“The Last Sitting” would not have its iconic name without the death of Marilyn Monroe which occurred on August 5, 1962, just six weeks after her 2,500-photo photoshoot with photographer Bert Stern. This angelic photograph, edited by Marilyn herself intentionally or unintentionally with a cross, with the other thousands of photos, were published posthumously by Stern 20 years later in a book bearing the same title. On August 5, 1962, Monroe was found dead in her apartment by her maid and psychiatrist. She was found lying face down in her bed, with no clothes, and a phone in one hand along with empty prescription pill bottles were found in her room. Conspiracy surrounds the death of the sex symbol, whether it was an intentional suicide by overdosing on barbituates/sleeping pills that she was prescribed or a hit put out by the Kennedys to cover up an affair with both JFK and Robert Kennedy. There were rumors of an affair after Monroe sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President '' to JFK in Madison Square Garden in 1962. Robert Kennedy was supposedly quarreling with Monroe on August 4th in her home before she was found dead, but her maid did not disclose that information until 1983 in an interview. Monroe’s second husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio, heavily blames the Kennedys for her death. This theory is supported by the fact that individuals who worked on Monroe’s case were then given high-profile jobs within the government. The uncertainty surrounding her death can be visualized by the sheer sheet that she holds in front of her body.

The reason that I offered that background concerning those three events is because it helps me to explain what Marilyn Crucifix II was doing socially/culturally and politically when Bert Stern created it in 1962. Knowing that Bert Stern met Stanley Kubrick helps break down the components of this photograph of Monroe, because it nods to Stern’s beginnings in the industry capturing sexuality on camera. Lolita, a Kubrick film, raised controversy in the media because of its pedophilic content, which took on greater waves of censorship as the years passed, essentially making Kubrick regret making the film, for most of its true substance had to be left to the imagination or not present at all. Stern had taken the famous movie poster image of Sue Lyon for Lolita, and he found a way to capture both a young woman behaving her age and feminine sexuality, tools which he used to generate Marilyn Crucifix II . Unlike Sue Lyon, Monroe was of-age and posed nude for Stern in the Bel-Air hotel, which allowed him to experiment with various camera angles, props, and poses in order to generate this image. The image could only be produced if she were the model, but it is memorable in the fact that she “christened” herself in the contact sheet with an orange cross and the sheet she is holding, appearing to be sheer white (the color distinctions washed out by the exposure),has her arms outstretched in a christ pose or as angel wings. This specific photo would have been a fine choice to use for when she should have passed away at an older age due to natural causes, but this overly exposed contact sheet casts an ironically ghostly aura on Monroe, considering she allegedly committed suicide by overdosing on barbituates six weeks after this photoshoot, which were the last photos of the movie star/sex symbol, thus “The LAST Sitting”. The circumstances surrounding Monroe’s death lead to “conspiracies” that she was silenced by the Kennedy family after rumors about an affair with the President, JFK, and his brother Robert. The over exposure washes out Monroe’s figure, giving her a heavenly appearance, which in that present time that the original photo was taken, would have been foreshadowing her death or symbolizing being silenced or blocked in some way by the powers of the government to keep the affair of the President a secret. Marilyn Monroe made her mark on the world as an actress, left her final marks as a woman in that industry in the form of an orange marker in Marilyn Crucifix II , then left with a mysteriously tragic bang.

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