Who Could Fail to Fall for Marilyn? (Falling for Marilyn Monroe - The Lost Niagara Collection - Jock Carroll)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	Falling for Marilyn Monroe - The Lost Niagara Collection - Jock Carroll
Date:	19/11/08 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful photos, interesting text

Disadvantages: Not so easy to find

Jock Carroll (1919-1995) was a Canadian photo-journalist. In 1952, he was sent to interview and photograph Marilyn Monroe on the set of her latest film Niagara. His story was published in a Canadian magazine later that year, but after his death, the book Falling for Marilyn came out. This features some of the never-before-seen photographs he took of the actress at this time.

The book features seventeen pages of text (presumably the article he wrote at the time), then the photos with various quotations beside them. These are usually from the notes Jock Carroll took then.

All of the photos are in black and white, which is slightly disappointing, as I have seen some colour photos from Niagara and she looked stunning. The black and white ones featured in Falling for Marilyn are beautiful though - a mixture of candid and posed. We see her standing by the picturesque Niagara Falls, practising smoking for an upcoming film role, reading in bed, doing her hair, talking on the telephone, on the set and so on.

Marilyn was twenty-six years old and looked young and beautiful during the filming. Jock Carroll writes how he was expecting her to be "a typical Hollywood starlet, a blonde model trying to make it in movies" but found a much more mature and complex woman than that.

He observed that despite Marilyn being "potentially one of the richest women in Hollywood", she came to Canada with "practically no clothes... but lots of books." How many of today's big Hollywood celebrities would pack more books than outfits?

And how many would be happy being photographed without looking their best? Very few, I'm sure. Marilyn didn't mind Jock Carroll snapping her with her hair in curlers, wearing a hotel issue bathrobe and no make up. The photos are included here and she is a natural beauty.

The text is full of interesting snippets on Marilyn's life and personality. It gives us a flavour of her daily life as a star - being asked for autographs, having her photo taken and attracting attention wherever she goes. This contrasts with her personal life, how she spends hours reading and studying at night school, shunning nightclubs and only attending premieres when the film studios insist.

She discusses how the nude calendar shoot with Tom Kelley came about, producing her famous answer to the question as to whether she had really had nothing on - "Oh, no. I had the radio on." She explains how she only had two photos taken, Kelley's wife was there and she did it to pay the rent. She managed to ride out the potential scandal with wit and intelligence and it enhanced her profile, instead of damaging it.

Jock Carroll follows her around the set, takes her shopping and on a publicity tour round a local factory. He glimpses both the private and public sides of Marilyn and falls in love with both.

She impresses him with her love of books, being able to talk eloquently about the content of several academic and philosophical texts. Her honesty and openness shine through too, as she talks about her childhood, how she dreamed of loving parents, imagining them as Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald.

She talks of her views on suicide (as Niagara Falls is a popular place for it!), depression, fame and her ambitions. "I want to be - not a movie star - but a really fine actress" stating how much she admires Charlie Chaplin, referring to him as a "magnificent actor".

One part of the text I found particularly revealing was when Hy Gardner rang to negotiate an interview with Marilyn. While understanding the publicity would help her, her high moral standards show through. She refuses to agree to answer questions on her partner Joe DiMaggio or his son, Butch, from Joe's first marriage.

She exclaims "I don't want to turn my personal life into publicity. I know Joe wouldn't like it. It's not right." And "He wanted to ask me about Butch! I think that's terrible! I don't care that much about publicity." She refused to go ahead with the interview.

One of my favourite photos in the book is of Marilyn walking up the hotel steps, barefoot, holding her shoes in her hand. It looks such an ordinary, everyday way of behaving. Again, not the expected behaviour of a gorgeous film star - and I love her for it.

Jock Carroll did too. He compliments her "tenderness, honesty, and intelligence" and these qualities are ones which I also admire about Marilyn, as well as her talent and beauty. It was her inner qualities and vulnerability which made her different to other film stars and I believe this has helped to keep her image alive all these years later.




Falling for Marilyn is a large format hardback with just over a hundred pages and has a cover price of £14.99.

Summary: A wonderful book for Marilyn Monroe fans