A beach, a sunset, a woman.
Taken by photographer George Barris just weeks before Monroe’s death in 1962, Marilyn’s last pictures are still considered the most beautiful (and most sincere) of her entire life.
When Mr. Barris took those last pictures, on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 13, Monroe had just been fired from the film “Something’s Got to Give” reportedly because of her chronic lateness and absenteeism.
Marilyn and the photographer had been friends for almost a decade, having met in New York in 1954 on the set of “The Seven Year Itch”.
Monroe telephoned him two days before her death, he told The Los Angeles Daily News in 2012.
“She called me on Friday, and I was in New York, and she wanted to know if I could come to see her that weekend and that it was urgent,” he recalled. But he had plans to see his family that weekend, so he begged off and promised to visit her on Monday instead. Her body was found by her housekeeper early Sunday morning.
