New Marilyn Monroe photos to be shown in Palm Desert

Marilyn Monroe slipped into the 90-degree water in a flesh-colored bikini and emerged without it. A man at poolside that late spring night in 1962 will be at Heather James Fine Art in Palm Desert Saturday evening.

Lawrence Schiller, photographer extraordinaire, is showing his Marilyn pictures, many newly revealed.

After 50 years, some I didnt think were very good at first take on a new meaning, he said during a recent phone conversation. They have a life of their own. There are lots in the big Taschen book the story of her life.

He refers to his tome Marilyn & Me: A Photographers Memories, $1,000, though there is also a modestly priced version.

Schiller, who currently lives in Manhattan, said he was lucky in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. I live in a high-rise in great shape, no problem. We could help others.

Looking back, it seems the film goddess was a long way from his original subject. Skid marks. After he was given a camera for his bar mitzvah it became his escape. The Brooklyn lad had at age 7 looked up the garbage shaft just as a neighbor lady tossed an umbrella. Hes been legally blind in his left eye ever since. Marilyn would notice straightaway that he didnt close it while aiming.

I was dyslectic, although the word wasnt in the dictionary then. I couldnt read; I couldnt spell. He could listen to radio police reports. Like a junior WeeGee the crime scene shutterbug he chased down accidents.

But by the time the boy arrived on his bike, nothing was left to shoot but the tracks. He learned about lighting noting how the skid marks varied in the sunshine angle. The kid marketed the results to insurance companies and bought his first car at 16.

At 23, on assignment for a national picture magazine, he had his first encounter with Marilyn, on the set of Lets Make Love, 1960. Hello, Larry from Look, she said.

That rapport went forward to two years later when she told him her secret plan. To drop her bikini and make news.

Wasnt she e! ven better looking in 1962 shed lost about 20 pounds? At any weight, Marilyn was lovable, huggable and ... He added another word ending with able.

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She let fly that no one looks better than me with no clothes on. True? Affirmative. All the pieces, all the parts came together, all best.

Then she was the most beautiful woman hes ever photographed? No. Catherine Deneuve in the 1960s, he said.

Actually, the artists favorite entry in the Heather James exhibition is of a fully clad Marilyn lounging on a sofa as acting guru Paula Strasberg slouches by. The icon and the mother hen. To me a great piece of journalism, Schiller said.

Schiller dropped by to see Marilyn on the eve of her death on Aug. 4, 1962. He happened to be on his way to Palm Springs. It didnt matter that it would be hot in the desert.

It was my getaway, he said.

In those days he was crazy about the Ocotillo Lodge. It was heaven. That was the place. I photographed Richard Nixon there when he was campaigning in 1960.

Lawrence Schiller went on to have a spectacular career, branching into film producing, directing and writing.

He collaborated with his friend Norman Mailer, directed Tommy Lee Jones in the award-winning TV miniseries, The Executioners Song. But the Marilyn photography wasnt just a blip in his life. Because, he says, of the significance. For the longevity.

The photos Bert Stern took two weeks later are wonderful but they tell a different story. Shes drinking champagne ... her eyes are glassy.

In mine ... she is young, playful. Shes positive. Marilyn in nothing but her birthday suit. Marilyn at her best.