Marilyn: A Magical Dance, a new book by Douglas Kirkland, is published by Damiano Books.
“Marilyn Monroe would have turned 100 on June 1, 2026. To this day, she remains the most alluring, charismatic, and idolised movie star of all time. One evening in 1961, on November 17, the young twenty-seven-year-old photographer Douglas Kirkland had the chance to capture her beauty and charm in an iconic sequence of portraits.
In the intimacy of an unmade bed, Marilyn. A Magical Dance presents a series of some of the most spontaneous and enchanting photographs ever taken of Marilyn Monroe. For Douglas Kirkland, every photo session was a dance: a magical and unrepeatable moment, a waltz between the photographer and his subject. This idea of dance becomes the guiding thread of the new volume, conceived as a leporello.
The portfolio of images, accompanied by Douglas Kirkland’s handwritten words, unfolds without interruption, transforming the act of reading into an immersive and almost choreographic visual experience. Page after page, the book draws the reader into the story of a brief and seductive encounter between a young photographer and the most iconic and desired woman in Hollywood history.”
The photographer’s widow, Françoise Kirkland, revealed her mixed feelings about the shoot in an interview for Deadline.
“While the photos went on to achieve legendary status, they didn’t immediately mesmerise everyone. Françoise Kirkland met Douglas in 1965 on the Paris set of How to Steal a Million. Reflecting on her early days with the photographer, she admitted that learning about his night with Monroe didn’t initially dazzle her.
‘I had heard that he’d photographed Marilyn, because he came with that reputation, but I wasn’t that impressed,’ Françoise recalled. ‘I mean, I was a 22-year-old French intellectual girl, well, supposedly intellectual, and at that time, if he had told me he’d photographed Picasso, I would have thought, ‘oh, okay’—but Marilyn… we’re all a little bit of a snob at times.’
The inspiration for the book’s unique format struck Françoise during a visit to a Paris gallery. There, she came across a small leporello (an accordion-folded booklet) displaying Dora Maar’s drawings of Pablo Picasso.
The discovery prompted her to revisit a private photo-journal diary she had constructed back in 2001, which paired Douglas’s photographs of Monroe with his own handwritten memories.”
The book has also been featured in The Telegraph.
“‘I believe that because this is the story of one magical evening, this format tells the story in a more intimate way,’ Françoise explains. ‘The tale literally unfolds gracefully as its title suggests – A Magical Dance. This is more than a book, it is an object the reader can actually hold, display and contemplate.’
Françoise, who met Kirkland in 1965, became known as his ‘secret weapon’ for the key role she played in his career. Françoise says, ‘I realised very early on that my main rivals were not necessarily the beautiful women Douglas photographed but the camera. So I set out to seduce her and make her my ally. Douglas and I were a very good team. We agreed and disagreed and agreed to disagree. Douglas always held his own in his quiet firm Anglo-Saxon way against my fiery Latin temperament. It was a very successful ménage à trois!’
Kirkland once described the Marilyn shoot as ‘like a love affair – with the camera between us’. Was Françoise ever jealous of her husband’s closeness to Hollywood’s most glamorous women? ‘Jealous? I am French you know! I don’t want to disappoint your readers, but every session Douglas ever did was an intense love affair. Anyone who ever sat for him can attest to this. He had a unique way of connecting with his subjects, whoever they were,’ she says.”
Photographer Hannah Kozak, who met Françoise last month, recalled meeting Douglas Kirkland when his earlier book, An Evening With Marilyn, was published.
“On Saturday night I went to the opening of Peter Fetterman’s Gallery to see the premiere of Marilyn Monroe A Silent Life. The exhibition features photographs from many photographers who were witness to Marilyn’s aura and beauty … and of course, the magnificent portraits that Douglas Kirkland created with his Hasselblad CM.
My heart was beating a little faster as Douglas’s wife, Francoise, showed me the dummy for her new book … I immediately recognised Douglas Kirkland’s writing as he signed all of his books that I had in my collection, when he spent hours looking at my photography. What a generous, kind man he was.”
And finally, Marilyn is also featured among Kirkland’s other celebrity subjects in Hollywood Icons, a pop-up exhibit in the Gardens of the Villa Simone in Six-Fours-les-Plages, France.
Thanks to Fraser Penney
The Marilyn Report 