Following her recent appearance at the London premiere of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy in a pink strapless gown compared to Marilyn’s ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ costume, Renée Zellweger has posed for a Monroe-inspired photo shoot in a cover story for California Style & Culture magazine.
“It had always been my dream to photograph an actress as Marilyn Monroe, but I never found anyone who was both capable and brave enough to truly go there,” says photographer Matthew Brooke. “I asked [Renée] what most impressed her about Marilyn. She said, ‘Marilyn was that perfect balance between beauty and fragility—once she stepped in front of the camera, you couldn’t take your eyes off her. She was totally unique.'”
Wearing a trenchcoat, Renée looks a bit like Marilyn in these photos taken outside her Beverly Glen home in 1956.
Another sequence is reminiscent of Marilyn’s ‘feathers’ shoot with Richard Avedon from 1957.
These photos of Renée in a car recall Philippe Halsman’s photo of Marilyn at a drive-in restaurant in 1952, while Renée’s canine companion reminds us of Maf, photographed by Eric Skipsey in 1961.
These American diner shots ooze retro charm, like the 1952 photos of Marilyn at the Owl Rexall Drugstore in her party dress, while Renée’s fur-trimmed jacket in another image is similar to the suit Marilyn wore when she married Joe DiMaggio in 1954.
And finally … in tribute to Marilyn’s love of books, these images echo Elliott Erwitt’s of her reading a script in 1954, with the relaxed quality of Sam Shaw’s photos of the star at home in 1957.
The Marilyn Report 