we started visiting the area.

And how did he choose Bucks County?

“We loved the fireflies at night,” Schiller recalls.

“We found a wonderful home built in 1829 that had a wonderful sun room I could convert to a home office,” he continued. “I’m in the second part of the nadir of my life. I’ve told my wife I may buy a mower and cut all four acres of grass.”

Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Mexico (Photo by ©Lawrence Schiller)

Schiller began his career as a photojournalist for Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and Paris Match, among others. He photographed some of the most iconic figures of the 1960s. Schiller’s collaborations include a book with Tom Wolfe and five books with Norman Mailer, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Executioner’s Song.”

“Lawrence Schiller: Marilyn Monroe & Other Photographs” will be on view from Aug. 3 through Sept. 2, with an opening reception with the photographer on Saturday, Aug. 4 at 6 p.m.

Gallery des Artistes is located at 20 W. Bridge St. in New Hope.

(Photo by ©Lawrence Schiller)

About the author

Charlie Sahner

“Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." - Einstein

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