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SCHILLER Lawrence Julian

 

Date of birth : December 28, 1936, Brooklyn.

 

Place of living : Los Angeles.

 

Practise: photographer.

                     

Portrait 

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Story

In May 1962 he was in charge, with his colleague William Woodfield, for Paris-Match magazine, of covering the shooting of "Something's Got to Give".

On May 28, 1962 they were at the Fox when Marilyn shot the scene of the swimming-pool; at a moment, either on the director's, George Cukor, order, or on her own, Marilyn took her flesh-colored bathsuit off and posed nude for the photographers for about an hour, inside and outside the pool.

Usally style-conscious to know which pictures would be published or not, this time, she gave her permission to Schiller for the snapshots commercialization. He perfectly knew what he had in his hands and convinced Jimmy Mitchell, the photographer who accompanied them, to get rid of his negatives for the sum of 10 000$. 
Thus, with Woodfield, they had the exclusive rights of Marilyn's last nudes, the first since 13 years.

Pool scene

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Mink suit

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In her dressing-room

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June 1, 1962 : Marilyn celebrated her birthday at the Fox.

Birthday cake

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In a dressing-room

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It was her last day on the set

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He sold the pictures to magazines in 32 countries; in the USA they were purchased by Playboymagazine; at the beginning he managed to convince Marilyn to pose for other pictures, for the cover and the back cover of the magazine, but after, she broke her commitment off.

He visited her on August 4, 1962, during the day, to talk about the pictures she approved.  

Four days later, on August 8, 1962, he attended her funeral and was one of the rare photographers who were allowed to come near enough to take some snapshots.

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To celebrate the 10th birthday of her death, Schiller organized an itinerant exhibition of Marilyn's pictures taken by 15 great photographers. In one of the town of the roadshow, a Tom Kelley nude in a gold frame and a half-dozen of other original pictures were stolen. A book accompanied the exhibition and he asked Norman Mailer to write the text of a Marilyn's pictures anthology. The synthesis of the two (a choice of Marilyn's best pictures and a half-romanticized biography of Mailer) had a big success.

In 1980 he produced "Marilyn : the Untold Story" (New York : Gosset and Dunlap publishers, 1973), a version of Mailer's biography published in 1973.

Among his other media feats, there was Jack Ruby's last interview, the exclusive interview of a member of Charles Manson's family, the co-writing of O.J Simpson's memories.

 

Picture Otto Preminger in 1959 

 

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