From 1953 to 1957, Joshua Greene’s father, Milton, shot about 3,900 images of Marilyn Monroe. Greene has restored and preserved those images in a new book that will hit shelves Oct. 16.
For more than two decades, Greene had dedicated his career to restoring and preserving his late father’s portfolio and showcase the photos through books and exhibitions. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the first time Greene released unseen images of the iconic star was in 1993. But he was disappointed in the results because of the inconsistent coloring and because many of the images were small and not “impactful.” So, this time around, he “wanted to make sure that what had happened there would never happen again.”
Greene describes this book, The Essential Marilyn Monroe by Milton H. Greene: 50 Sessions, as a more of a definitive collection that better represents his father’s collaboration and friendship with Monroe. There are 160 never-before-seen images in the book, with 284 images total, including candids, studio sessions, and on-set photography from when Monroe was filming Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl.
Greene told THR that his father and Monroe were very comfortable with each other. “She trusted him, and you can see that in these photos.”
The effort was clearly a labor of love for Greene, as he said some of the photos took as much as 60 hours to restore. You can buy this coffee-table book published by London-based ACC Editions for $65, or you can purchase the deluxe version for $2,000.
Greene thinks his father would be proud of both the choice of images and the quality. “If the old man was alive today, I know he would have embraced today’s digital technology,” he said.
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