Marilyn & Me
Lawrence Schiller’s story of working with Marilyn Monroe in words and photographs
Photographer, author, and film director Lawrence Schiller photographed Marilyn Monroe for the first time in 1960, when he was 23, over the course of three days on the set of the movie Let‘s Make Love. In 1962 while working for Paris Match Magazine, he was assigned to photograph Marilyn again, this time on the set of Something’s Got to Give. It was during the filming of this movie that Schiller photographed Marilyn during a famous pool scene where she swam naked. Marilyn & Me is Schiller’s first hand story of working with Marilyn, their conversations and an impressive collection of previously unseen photographs.
The design for the book allows the photographs to be the priority and the text to read in a very comfortable, linear pace. We selected a bright blue tone to pick up on the water from the pool shots and used it sparingly throughout. The Miller family of type was used for both body and titling.
Schiller had a combination of prints and the original film that we worked through to find the desired shots to sit alongside the story. Having chance to have an intimate connection with the work was a chance of a lifetime.
There were a few moments where historical ephemera— magazine and newspaper covers featuring the photographs were used to capture the spirit of the accomplishment and further place the reader in that moment of time.
