Marilyn Monroe’s final photoshoot, shot by Bert Stern, June of 1962 (2024)

I have always been fascinated and enamored by those photos Bert took of Marilyn. She looks exquisite in them! My favorite shots are the ones of her in the black Dior gown. Absolutely breathtaking.

Marilyn was famously late to the shoot, by over 5 hours! She showed up and removed all her makeup and got straight to work. Many of the shots use minimal makeup.

The shoot lasted 12 hours, and was split into two parts, with over 2000 photos being taken of Marilyn.

Marilyn would be dead just 6 weeks later.

Many of the shots were taken to be featured in the September issue of Vogue. Due to Marilyn’s untimely death, they rushed to make the issue a dedication to her.

“Marilyn Monroe died on August 4, 1962 - only a few weeks after “The Last Sitting” photographs were taken. When her death was announced, VOGUE immediately re-designed the upcoming September 1962 issue to commemorate Marilyn’s life and Bert Stern’s photographs from this shoot opened the feature in the magazine.

The word of Marilyn Monroe’s death came just as this issue of Vogue went on the press. After the first shock of tragedy, we debated whether it was technically possible to remove the pages from the printing forms. And then while we waited for an answer from our printers, we decided to publish the photographs in any case. For these were perhaps the only pictures of a new Marilyn Monroe - a Marilyn who showed outwardly the elegance and taste which we learned that she had instinctively; an indication of her lovely maturity, an emerging from the hoyden’s shell into a profoundly beautiful, profoundly moving young woman. She has given a warm delight to millions of people, made them smile affectionately, laugh uproariously, love her to the point of caring deeply - often aggressively - about her personal unhappiness. That she withstood the incredible, unknowable pressures of her public legend as long as she did is evidence of the stamina of the human spirit. Too late one can only wish that somehow, somewhere that pressure might have been listed long enough to let her find the key to the self behind the public image. The waste seems almost unbearable if out of her death comes noting of insight into her special problems; no step towards a knowledge that might save, for the living, these beautiful and tormented.

- VOGUE, September 1, 1962”

Unfortunately for most of the sessions both the black and white photos were horribly lit, wrong backdrop and so on.. In many of the photos, marilyn's hair looks harsh as does her make-up, and many of the photos were simply "grainy" and not very clear....

some of the dresses were poor choices too, including this black flowing dress that was simply too stark to go with the black and white photography and the backdrop... in another series of photos, she wears a shapeless sleeveless dress that has a strange thick wide almost like a cumberbund belt, that does nothing for her....

the best black and white photos are the ones of her laying down on her back , photographed from above, and with pearls and sparkle material around her and closeups of her face, including the famous great smiling one of Marilyn....

some good color photos are included of course, but with Marilyn, the ULTIMATE model, all of them should have been great!...

Excuse me...was there 2 fat Marilyn's in the black Dior gown. She looks terrible, like a fat cow.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

To R27...YES I am, but is there 2 Marilyn's inside the Dior dress?

Those photos look Terrible, and you know it!!

"Marilyn was famously late to the shoot, by over 5 hours! She showed up and removed all her makeup and got straight to work."

How good of her to get 'straight to work' after leaving everyone hanging for over five hours! I would have packed up and left. She's not all that.