Marilyn Monroe exhibit opens

The original Playboy centrefold and wife of not only Joe DiMaggio, but also Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe had a knack for making the headlines and the pictures. The world seemed to conduct a long love affair with the beautiful actress. She, in turn, seemed to have one with the camera's. Director Billy Wilder once said that a camera to her was what water is to a fish.

In a new exhibiton at the Brooklyn Museum of Art more than 200 pictures of Monroe by 39 photographers will be shown. Photographers who worked with the legend are legendary in their own right: Richard Avedon, Gordon Parks, Robert Frank and Andy Warhol. The exhibition traces her life from life in a small town as Norma Jean to the big time as Marilyn Monroe. One of the curators of the exhibit, pointed out that her relationship with the camera was the most important one she ever had.

The centrepiece of the exhibit is a set of 59 photographs of Monroe taken the week before her death in 1962. The pictures were taken by Bert Stern and feature Marilyn drinking champagne "behind the scenes" and posing topless covered by a sheer scarf. Monroe's Playboy centrefold was shot by Tom Kelly and features prominently in the exhibition. It reveals the actress posing naked on a red velvet blanket. When asked what she had on during the shoot, she replied: "I had on the radio."

The exhibition also includes film footage of old commercials she played in and of her serenading President Kennedy. Perhaps the most poignant picture in the exhibition is not one of Marilyn but of a woman on the beach reading a newspaper. The picture was shot in 1962. The headlines read: "Marilyn Dead".