Eve Arnold

In 1960, Marilyn Monroe arrived in the searing heat of the Nevada desert to shoot The Misfits, a film written as a parting love letter to Monroe by her then husband, the playwright Arthur Miller. Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift, two long-established superstars, were cast to star alongside Monroe under the direction of the seasoned director John Huston. It would be the most expensive black and white movie ever made at the time.

The production, however, was plagued with difficulties. Huston was often drunk and regularly fell asleep on the set. Monroe’s marriage to Miller was falling apart, causing her to show up to work late, forgetful and sleep deprived. The actress confided in Eve Arnold, who was on set to take photographs and had built up a strong friendship with Monroe over their years of work. Monroe told Arnold she was struggling to cope with the relentlessness of her fame, and found it increasingly difficult to relate to the image that others had created of her. “My most poignant memory of Marilyn is of how distressed, troubled and still radiant she looked when I arrived in Nevada,” Arnold remembered. ‘She looked into my eyes for a long moment to make sure she could still trust me. Then she drew her breath, sighed and said, ‘I’m thirty-four years old. I’ve been dancing for six months (on Let’s Make Love). I’ve had no rest, I’m exhausted. Where do I go from here?’ She was not asking me – she was asking herself.”

Less than a year later, Monroe would die of a drug overdose. Arnold’s images from the set of her final film reveal the conflicted consciousness that first hid and then was trapped behind the mask of fame, showing Marilyn as by turns ordinary, anxious, hardworking, beautiful, and exhausted.