Chameleon Child: Avedon’s Marilyn Meets Capote

This 1957 photo of Marilyn by Richard Avedon – an outtake from their Life magazine shoot, which also featured Arthur Miller – graces the cover of a new Penguin Modern Classics edition of Truman Capote’s Music for Chameleons, a collection of essays including his own portrait of Marilyn, ‘A Beautiful Child.’ Unseen in her lifetime, the photo was first spotted at an Avedon exhibit in 2013 (see here.) Marilyn also made the cover of several previous editions, often showing a 1955 press photo of her dancing with Capote, who (like Avedon) became a friend.

Thanks to A Passion for Marilyn