The latest issue of French e-zine Crazy For You takes a closer look at Marilyn’s photo session with Bob Landry. Her strapless red silk taffeta dress with black lace overlay was purchased from the I. Magnin department store, and now resides in New York’s French cultural embassy (see here.)
She wore it to the Photoplay Awards at the Ambassador Hotel on February 11, 1952, where she was pictured with Richard Widmark, her leading man in Don’t Bother to Knock. (This event is sometimes confused with a premiere, but the film wasn’t released until July.) She wore it again on April 6, while signing copies of her first LIFE magazine cover story at the Owl Rexall Drugstore in Los Angeles.
The earrings can be seen again in a later promotional shoot for Monkey Business – and she also repurposed one of them as a brooch for her LIFE layout with Philippe Halsman.
Another mystery still remains, however – when and were these photos taken, and by whom?
The Marilyn Report 