This rare photo of Marilyn riding a pink elephant at a circus benefit in 1955, is featured in a new exhibition, Benn Mitchell Photographs: NYC to Hollywood, at the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Florida until October 22nd, as John Thomason reports for Boca magazine.
“Mitchell, a native New Yorker who died in 2021 here in Boca Raton, received his first camera at 13, sold his first photograph to Life magazine in 16, and managed to talk his way onto the Warner Brothers lot at 17. ‘NYC to Hollywood’ highlights Mitchell’s formative creative years in both major metropolises.
A true egalitarian, Mitchell exhibited a boundless curiosity for people and places, as his Warners photos reveal. He captured plenty of stars both camera-ready and in repose, from his iconic image of Humphrey Bogart squinting while taking a drag off a cigarette to Carmen Miranda in full fruity regalia. (There’s even a shot, later on, of Marilyn Monroe riding an elephant in Madison Square Garden, an image that is not perfectly in focus but indelible nonetheless, as it proves this surreal event actually happened.)”
The Marilyn Report 