Marilyn Monroe covers the June issue of Vanity Fair. According to VF, “just before Marilyn Monroe’s shocking death, in 1962, photographer Lawrence Schiller hit the jackpot, capturing the world’s most famous blonde at her most seductive.”

The never-before-seen pictures will appear in next month’s magazine. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

“Fox [Studios] should start paying as much attention to me as they are paying to Elizabeth Taylor,” Marilyn Monroe told Lawrence Schiller (then known as Larry Wolf), hatching the idea that would turn out to be the break of the young photographer’s life: for him to photograph her nude. In an adaptation of Schiller’s memoir Marilyn & Me, the June issue of Vanity Fair reveals never-before-published pictures from that shoot, as well as details of Schiller’s conversations with the star.

In 1960, as part of an ongoing battle to get Fox to take her more seriously, and out of jealousy over Taylor’s success, Marilyn came up with an attention-grabbing plan: a poolside shoot in which she’d jump in the water with a bathing suit on—and come out without it. “Larry,” she said, “if I do come out of the pool with nothing on, I want your guarantee that when your pictures appear on the covers of magazines Elizabeth Taylor is not anywhere in the same issue.” Marilyn was making only $100,000 for what would be her last film, Something’s Got to Give, in 1962, while Taylor was receiving a million dollars for Cleopatra. She wanted to show Fox that she could get the same kind of coverage as the publicity bonanza generated by Taylor’s very public affair with her co-star, Richard Burton. When Hugh Hefner agreed to pay $25,000 for a nude shot of Marilyn—the most money Playboy had ever paid for a photograph—Schiller thanked her for creating such a big payday, joking, “See what tits ’n’ ass can do?” “That’s how I got my house and swimming pool,” Marilyn said, laughing. “There isn’t anybody that looks like me without clothes on.”

Just 23 years old at the time, Schiller, at the set on assignment for Look magazine, had no idea that he was getting to know the icon in some of her most vulnerable moments. In an adaptation of his memoir about their sessions together, Schiller recounts intimate and telling conversations that illuminate the private struggles that consumed the starlet in her final days.

“I could tell you all about rejection,” Marilyn said to Schiller. “Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection.” “But look at you now,” he said. “Exactly,” she replied. “Look at me now.” Confused, Schiller protested, “You’re a star! Your face is on magazine covers all over the world! Everyone knows Marilyn Monroe!” “Let me ask you, Larry Wolf—how many Academy Award nominations do I have?” “I don’t know,” he said. “I do,” she said. “None.”

Marilyn even confided her deepest worry. “I’ve always wanted a baby,” she said. “Having a child, that’s always been my biggest fear. I want a child and I fear a child. Whenever it came close, my body said no and I lost the baby.” She talked to Schiller about being afraid that she’d wind up like her mother, who had been in and out of mental institutions her whole life.

She reflected often on her assumed identity, and where Norma Jeane fit in. “I never wanted to be Marilyn—it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane,” she admitted to Schiller. During a photography session, she told him, “I always have a full-length mirror next to the camera when I’m doing publicity stills. That way, I know how I look.” Schiller asked, “So, do you pose for the photographer or for the mirror?” “The mirror,” she replied without hesitating. “I can always find Marilyn in the mirror.”

However, Schiller reveals, Marilyn’s attitude about her sex-symbol status fluctuated wildly. While she was at times boastful of her looks and what they procured for her, she was also by turns insecure and angry. “It’s still about nudity. Is that all I’m good for?” she demanded of Schiller. “I’d like to show that I can get publicity without using my ass or getting fired from a picture,” she continued. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

It was to be their last conversation: the very next morning, Marilyn was reported dead at 36. One of her final acts had been to return the nude photo to Schiller, which he found waiting for him at his house. She had written, “Send this to Playboy, they might like it.”

VANITY FAIR

Kate Upton has gone from a tiny bikini on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, to completely nude on the cover of the Italian magazine, Muse. The blonde 19-year-old beauty channeled Marilyn Monroe (like many before her) in a retro photo shoot.

The five-time equestrian champion has showed off her curves in campaigns for big names like Guess, Victoria’s Secret, and Dooney & Burke. On being fit, Upton told The Daily, “It’s really important to stay slim for the industry…but you still want to have a body.”

Here’s the scoop on how the 19-year-old maintains her model curves.

Her fitness regimen: Like many of the industry’s top models, Upton trains with former competitive swimmer Justin Gelband. Justin told Shape that he “incorporates multidirectional exercises” into her training sessions.

To keep things fresh, Justin changes up the types of workouts he and the model do together (Pilates and kickboxing are favorites) and uses a variety of equipment like medicine balls and exercise bands.

Her diet: For the Michigan native, it’s all about living a healthy lifestyle. Upton has said in several interviews that it’s important for her to watch what she eats, but she doesn’t go on any sort of special diet to prepare for a shoot or runway show. Her splurge? The occasional treat of ice cream or french fries.

She looks so much older than 19, it’s crazy. She’s very beautiful!

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Michelle Williams attended the premiere of her new film “My Week with Marilyn” at the Gaumon Marignan theatre in Paris.

She wore a pink Christian Dior ballgown, complete with bows and silver flowers. What do you think of her outfit choice? I usually love how she dresses, but this is not one of her better looks, in my opinion.

Michelle could walk home with the Oscar during next week’s Acadamy Awards. She portrayed Marilyn Monroe in the film, and did so pretty well, in my opinion. Does she deserve the Oscar? I don’t think so… but we’ll see what happens!

Photos: Fame/Flynet

Miley Cyrus has had enough of people attacking her for her curvy figure and the Can’t Be Tamed singer has taken to Twitter to vent her frustration.

Miley posted a photo of an extremely emaciated woman and wrote: “By calling girls like me fat, this is what you’re doing to other people. I love MYSELF & if you could say the same you wouldn’t be sitting on your computer trying to hurt others.”

The former Hannah Montana star then tweeted a photo of a voluptuous Marilyn Monroe in a white swimsuit with the following caption: “Proof that you can be adored by thousands of men, even when your thighs touch.”

Miley continued her rant tweeting that her man, Hunger Games actor Liam Hemsworth, has no complaints about her bod and likes a woman with some meat on her bones.

She continued to write: “I don’t wanna be shaped like a girl. I LOVE being shaped like a WOMAN & trust me ladies your man won’t mind either.”

You go girrrrrl!

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Photo: Fame

Michelle Williams was cast as Marilyn Monroe in the new film, ‘My Week With Marilyn’ a film based on a book written by a production assistant who worked with Monroe while she filmed the movie ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’ with Lawrence Olivier.

According to the book, Marilyn had just recently married Arthur Miller, and the two traveled to England where the movie was filmed. Apparently Monroe and Olivier hated each other. The new film will center on what happened behind the scenes while filming. I like the idea of this movie, and really I love Michelle Williams. I like the idea of not making a movie about Marilyn’s life – but more so a look into her short, tragic life.

I love these pictures – and if they are any indication of how the movie will go – she looks to pull of Marilyn perfectly.

Here is a bit from the article, you can read the full interview here:

On playing Marilyn: “As soon as I finished the script, I knew that I wanted to do it, and then I spent six months trying to talk myself out of it,” she says. “But I always knew that I never really had a choice.” And, she adds, “I’ve started to believe that you get the piece of material that you were ready for.”

On Marilyn herself: “Everybody has their own idea of who Marilyn was and what she means to them,” Williams says. “But I think that if you go a little bit deeper, you’re going to be surprised by what you find there.”

Becoming Marilyn on film: Williams spent six months immersing herself in all things Monroe. She read biographies, diaries, letters, poems, and notes, pored over photographs, listened to recordings, watched movies, and tracked down obscure clips on YouTube. “I’d go to bed every night with a stack of books next to me,” she recalls. “And I’d fall asleep to movies of her. It was like when you were a kid and you’d put a book under your pillow hoping you’d get it by osmosis.” Her turn from indie waif to Hollywood sex goddess involved working with a choreographer to perfect Monroe’s walk and gaining weight to approximate her curves. “Unfortunately, it went right to my face,” she says, puffing up her cheeks to illustrate. “So at some point it became a question of, Do I want my face to look like Marilyn Monroe’s or my hips?” (She opted for the former and filled out the latter with foam padding.) In the end, she says, “it felt like being reborn. It felt like breaking my body and remaking it in her image, learning how she walked and talked and held her head. None of that existed in my physical memory, and I knew I needed as much time as possible to make it part of me.”

Sex appeal: “Any messages that I got as a child about what it is to have a woman’s body or to be sexual were all negative—that people wouldn’t take you seriously or that they would take advantage of you… The expectation to be beautiful always makes me feel ugly because I feel like I can’t live up to it,” she says. “But I do remember one moment of being all suited up as Marilyn and walking from my dressing room onto the soundstage practicing my wiggle. There were three or four men gathered around a truck, and I remember seeing that they were watching me come and feeling that they were watching me go—and for the very first time I glimpsed some idea of the pleasure I could take in that kind of attention; not their pleasure but my pleasure. And I thought, Oh, maybe Marilyn felt that when she walked down the beach.”

Then she goes on to talk about her daughter, the father of her daughter, the late Heath Leger, and her love life right now.

On her daughter being stalked by the paparazzi: “That’s what seems the most rotten thing about it to me,” she says. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to make her feel safe and protected, and to extend her childhood for as long as possible.”

On Heath‘s death: “Three years ago, it felt like we didn’t have anything, and now my life—our life—has kind of repaired itself… Look, it’s not a perfectly operating system—there are holes and dips and electrical storms—but the basics are intact.” Still, she says, in a fundamental way nothing will ever be the same: “It’s changed how I see the world and how I interact on a daily basis. It’s changed the parent I am. It’s changed the friend I am. It’s changed the kind of work that I really want to do. It’s become the lens through which I see life—that it’s all impermanent.” Williams shuts her eyes, then opens them again and says, “For a really long time, I couldn’t stop touching people’s faces. I was like, ‘Look at you! You move! You’re here!’ It all just seemed so fleeting, and I wanted to hold on to it.”

Her current love life: Williams speculates that she may be drawn to stories about the vicissitudes of romantic love because “relationships have always seemed very mysterious, and therefore worth exploring. I’m single, so it’s still kind of a mystery—a worthwhile mystery, one that I want to be on the scent of.” She confesses that she misses having a guy around when it’s time to haul wood at her house upstate. But, unlike Monroe, she doesn’t define herself through the men in her life: “I’m not lonely, and I think that has a lot to do with what’s on my bedside table rather than what’s in my bed.”

Michelle Williams transforms herself into Marilyn Monroe in the upcoming film, ‘My Week With Marilyn’ and the resemblance to the Hollywood icon is uncanny!

The new shot shows Michelle’s amazing transformation as the silver screen legend in a beautiful still from the film, which shows her in colour walking through a scrum of paparazzi photographers all shot in black and white.

Michelle’s peroxide blonde curls are pure Marilyn, as is the sex bomb hourglass figure seen underneath a pale lilac shift dress, and the actress has Marilyn’s famous flirty pout spot on.

The British film, which hits cinema screens in November, is based on the book of the same name by Colin Clark who worked as an assistant on the set of the 1957 movie, The Prince and the Showgirl, which Marilyn shot in England while on honeymoon with playwright Arthur Miller.

The film, which also stars Emma Watson, Dominic Cooper and Eddie Redmayne, follows the story of Clark’s week with Monroe as he chaperoned her around the UK after her new husband left the country on business.

The eagerly-anticipated flick will premiere at this year’s New York Film Festival, which kicks off on 30th September.

Love it!

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While Teen Mom star Amber is considering quitting the hit show admitting that airing her dirty laundry on TV has ruined her life, her participation still earns her a whopping $280,000 a year. So as a single mom with no GED, what will Amber do for income after the show? Her brother Shawn Portwood tells Life & Style exclusively that Amber hopes to become a model after Teen Mom.

“When she’s done with the show, Amber wants to be a glamorous pinup girl, like Marilyn Monroe,” her brother Shawn tells Life & Style. “People have already been asking her to do modeling — somebody even asked her if she would do porn, which she’s not interested in.” Adult entertainment company Vivid reportedly offered Amber $500,000 to get X-rated on camera.

Amber’s recent slim down from a size 11 to a size 5 has given her a major confidence boost. “She always looked up to ‘50’s pinup models because they’re known for their hourglass curves,” an insider tells Life & Style. “She thinks modeling would give her a more grown-up image and allow her to support Leah.”

A model!? Seriously!?

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