The innocence and the fire that was Marilyn Monroe are captured forever in the most ravishing photographs ever taken of the legendary star.
Bert Stern, famed photogra- pher of beautiful women, had a dream. It was to create a great portrait of Marilyn Monroe, to catch on film her unique quality in one im- mortal photograph. Through a Vogue assignment, Stern ar- ranged a meeting with Marilyn, who agreed to sit for him. It was to be the last sitting she ever gave. Six weeks later Marilyn Monroe was dead.
The photographs in The Last Sitting include some of the most famous of the star, as well as never-before-published photos from Stern's private col- lection. Marilyn Monroe posed nude for Stern, the only time she had done so since the famous calendar shots taken when she was eighteen. Here you will read Bert Stern's ac- count of what happened then -how the sitting ignited into an extraordinary romance in
which a man and woman made love through the cam- era's lens. "She was the light and the goddess and the moon-the mystery and the danger." The incandescent pho- tographs record it all: Here is Marilyn, clothed and unclothed, joyful, playful, wistful, deli- ciously wanton-a love god- dess.
Stern has been called "the most exciting and controversial photographer of the last quar- ter century." This collector's book published at the twen- tieth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death is his finest achievement, an unforgettable tribute to a legend of her time and beyond.
