“But the real marvel is the paradox. Somehow we know that this extraordinary performance is pure charade, a little girl’s caricature of Mae West. The puzzling truth is that Miss Monroe is a make-believe siren, unsophisticated as a Rhine Maiden, innocent as a sleepwalker. She is an urchin pretending to be grown up, having the time of her life in mother’s moth-eaten finery, tottering about in high-heeled shoes and sipping ginger ale as though it were a champagne cocktail. There is an otherworldly, winsome naïveté about the child’s eyes.”
~ Cecil Beaton
“Above all, I want to be treated as a human being.”
~ Marilyn Monroe
This image was one of Marilyn’s most favorite images of herself ever taken. She used to give out little copies of it to her fans. Cecil Beaton was one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th Century. He photographed everyone from Greta Garbo to Pablo Picasso. He only had one shooting session with Marilyn which took place at The Ambassador Hotel in Feb 1956, but the results were just magical.
