Marilyn: A Hollywood Farewell
“There are people so vivid in life that they seem not to disappear when they die”
– Arthur Miller, Timebends: A Life (1987)
LIMITED DELUXE EDITION PHOTO-BOOK DOCUMENTING THE PUBLIC RESPONSE TO THE DEATH OF MARILYN MONROE; WITH TWO SIGNED ORIGINAL PRINTS; COPY A OUT OF ONLY 26 LETTERED COPIES.
Front-page news across the US and Europe, the death of Marilyn Monroe on Saturday, 4 August 1962 shocked all who had come to know and love the star over her dramatic rise to fame in the proceeding decade. Just as Monroe has captured the public’s imagination in her lifetime, her unexpected passing launched a flurry of media attention, riddled with everything from conspiracy theories involving the Kennedys to critiques of ever-invasive paparazzi.
Photojournalist Leigh Wiener (1926–1993) was there the morning of Sunday, 5 August, on assignment for Life Magazine to cover the unfolding dramatic aftermath. In his career, Wiener documented a wide array of public and private events featuring celebrities of all walks of life including every US President from Truman to Reagan. As noted in Prospectus for his Marilyn: A Hollywood Farewell, virtually all of Hollywood were barred from Monroe’s funeral service, making Wiener’s documentation of Monroe’s death singular and unmatched: “Wiener is the only person to have photographed the actress during her life, the scenes of her death at her Brentwood home, photographed her at the Los Angeles County Morgue, and to have witnessed, with a camera, her controversial funeral. These circumstances guarantee that there can never again be a book like A Hollywood Farewell.”
WIENER, LEIGH. Marilyn: A Hollywood Farewell. Los Angeles: 7410 Publishing Company, 1990. Limited Deluxe First Edition, one of 26 lettered copies, of which this is Letter A. Signed on limitation page by Leigh A. Wiener and Richard B. Stolley. . Housed in publisher’s original platinum-grey cloth box stamped in gold and black. Laid in (as published): two 11 x 14 silver-print photographs from the book printed on Ektalure paper and signed by Wiener, original publication prospectus. Fine condition, scarce, we not aware of another copy of this limited deluxe edition having been on the market.
Price: $7,800 .