Behind the lens: Murray Garrett’s stunning portrait of Marilyn

He shot some of the best candids of the Hollywood greats, including arguably the best ever portrait of Marilyn Monroe. And whilst he may have been the stars favourite photographer, today few even know his name.

In my 2023 retrospective, I chose my favourite portraits that I’d taken over those twelve months, but I also included a bonus portrait, a shot of Marilyn Monroe that I’d given my artistic twist to. To be honest when I first saw the photograph I was more interested in the image, than in who took it. But the more I admired it, the more I wanted to find out how it came to be and who was the man behind the lens.

The photographer was Murray Garrett and unlike other people that I’ve profiled, discovering much about him has proven difficult as apart from his photos, there’s no information about his childhood and private life. Despite being one of Hollywood’s leading photographers, there’s very little available coverage of him, he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

That’s frustrating as it means there are gaps in my knowledge of his life and perhaps most important, with so little information, it makes it difficult to corroborate facts or dive deeper.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. So let’s start at the beginning.

Murray Garrett’s story starts out like that of many a Jew of his generation.

He was born on 27 April 1926 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, the son of Russian immigrants. Brownsville was a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood. In 1920, over 80% of its 100,000 inhabitants were Russian Jews, and Brownsville had been nicknamed “Little Jerusalem”. By the 1930s it was considered the most densely populated district in all of Brooklyn.

Garrett attended Brooklyn’s Samuel J Tilden High School where his fellow alumni included the actor Jerry Adler and screenwriter Norman Lear.

Reminiscing about his youth, he said:

“Starting out in Brooklyn at the beginning of the Great Depression, my imagination was incapable of letting me know that the incredible life I’ve lived, was still to come.”

Originally he had plans to become a lawyer, but his father’s passion for photography inspired him to change course.

“My dad was an amateur photographer and in 1939 we visited the New York World’s Fair. It was there that my dreams of being an attorney were about to change. As we strolled through the fair I was impressed with his desire to photograph the entire experience. He wanted my mom, sister and I to be able to look back at what we actually experienced that day.”

It was literally a life changing moment for young Murray.

“My sister’s friend Larry, saw my excitement, put his hand on my shoulder and asked if I’d like to work in a photo agency. Although I didn’t realise it then, that’s the moment my life changed.”

Still in his teens and studying at the Metropolitan Vocational High School in New York City (which would ultimately become the famed New York City School of the Arts) he landed a part-time job at Graphic House, a leading Madison Avenue photo agency, as assistant to the legendary theatrical photographer, Eileen Darby. Working after-school and on Saturdays, he earned $6 a week.

As her assistant, Garrett photographed such Broadway hits as Oklahoma, Carousel, Stalag 17, On The Town and many others.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Eileen Darby studied biology at Marlhurst University in Oregon, but dropped out to become a photographer in Manhattan.

She started working for the photo agency Pix and in 1941 helped establish a new agency, Graphic House, where she was a photographer for three decades.

Having photographed about 500 Broadway productions and its stars, from Sir Laurence Olivier to Marlene Dietrich and Marlon Brando, she died on 30 March 2004 in a Long Beach, N.Y., nursing home. She was 87.

In 1941 the 16-year-old part-time photographer, arrived at New York City’s Paramount Theatre to get some shots of Frank Sinatra in his dressing room. But to get inside, Garrett had to push his way through a mob of fans and persuade security officers to let him in — not just once but twice because the crooner wanted his own set of prints.

After 18 months of toiling in the darkroom and making deliveries to publications, Garrett’s career as a distinguished documentary photographer began in the early 1940s with his first major assignment: photographing first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, and labour leader Philip Murray while they attended a musical in Newark, New Jersey.

“That was the moment my life changed. I no longer wanted to be an attorney, I now dreamed of being a photojournalist.”

In 1946 Graphic House opened a west coast office. Having graduated, Garrett was chosen to go to Hollywood to set up a mirror image of the firm’s New York office. Originally he thought he’d only be there for six months.

In less than a year he became bureau chief and was completing photographic assignments for just about every major publication including TIME and LIFE.

One such assignment to cover a Bob Hope tour, which included Hope’s radio show was a turning point in Garrett’s career. So pleased with the photographs of the tour and his ability to work in an efficient, unobtrusive manner, Hope requested Garrett photograph all of his radio shows. For the next 25 years, as his personal photographer, Garrett covered all of Hope’s domestic radio and TV activities.

At Hope’s daughter’s wedding, Garrett was the only photographer cleared to be in the church filled with dignitaries from the Armed Services and the government, as well as Hollywood.

In 1999, showing his appreciation, Bob Hope wrote:

“There are photographers, and then there is Murray Garrett. He has a magic eye or a secret device in his camera that captures something different, something special that is missed by other photographers. All of Hollywood recognised the genius of Garrett. He was always that one photographer who stood on the inside of the ropes at all the events.”

And that brings me to his photo of Marilyn Monroe.

As far as I can tell, Garrett’s first contact with Marilyn was when he photographed her in 1952 at a celebrity baseball charity fundraiser. The budding Hollywood starlet threw out the first ball at a game between teams captained by Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra, who he had photographed 11 years earlier in New York.

His photographic relationship with Marilyn continued throughout her short career — she was only 36 when she was found dead — from movie premieres to off-screen moments like the one that took place at Grauman’s Chinese Theater

My thoughts on the portrait: From my research, I believe this particular shot was taken on 26 June 1953 outside Grauman’s. Marilyn — who would have been 27 — and her co-star, Jane Russell, were there for a hand and footprint ceremony promoting Gentlemen Prefer Blondes which would hit theatres one week later and feature her iconic rendition of Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend.

As someone recently commented, Marilyn was never more beautiful than she was in this movie. So Garrett caught her at the time when she was looking her very best: young, beautiful, vivacious and full of charm.

His original black and white shot includes other people around Marilyn, either reporters or fans and it’s clear she wasn’t posing for the photograph. As a reportage photographer, rather than a portrait photographer, Garrett would almost certainly have released the image as taken, without attempting to crop or reframe it in any way. To him, having other people in the shot was all part of the storytelling process.

For me, however, I’m looking at the photo in a different light. I’m interested only in Marilyn and to my mind, the people surrounding her distract from her face. That’s why I’ve cropped them out completely and removed the man with the grey jacket to Marilyn’s right. I’ve also cropped out most of her arm and dress because the shadow cast by her arm isn’t very attractive.

Because she’s not posing for the camera — or even aware that Garrett was photographing her, she’s not looking down the lens or putting on a smile. Instead, we have an entirely natural portrait, one that probably wouldn’t be quite so good if it were taken a second before or a second after. What emphasises the naturalness of the shot is that her hand is up towards her face — although just shy of covering part of her chin. What also makes the picture is Marilyn’s lips are seductively ajar. It is a real moment-in-time shot, a fleeting, unguarded glance of a Hollywood icon.

Apart from how stunning she looks, what really impresses me with the photo is quite how sharp it is. Compared with other grainy photos taken at the same time and other contemporary photos of Marilyn, it is tack sharp. I know Garrett used medium format cameras, such as the Speed Graphic and Rollieflex, and almost certainly used a flash, which can explain the quality, but I can assure you, it’s a rarity.

Of course one has to remember quite how different photography was back then compared to what it’s like today. Apart from the big and heavy equipment, press photographers like Murray Garrett would only have 12 or 24 frames of film in their cameras — so they couldn’t take endless shots of their subject in the hope of capturing ‘the one’. Most importantly, they couldn’t be certain of the results until the film had been developed. Skill with the camera settings and years of experience were what counted.

In addition, the style of photography back when Murray Garrett was at work was very different to what we see today. Most celebrity portraits were posed, often shot in studio environments and candid photography — the likes of which Garrett was adept at — was still quite a new phenomenon. As I previously said, reportage style was about capturing a moment so that each frame told a story. In other words, the surroundings were as important as the subject.

That’s not to say all photographs were ‘as shot in camera’. Retouchers were often employed to enhance portraits, to make their subjects — especially their skin — look better. With a studio portrait, it’s much easier to accomplish than with a candid photo, as the studio set-up isn’t something the viewer tends to have seen.

That being said, because of the quality of Marilyn’s face in this photo, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had undergone some enhancing. Of course, I can’t be certain as I’ve not seen the original print.

The way I look at it is none of that really matters. All that’s important is the final image, the end result. Whether it was enhanced or not is irrelevant to those seeing it. Every piece of art is a process and it’s the artist who decides at what stage the world gets to see their work. It’s the same for a piece of writing, a music track, a painting or a photograph. The creator of the work has the final say.

Putting my artistic spin on Marilyn: For me, simply cropping the photo was not enough, I wanted to put my own stamp on it and make it look both more contemporary and in my own distinctive style. That’s why I colourised the image. In much the same way as Warhol took existing black and white portraits and gave them his own colourful spin, I wanted to do something similar. One could argue that Warhol’s Monroe has now become the iconic shot of her. It’s certainly become one of his most famous works.

Of all the portraits of her, I genuinely think Garrett’s is the one that captures her best. Her expression, her hair, the pose and the way the light has illuminated her face, make it the perfect portrait of Hollywood’s greatest and most enduring star. The fact it was taken exactly 70 years ago is testament both to Marilyn’s beauty and the combination of Murray Garrett’s skill and good fortune to be in the right place at the right time.

Whilst it’s not the most famous portrait of Marilyn, I know Murray himself must have been very proud of it as he chose it to adorn the cover of his first book.

Beyond his photos of her, we also get to know what he personally thought about Monroe, as many years later he revealed this:

“Marilyn was a very interesting person. She was terrified almost all of the time. And even though you couldn’t take a bad picture of her, I have one portrait that I call the deer in the headlights because that’s how she is. She was an unstable person who was very very sweet, but terribly frightened and disturbed.”

He also acknowledged how her fame affected her:

“I always thought she was pathetic. All these guys running around with cameras and pencils and papers and recording devices were all talking about what it must be like to get into bed with her. You could see the fear. She was smiling, but she was terrified.”

This fear of hers was attested to by the Oscar-nominated actor Don Murray, who starred alongside Marilyn in the 1956 movie Bus Stop:

“I think it was a lack of confidence. For somebody who the camera loved, she was still terrified of going before the camera and broke out in a rash all over her body.”

Despite her issues with having her picture taken, Marilyn was one of the most photographed people in the world. Her film studio staged her for glamorous commercials, paparazzi followed her even in her darkest hours and many of the most famous photographers of the time were impressed by her talent and charisma.

There are of course other iconic photos of Marilyn. Perhaps the most famous is the ‘flying skirt’ shot. It was taken in September 1954 — a year after Murray Garrett’s photo — whilst she was making The Seven Year Itch in New York City. It features in a scene from the movie outside the Trans-Lux Theater on Lexington Avenue, but the photo itself comes from a press photocall where the scene was recreated. The photographer was Sam Shaw, who worked as a set photographer on numerous films.

Shaw’s picture, with Marilyn looking provocatively into his Rolleiflex, is the best of the images from that shoot. The shots taken that night were published the next day in newspapers and magazines around the world. They not only brought great publicity for the film, but also cemented Monroe’s image as one of the sex symbols of the era. The scene went on to become one of the most famous in cinema history

One of the onlookers at the shoot was Joe DiMaggio, and the sight of a crowd of men ogling and whistling at his wife sent him into a jealous rage. The incident led directly to the couple’s divorce in October 1954, after just nine months of marriage.

The original photograph used by Andy Warhol in 1962 was shot by Eugene Korman, a photographer who worked for the publicity department at 20th Century Fox. It was taken in 1953 as part of the advertising campaign for the movie Niagara. Warhol cropped Korman’s black and white original for his images.

Not surprisingly, she was also photographed by many of the leading photographers of the day. These included Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, George Barris, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Milton Greene and Sam Shaw as well as Bert Stern who took the last pictures of Marilyn in 1962, six weeks before she died.

Richard Avedon described Marilyn’s process of looking at images critically:

“Her ideas were always dominated by what she felt her public image should be. She’d pore over the contact sheets for hours. She was always looking for what she called an ‘honest’ picture, a ‘real’ or ‘right’ picture.”

And there was this from Lee Strasberg’s eulogy at her funeral on 8 August 1962.

“Marilyn was a warm human being, impulsive and shy, sensitive to fear of rejection and always reaching out for fulfilment, whose zest for life was ended by this dreadful accident.”

His photography career: In the early fifties, Murray Garrett’s talent was recognised by more celebrities, their PR firms and production companies. With Graphic House remaining as his agent, he went out on his own. In 1953 he formed Garrett-Howard Inc., with life-long friend, portrait photographer Gene Howard as his partner.

They quickly became one of the most successful photographic concerns in Hollywood, offering both candid and studio services to publications, the entertainment industry, as well as filling a very special niche…covering personal events for celebrity clients.

In the sixties, Leo Monahan, a world renowned illustrator joined Garrett-Howard as a partner and art director and the firm’s name changed to Studio Five, Inc. Almost overnight Studio Five became the leading firm in design and photography to the entertainment industry, working for just about every major film studio and record label in the United States. At their peak, they were creating as many as three hundred and fifty album covers a year!

Spanning more than 25 years, Murray Garrett’s career flourished into one of the most notable in the genre of celebrity portraiture and reportage. Not only did he cover all the major Hollywood premiers and galas during the height of film industry glamour, but he was granted exclusive access to intimate private events and welcomed into the everyday lives of Hollywood’s most highly celebrated stars.

He exclusively photographed Frank Sinatra’s private, surprise 21st birthday party held at Romanoff’s on 20 July 1959 for the actress Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, who like Garrett was also the daughter of Russian immigrants.

In 1967, Garrett was the only photographer hired to cover Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s visit in a helicopter to Disneyland where they had the use of Walt Disney’s personal apartment.

During this period, Garrett was nominated and elected to serve on the west coast Board of Directors of NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences).

With his medium format cameras, like the Speed Graphic and Rollieflex, he consistently produced many iconic, revealing and memorable black and white photographs of an industry where image was everything.

Reflecting on his approach, he said:

“My dance was simple: don’t get in their way and don’t make your appearance there bigger than theirs.”

“My job was not to annoy them or interfere with them, and that’s why I get so many people who come up to me saying, My God these pictures really are candid!”

He retired as a full-time photographer in 1973 when he was 47.

In 1989, his work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Responding to the suggestions of friends and business associates who viewed his most remarkable collection of photographs, In 2000, he published his first book Hollywood Candid: A Photographer Remembers. As well as his photographs depicting some of the world’s most fascinating people, it contained Garrett’s anecdotal commentary. He followed this up in 2002 with a second book, Hollywood Moments.

His business career: Outside of photography, Murray Garrett went on to have a very successful business career as President of Diener Industries, a manufacturer of promotional pencil-top erasers based in Chatsworth, California.

Founded in 1955 by William Diener, a World War II veteran with a degree in chemical engineering, the company began making pencil-topper erasers for Walt Disney shaped like popular Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse and Pluto. Soon Diener began designing its own line of animal-themed erasers.

When sales began to flatten around 1980, Diener sought advice from marketing consultant Murray Garrett who helped expand Diener’s product line. When Diener retired in 1982, 56-year-old Garrett purchased the company and began his second career as the “eraser king.”

In 1993, following the success of a line of dinosaur erasers taking advantage of the blockbuster movie Jurassic Park, Diener Industries was sold to WinCraft Inc., a promotional products maker based in Winona, Minnesota, with Garrett remaining as president. Production continues to this day in limited form, with the focus being on Major League sports teams, but with demise of pencils, the heyday of Diener was over.

His personal life: Murray was married to Phyllis and they had three children, Marc, Richard and Eileen. The family lived in Sherman Oaks, California.

He donated his entire photographic portfolio to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), where it will be permanently housed in their archives and library.

He died on 2 January 2020 at the age of 93 and is buried at Eden Memorial Park, Mission Hills, California.

Also buried there is his wife Phyllis who died on 31 August 2022 aged 94, as well as many Jews from the entertainment industry including Lenny Bruce, James Caan and Groucho Marx.

Final thoughts: Until I chanced upon his photo of Marilyn, I’d never heard of Murray Garrett. Perhaps that’s no surprise as many far more famous photographers than he had photographed her. In many ways, like Marilyn herself, Garrett was ahead of his time, shooting reportage style rather than taking posed pictures of his subjects. Of course when the subject was Marilyn Monroe, the conversation was all around her, rather than who took the picture.

And just like Marilyn, Murray’s career was two-sided. On the one hand, she was a extremely successful movie star, whilst privately she was always looking for someone she could love and enjoy a world away from the prying eyes of the press. After 25 years behind the lens, Murray chose to leave photography behind and go into a totally different business.

Ironically, after years of capturing moments for posterity, the business that he succesfully ran manufactured and marketed novelty pencil-top rubbers, a product whose main function was to erase something that previously existed. I wonder whether he ever considered the paradox?

I’m also struck by the timing. As I write this, it’s fifty years since Murray Garrett retired and, more poignantly, seventy years since he took that memorable portrait of Marilyn, one that I personally believe is the very best portrait anyone had ever taken of Hollywood’s most iconic movie star.

About the author: Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea, on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker. He specialises in creating out of the ordinary portraits of musicians and people with interesting faces, as well as photographing some of the world’s finest flowers and gardens, not forgetting an array of automotive exotica.

On the writing side, he has used his research skills to author deep dives into some noteworthy songs beginning with Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’ ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials, ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott the Hoople and ‘Real Wild Child’ by Ivan.

He has also written a biography of Robert Palmer and the stories behind Whitesnake’s blatant Led Zep rip-off, ‘Still Of The Night’ and Harry Styles’ anthem to positivity, ‘Treat People With Kindness’.

Most recently, Gary has penned the fascinating story behind George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ and written an article about Fake News.

All these can be found here on Medium, along with his reviews of gigs and events and chats with musicians including the likes of Brighton rockers Royal Blood, Californian sister act, HAIM, guitar virtuoso, Joe Satriani, Fee Waybill of The Tubes and Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell.