Photographer Eddie Hunter has shared his memories of meeting Marilyn on location for River of No Return during the summer of 1953 – now part of a display at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, Alberta – with Judy Steffes for the Washington County Insider.
“Seventy-two years have passed, and Hunter, now 99, still lives in Banff. I sat with him as he remembered the day when a young Marilyn Monroe paused her shopping on Banff Avenue, turned to look over her shoulder, and let the 27-year-old take what would become one of his most treasured photographs.
‘I met Marilyn in 1953. She had come to make a movie and spent quite a while here,’ Hunter said. ‘She was really quite approachable.’
While filming, Monroe stayed at the Banff Springs Hotel. Hunter said he encountered Monroe downtown while she was shopping for her boyfriend.
‘She was looking for a gift for Joe DiMaggio,’ he said, ‘She shopped inside JD Anderson’s, a men’s store.’ When Hunter asked for Monroe’s photo, ‘She said, “Could you just wait a little bit?” And I said, “Yeah, sure.”‘
When she stepped outside, Hunter lifted his Rolleicord camera. ‘It was sort of a quality camera for me at that time… I took a lot of pictures with it,’ he said. But remarkably, of Monroe, ‘I only took two pictures of her. Can you imagine that? Today I would have taken a hundred.’
Hunter’s photo captured Monroe getting into a taxi and looking back at him. He said it was an idea from an article he’d read. ‘I wanted her to look like she was walking away… looking over her shoulder,’ he said.
Monroe, according to Hunter, was recovering from a minor filming injury and carried a cane. ‘She had hurt herself filming… not badly, but she’d taken a few days off,’ he said.
The encounter was brief and polite. ‘She wasn’t… “I haven’t got time for you” type of thing. She listened to people,’ he said. ‘She was casual. No security. No mobs of people.’
Their goodbye was simple. ‘It was just “Thanks.” She was friendly enough that I didn’t feel like I owed her a lot.’
Hunter later sold prints of the photograph locally. ‘I made them up for sale… that was a long time ago,’ he said.”
The stuffed bear used in another image of Marilyn – captured by LOOK photographer John Vachon – is also part of the Whyte Museum’s permanent display.
“The initial photo of Marilyn Monroe that started this story was found in the Banff Trading Post. The store had been in operation 120 years. Inside there was a giant taxidermy grizzly bear and next to it a framed photo of Monroe standing inside the bear’s grasp.
Another side note, that taxidermy bear had a small patch by its lower left leg. The clerk said the bear used to be outside but was a popular target after bar hours, so it was brought inside and mended. During that mending process, they found the original skeleton of the bear was still inside.
Onto the Whyte Museum, which had a great archive of Hollywood history including films, photos, and a huge digital archive. Kate, with the archive department, mentioned Eddie Hunter had visited the Whyte Museum within the past two weeks.”
The Marilyn Report 