stands over her as it makes him feel powerful while she's reluctant and distant, then shouts at the crew for someone to "turn her on" With a line like that, there is no wonder he was able to pull the desire right out of Marilyn and onto the lens of his camera.

Bert Stern was a 32-year-old, red-blooded Brooklyn-born boy and he was going to ball Marilyn Monroe. Yes, sir! It was 1962. Stern was cruising the streets of L.A. in a pink Thunderbird convertible, a case of '53 Dom Perignon in the trunk. Bubbly for Marilyn. Earlier, Stern had reserved them Suite 261 at the Bel-Air Hotel. He planned to get Marilyn drunk and coax her to drop her clothes and then ... He wanted to make love with her, but there was the job he'd come to L.A. to do -- to take Monroe's photograph for Vogue magazine. "Making love and making photographs were closely connected in my mind when it came to women," he would later write.

Bert Stern was the last person to photograph Marilyn Monroe before she died, 39 years ago this month. An exclusive interview with Salon.

She took her sweater off. "Women like to take their cloths off," Stern observes. "I noticed that. Especially in front of a camera. Or a mirror. Women are connected to their bodies and to the effect it has on other people."

What did the movie star's voice sound like in person? "Her voice was more normal," Stern remembers. "I think 'Marilyn Monroe' is a character she created. That voice was exaggerated. She was a riot. I haven't seen anyone except people imitating her have that. And no one can imitate her properly." I bought new a car from the GI Bill of Rights and drove to the white sands desert of New Mexico to photograph Hershal’s ‘Driest of the Dry’ concept.” As a new season of Mad Men premieres, it’s perfectly fitting that the original mad man, Bert Stern, is receiving the accolades that his remarkable life and career deserve. In 2002 Stern snapped Sophie Dahl for Vogue in a homage to Monroe's poses with the chiffon roses. In 2008, he took the curious decision to more directly replicate the Last Sitting sessions, this time with Lindsay Lohan. The results were neither as fun nor as fragile as the originals. Stern’s sensuous and intimate portraits, brought the American public closer to the star and established Monroe’s position in American culture as the fabled figure of femininity, fame, mystery, and tragedy.

I was going to photograph Marilyn Monroe. All I had to do was figure out how to get what I wanted: pure Marilyn, nude. But I didn’t know how to approach her with that idea… Maybe the only way I was going to get it was through illusion: screens, veils. So, I went to Vogue and said, “Can you get me some scarves? Scarves you can see through – with geometrics. And jewelry.” Jewelry doesn’t need too many clothes, right?” Vogue had sent Marilyn the photos from the first day for approval—it was not usual practice but for Marilyn they had made an exception. “A lot of the pictures she had put markings on with magic marker, directly onto the transparency [to indicate images that didn’t reflect her own self-image]. I thought it was interesting but I didn’t think I would use them. Then the art director Herb Lubalin heard about [the crossed out frames] and said they would like to use them in a new magazine they were starting, called Eros. They talked to her PR people and they had no objections.” Bert Stern: Original Mad Man’ opened in New York on April 5, 2013. A gallery show coinciding with the film opened on April 4 at the Staley-Wise Gallery, New York.

Around the same time as the Cleopatra shoot Stern received a call from Glamour with an offer to shoot for them. “I really had my heart set on working for Vogue,” he says, but made a deal with the art director. “If I shot for Glamour I could shoot for Vogue.” Bert had brought a bunch of see-through scarves and beads from the Vogue accessories closet. He suggested she pose with just the scarves and nothing else. He knew this was risky. Marilyn asked her stylist what his thoughts were on this idea, and Bert recalls, “I knew my life was in his hands at that very moment. That if he said don’t you dare, we never would have taken the pictures.” Beginning today, visitors to the Paris exhibition hall (and car dealer) DS World can experience the elegance and vulnerability of Stern’s series in the exhibition “ Marilyn, the Last Sitting,” on view until January 6, 2018. The photos are featured alongside DS car models, including a rare, bright-red DS 21 Cabriolet from 1966. For Stern, taking photographs was like making love — an intense, emotional experience. “I fell in love with everybody I photographed,” he says today. Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean, on June 1 in Los Angeles, California. She had just turned 36 at the time of the photo shoot.is at the time of his writing aware that for all intents and purposes, Marilyn committed suicide shortly after seeing the finished photos, of which she brutually vetoed more than half, and yet feels zero shame over the fact that even then he goes on to publish those photos (destructions marks and all)

Vogue ultimately decided to run the article using all of the same selections they had originally planned to use, with the addition of text explaining to readers their position. takes pride in only kissing Marilyn after she just about managed to say "no" before she passed out on the bed after a grueling day of shooting It's a good thing that Stern did not become the date-rape Picassoesque Minotaur he had imagined himself to be. Instead he remained a great photographer. "There are no photographs of Cleopatra," he wrote (forgetting perhaps his photos of Liz Taylor). "No prints of what Paris saw and felt when he gazed at Helen of Troy. They're like dead stars; the light from them no longer reaches us. But there are photographs of Marilyn Monroe." This book presents the complete set of 2,571 photos. The monumental body of work by the master photographer and the Hollywood actress marks a climax in the history of star photography, both in quantity and quality. As aunique affirmation of the erotic dimension of photography and the eroticism of taking photos, the Last Sitting®it is the world's finest and largest tribute to Marilyn Monroe.Bert Stern’s daring attitude in creating a unique Vogue spread combined with his adoration for the actress produced fantastic images that served more so as poetic offerings to the concept of love and the power of a muse, leaving both photographer and viewer transfixed by Monroe’s unequivocal beauty. A year later a friend introduced Stern to Shannah Laumeister, a 13-year-old girl he photographed, after which he simply filed away the photos. Four years later, they reconnected for a second shoot. Over the past three decades the two have built a close bond. “Our whole relationship has been sourced through a camera … and has grown closer and closer [until we know] each other’s souls,” Laumeister told TIME. is aware of the fact that she had her drink spiked with 100% vodka, yet supplies more and more alcohol during the shoot Vogue published The Last Sitting series one day after Monroe’s death, giving the public an intimate portrait of the star in the wake of tragedy. Though the magazine usually includes a list of designers in its shoots, editors chose to eschew its focus on the clothing and eliminated fashion credits, instead featuring only the photos as homage to the star. The shoot captured the nation’s imagination and has since inspired countless spreads, including a 2008 cover shoot featuring Lindsay Lohan in New York Magazine, photographed by Stern himself. August 6, 1962: Vogue September issue was on press about to be printed when news broke of Monroe's death.