MARILYN. A MAGICAL DANCE

Book Recommendation

MARILYN. A MAGICAL DANCE

A DOUGLAS KIRKLAND LEPORELLO

My dear friend Françoise Kirkland, wife of the late Douglas Kirkland, has produced a wonderful and playful new book marking what would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday.

On November 17, 1961, a twenty-seven-year-old Douglas photographed Marilyn in an intimate and now-iconic series on an unmade bed. Marilyn. A Magical Dance presents these spontaneous and enchanting images as a continuous visual sequence, accompanied by Douglas’s handwritten words.

For Douglas, every photo session was a kind of dance—a brief, unrepeatable exchange between photographer and subject. Conceived as a leporello, the book unfolds fluidly from image to image, drawing the reader into the story of that extraordinary evening and one of the most memorable photographic encounters in Hollywood history.

Copies are available from Damiani Books.