Marilyn and Eve Return to the Champs-Elysées Film Festival

In what has become an annual tradition, Marilyn is once again the face of the 13th Champs-Elysées Film Festival – celebrating the best of French and American independent cinema – which opens in Paris today.

This year’s poster features an image captured by photographer Eve Arnold during a press conference at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on February 9, 1956, when Marilyn announced her upcoming movie, The Sleeping Prince, which she would also co-produce.

It was later renamed The Prince and the Showgirl, of course – but the reporters who gathered that day were more interested in an unexpected ‘Marilyn moment’ than the movie, as Eve Arnold wrote years later.

“Here she was, about to go on show again … At eleven in the morning she wore a black velvet gown with straps the width of spaghetti strands. She looked lovely, her white flesh and blonde hair contrasting with the darkness of her clothes. When I complimented her on the way she looked, she winked at me in the mirror and said, ‘Just watch me.’

I stayed only a minute to greet her. She was already late, and outside in the anteroom were Sir Laurence Olivier and the author Terence Rattigan, sitting together comfortably on a small settee. They glared as I hurried towards the lift and the press conference.

First Marilyn appeared with Olivier, Rattigan and Milton Greene. They were on a balcony and below them was the press. Slowly, Marilyn and Olivier came down the stairs and were engulfed by the crowd of friendly professionals, but because of the swarm of people it was difficult to get through. They finally sat down at a table and the questions started. At first Sir Laurence gravely and seriously answered. Then Marilyn settled in, removed her coat, leaned forwards – and broke one of thinner-than-thin straps. Suddenly, the atmosphere changed – she had made it fun: laughter was heard, a safety pin was offered and the press conference was hers.”

And finally, Eve Arnold’s classic Marilyn monograph will be republished by ACC Art Books in September. (The cover image, showing Marilyn on location for The Misfits, also graced last year’s poster for the Champs-Elysées Film Festival  – see here.)

“A star in her day and one that continues to captivate the world, Monroe’s multifaceted persona is brilliantly captured through Arnold’s lens in this revised and redesigned edition of the 1987 publication, Marilyn Monroe: An Appreciation. Including newly discovered and restored photographs in colour and in black and white, alongside insightful commentary, Eve Arnold takes us on a photographic journey of Monroe’s life. A detailed biography in Arnold’s own words allows a rare glimpse into the stories behind the photographs and her unique relationship with Monroe.”