Marilyn Monroe photographed by Douglas Kirkland in November 1961.

On November 17, 1961, at a photographic studio in Hollywood Douglas Kirkland and his assistants prepare for the arrival of Marilyn Monroe. The appointment is arranged for 7pm, but Marilyn arrives at 9:30pm.
John Springer, Marilyn’s agent has already informed Kirkland that Marilyn sometimes arrives late but that she always ends up arriving.
Marilyn is accompanied by two assistants; Agnes Flanagan, hair and make-up & her dressmaker.
Douglas Kirkland recalls how it turned out to be an assignment that still resonates today, and the way it came together was purely Marilyn.
“The shoot was at a photographic studio in Hollywood,” he says, “and I knew the pictures I wanted to take of her but in my shy Canadian way I didn’t know quite how to get them. It was Marilyn who took charge: she said that we needed a bed and some white silk sheets, some Frank Sinatra records and a bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne. She had a robe on and eventually she slipped out of that and under the sheets, and that was how she wanted to be photographed.”
Douglas got on a balcony in the room so that he could shoot looking directly down. Then came a break and Marilyn asked everyone else to leave the room. “She said ‘I want to be alone with this boy. I find it usually works better that way’ and that was it,” he says. “I was on my own with her and the pictures became even more sexually charged.”
When the assignment is finished, Douglas Kirkland joins Marilyn and lies down on the floor next to the bed to talk alone whilst Kirkland’s assistant takes some photos.
Marilyn makes an appointment with Kirkland for the next afternoon at her home to view the photos. Then Marilyn puts her bathrobe back on and returns to her dressing room leaving shortly after midnight.