Two Novel Approaches to Learning About Hollywood’s History

Observe the stars 

The legendary Hotel Bel-Air is exhibiting a one-of-a-kind exhibition of Bert Stern’s The Last Sitting — Marilyn Monroe’s intimate final picture session, which took place on the grounds of Hotel Bel-Air in 1962. 

Monroe stayed at the Hotel Bel-Air for a few months in 1948 and 1949. “She was so shy that she never came to the desk for her mail, and she slipped in and out of the hotel with a black veil,” the Bel-director Air’s of communications, Brittany Williams, said. “She crammed 558 pairs of shoes into her suite’s walk-in closet.”

Stern and Monroe reunited for a picture session thirteen years later: Over 12 hours, the actress and photographer took over 2,000 photographs, some of which would become some of the last ever shot before Monroe’s sad death six weeks later. 

“There was an uncommon part to the shoot that doesn’t happen with movie stars nowadays, and that was that they got to be alone for most of the shoot,” says Shannah Laumeister Stern, the exhibit’s curator and Bert Stern’s wife. “This provided an opportunity for them to develop a creative connection.” Bert admired and revered Marilyn, which I’m sure she felt, and so she was allowed to be herself.”