SHAW FAMILY FOREWORD
Sometimes it can feel as if everything about Marilyn Monroe has already been seen, already been said. But there is one thing we as a family learned long ago, having known her personally and working for decades in her world: there are always surprises when it comes to Marilyn.
Some years ago, we discovered a series of handwritten letters sent by our father, Sam Shaw, to Marilyn in 1954, a pivotal time in both their lives. Marilyn had just finished filming The Seven Year Itch, the movie that would catapult her into superstardom, and Sam had just taken what is arguably the most famous photograph ever made of Marilyn, the “shot seen round the world,” as it would come to be known: Marilyn, standing above a subway grate, her dress billowing from the air of a train passing below.
Marilyn kept our father’s letters until her death in 1962. Then they disappeared for over half a century, only to
resurface at an auction in 2014. Fortunately, we were able to acquire them and now the letters are safely in Sam’s archive, along with many of the photographs Sam took of Marilyn. Another letter from Sam to Marilyn also came to light. This time it was typewritten in 1961, while Sam was producing his first feature film in Paris, and just after Marilyn’s divorce from Arthur Miller and the release of her final completed film.
We laughed and we cried when reading the personal correspondence between Sam and Marilyn, two dear friends and two passionate artists from humble origins, both struggling to navigate the complexities of the rigid mid-20th century Hollywood studio system. We always knew they were kindred spirits—close friends and collaborators—but we came to appreciate that, for a time, they also traveled parallel professional paths. They both became filmmakers so they could have artistic control over the stories they wanted to tell.
Sam Shaw with his daughters, Meta and Edie on the Liberté ocean liner returning to New York from Paris, 1955
Sam Shaw with his daughter Meta and wife Anne photographed by his daughter Edie, 1960s
These rediscovered letters made us feel even closer to our father, and to Marilyn. Suddenly, we were privy to their inside jokes. We immediately knew we wanted to share the full letters, which have never been published, with the many people who love and appreciate the work left behind by Marilyn and our father, just as we do.
Meanwhile, there were more discoveries to come. While moving his vast photographic collection and personal belongings from Sam’s last home (where they were stored for more than fifty years and rarely seen by the public), we unearthed hundreds of pages of journals and notes about Marilyn that he wrote in the two decades before he died in 1999. Apparently, our father had intended to publish a memoir and make a documentary about their friendship—but neither were ever completed.
We also rediscovered drawings by Sam and Marilyn, including a rare self-portrait by Marilyn that she gifted to Sam. And we found photographs, some of which our family had never seen before, among them a few precious portraits of her “family of friends” taken by Marilyn herself. Unfortunately, the letters that Marilyn wrote to Sam have not reappeared yet, although we know they do exist. Our search continues...
As the world prepares to celebrate Marilyn Monroe’s centennial, there seems no better time to share Sam’s distinctive vision of Marilyn.
In Dear Marilyn we present our father’s behind-thescenes story of a remarkable young woman, told through his personal remembrances, intimate communications, and the unique point of view of his photographic lens. This book is the result of many years of work organizing, transcribing, digitizing, restoring, and editing a huge trove of archival materials, some over eighty years old. It was a labor of love to rediscover items from the past to preserve them for future generations.
We celebrate Marilyn as our father always did—for her beauty and bravery, for her joy and sharp wit, and for her dedication to her craft—while never forgetting the tremendous professional and personal transformations she accomplished in an all-too-brief career and life, the effects of which are still evident in the entertainment industry and contemporary culture today.
Our hope is that these new insights from our father, many of which are revealed here for the first time, will refresh and reframe our collective appreciation of Marilyn in an honest, uplifting, and celebratory light. After all, that was how Sam Shaw always saw her.
Meta Shaw and Edie Shaw
Shaw Family Archives
New York City, 2025
Sam Shaw and his daughter Edie on the set of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, London, 1960-61
ACT ONE THE UNKNOWN BLONDE
Marilyn really created her film characters. The sweet, innocent blondes who would come up with witticisms. Characters that became part of Norma Jeane Baker. When interviewed about her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she asserted, “Well, I am the blonde in the title.”
All the quotes attributed to her in entertainment columns and interviews were not press agent inventions but her own observations of the moment. For example, when
asked what she slept in, Marilyn said, “I only wear Chanel No. 5.” When asked how she felt, Marilyn said, “I feel blonde all over.” She always made a good story and a good photo. Columnists Sidney Skolsky in California and Leonard Lyons in New York quoted her witticisms and one-liners. They made her more famous and kept her name up front every day. The same one-liners that studio press agents clipped and sent to studio brass as their gags. The buildup was mostly on her own charisma, not studio manufactured.
Marilyn and Ed Wallace, The St. Regis Hotel, New York City, 1954
Marilyn and Earl Wilson
Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
September 15, 1954. Thousands showed up. It was chaos time—but Graham controlled the situation, no one broke the police lines. The police were completely off guard, more fascinated watching Marilyn, forgetting the mob. Not one person in the crowd broke through. They were too mesmerized by what they were seeing.
Wilder and Feldman were both anxious to see how far one could go against censorship. It was the early 1950s and the National Legion of Decency, the puritanical group we called the “Bluenoses” reigned. But Marilyn’s elegance and clean sense of fun, under Wilder’s sensitive and witty direction, controlled the scene—very daring for its time.
Tom Ewell and Marilyn, The Seven Year Itch, 51st Street and Lexington Avenue, New York City, 1954
New York City, 1954
Sam Shaw
Famous Artist 610 Fifth Avenue
Miss Marilyn Monroe
8338 DeLongpre St. Hollywood, California
P.S.
What are we going to do about your art collection—give me a budget and whether you want paintings or drawings—or sculpture.
I think you should start modestly with either drawings, watercolors, and small oils— let me select the best of American moderns—then see how these grow on you.
—SAM
[postmarked December 7, 1954]
Sometimes a moment of sadness. There were a few photos when a moment of reflection brought a foreboding of a future sadness. The next moment she tossed a red carnation at me. At my camera.
Marilyn and Miller at play on the beach. Miller fishing. Marilyn standing, jumping in the waves, with and without Miller. She turns, towel hitting the sand. Marilyn in the surf, her toe in the lapping waves.
She rises from the sea.
She looks into Miller’s eyes with love, admiration, and devotion. The ideal life.
Photographers have secrets of their own when shooting. Sometimes using one word, a code to the subject. When I shot the beach sequence in the Hamptons, I said,
“Aphrodite.” It was never necessary to set up a shot with her. She invented her own improvisations.
At first, she tried to take control of the camera, then had a what-the-hell attitude and let go with fun. Marilyn went into the classic Praxiteles pose. Her right arm raised gracefully to her head, her weight balanced on her left, a sensuous curve of the neck, a sensuous control of her hips, her eyes drifting to infinity. Dream-like.
This time she knew what she wanted. The camera clicked. The next moment she charged at the camera, her hands holding out her hair like Medusa. All fun and humor, kidding and satirizing the seriousness.
We toppled over in the sand. A delicious scramble destroying the phony classic pose. All the sand of Amagansett beach ended up in the camera.
