Exhibit catches Marilyn off-guard
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-02-03 14:58

A new exhibit of Marilyn Monroe photos, many previously unpublished, show the screen icon in some of her happiest, off-guard moments -- in New York far from the Hollywood glitz, cuddling with playwright Arthur Miller, shopping in Manhattan or splashing at the beach.

Photo by Shaw shows Monroe rowing a boat in New York's Central Park.

Shot by Sam Shaw, Monroe's favorite photographer and a lifelong confidant, the pictures span 1954 to 1958, a time when Monroe tried to shed her blonde sex bombshell image and moved to New York to study acting. There she met 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 organizer. "That's the special thing about it."

Even Shaw rarely got unscripted glimpses of Monroe, who died of a drug overdose on Aug. 5, 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 a convertible, rowing a boat in Central Park or lolling on the grass in a frilly white outfit.

Others show Monroe frolicking at Amagansett beach in 1957, just before shooting began for the comedy "Some Like it Hot," and radiant portraits.

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

About 50 pictures are on display through May 30 at a cafe and gallery on Berlin's Unter den Linden boulevard, a few blocks east of the Brandenburg Gate. Lardon says it shows Monroe at a time when she was "stable and strong" and in control of her life.

About 50 photos of Monroe are on display in Berlin.

About 50 photos of Monroe are on display in Berlin.

"She was not the Monroe who was being pushed back and forth by everybody," he said. "It corrects our image of her a bit."

Sam Shaw met Monroe, nee Norma Jean Baker, when she was an unknown aspiring actress between Hollywood jobs at 20th Century Fox.

"A darling girl, a darling young woman," he said of the early Monroe. "She used to drive me to location."

Later in New York, Shaw shot the most famous picture of Monroe -- the actress with her skirt billowing up from a gust of air from a street grate.

"I just want to show this fascinating woman, with her guard down, at work, at ease offstage, during joyous moments in her life and as she often was -- alone," Shaw once said.

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