A sensual Marilyn poses for Stern's lens
When they asked the forensic doctor who performed the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe by the appearance of her corpse, Thomas T. Noguchi he got lyrical and quoted Petrarch:
It was what fools call dying:
in her face death was beauty.
Five weeks earlier, in a hot June 1962, the actress arrived at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles for a photo shoot with Vogue. When I stayed there there was no one left among the staff who could tell me about the meeting. 50 years have passed. The moon had not been stepped on. The Beatles were almost five. Only photographer Bert Stern recalls the encounter. Marilyn was five hours late, which was usual for her. She walked over the stone bridge that leads to the reception, which is still intact today, as she did next to the train tracks in the movie 'With Skirts and Crazy'. She went upstairs to her suite like in 'Temptation Lives Upstairs'. She entered the room as Norma Jean Baker.
She was very thin she had lost the lush 94-58-92 that filled the first fold-out published by Playboy magazine . Her body was that of a stylized woman 1.65 cm tall and weighing 52 kilos.
Stern completely fell in love with the actress during the three days that the photo shoot lasted.
"It was a surprise. Her weight loss had transformed her. She was even better than the actress with the generous, almost exaggerated body he had seen in the movies. She wasn't wearing makeup, nothing! It was the actual image. I was blown away,” recalls Stern.
The photographer was looking for an intimate portrait. He wanted to immortalize the purity that she had before her eyes and proposed a session without makeup. Marilyn went further: "You want to photograph me naked, don't you?"
The date went down in history. Three days in which Stern admits that he fell in love with her. It all happened in suite 177 of a hotel that the actress knew very well. Throughout her 36-year life, she moved up to 46 times and took up residence at Bel-Air three times. The first in one of the pool rooms, the second in Grand Suite 390 and the third in the current presidential suite – she wasn't when she occupied it. What they do remember at the hotel is what the last Marilyn was like, a woman so withdrawn and shy that she didn't come to the lobby to pick up her mail and hid her every move behind a dark veil. In the suite she kept 558 pairs of shoes.
It was Marilyn herself, with red studs, who decided which photos she left out
**The result of the meeting is known as The last sitting ** and is republished by Taschen in a limited edition of 1,962 copies signed by Stern himself. Some of the images retain the red studs in the discards that the actress herself decided. Norman Mailer is the author of the text, the rescued biography of a woman who –unlike Stern– never met, not even with make-up, and with whom –like Stern– he ended up falling in love.
The Hotel Bel-Air, opened just after the Second World War in 1946, is located in a 5-hectare garden in the luxurious neighborhood of Bel-Air. After an exhaustive reform that kept it closed for 24 months, it reopened its doors on October 14. It has 103 rooms, 45 of them suites.
Big or small, you don't have the feeling of staying in a hotel. The patios, the terracotta walkways, the poolside bungalows, the place feels more like a residential neighborhood tucked away from the hustle and bustle of L.A. what other thing. When the Beatles were only three, Paul, George and Ringo came to stay at the same time without anyone knowing of the stay of the rest.
The exclusive Hotel Bel-Air
The Oscars ceremony will be held on February 26. The Hotel Bel-Air is a favorite of Hollywood stars. Lauren Bacall swamped it after a statuette giveaway.
Grace Kelly, more restrained, a princess from minute one, opted simply to get into bed and dress in 310-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets after winning the Oscar for her role in 'The Anguish of Living'. Russell Crowe returned to being 'Gladiator' in a hotel suite after the 2001 ceremony . You are still in time to book a suite and have breakfast surrounded by the occasional luminary.
The sunny pool of the Hotel Bel-Air
Bert Stern, to his popularity, to his misfortune, was the photographer who took the last pictures of Marilyn Monroe. The actress died shortly after the photo shoot at the Hotel Bel-Air, on August 5, 1962, due to an overdose of Nembutal and chloral hydrate at her Californian home in Brentwood. . Suicide, ruled the forensic poet. They found her in her bed, naked.
(Hotel Bel-Air. 701 Stone Canyon Road Los Angeles, California 90077. Tel.: +1310 4721211; Hotel Bel-Air. Rooms from $565 (€430). Suites, $1,050 (€800). Loft Guestrooms from $1,350 (€1,023). €) Specialty Suites from $1,850 (€1,402) Presidential Suite: $13,500 (€10,234)
Norman Mailer/Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe (Taschen; €750).
Another of the discards that the actress made