EXCERPT: 'Sam Shaw: A Personal Point of View'
Over a career spanning half a century, Sam Shaw photographed all kinds of people: sharecroppers, soldiers, jazz cats, cops. But of all the jaw-dropping, varied work from his portfolio, it's his photos of Hollywood legends -- many of them taken for LIFE -- that are his most famous. Everyone knows, of course, his pictures of Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grate, her skirt billowing up -- but Shaw was also able to penetrate the public persona of his subject, and seek out the soulfulness within. Now, the book Sam Shaw: A Personal Point of View (available now at ArtBook.com and selected bookstores) compiles some of the photographer's most intimate work, and outlines the philosophies and tips about photography that he shared with his longtime friend, the book's author Lorie Karnath, before his death in 1999. Here, an excerpt. Pictured: One of Shaw's frequent subjects -- Marilyn, photographed in New York City in 1955. (Read on for more about their dear friendship.)
Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn, 1951
Though Shaw most enjoyed (and excelled at) photographing women, there were men -- Brando and Quinn, specifically -- who were electric through his lens. "With Marlon I never knew what was going to happen," he told Sam Shaw author Karnath. "There was a magic to this man. He was always going counter to what you might expect and was never straight on." Pictured: The Viva Zapata! costars play pool during a break in filming.
Audrey Hepburn, 1957
Shaw captures Hollywood's most elegant star swooning to the strings on the Paris set of Love in the Afternoon.
Sophia Loren, 1957
The stunning Italian actress studies Benvenuto Cellini's statue of Christ while filming The Pride and the Passion in Escorial, Spain. To Shaw, he told Karnath, Loren was "the perfect subject, giving herself freely and never assuming a phony pose" -- she had the "self-confidence and grace of Joe DiMaggio."
Shaw photographed the actress, then just 23 years old, in New York City, during the filming of Splendor in the Grass.
Marilyn Monroe, 1957
Shaw met Marilyn in 1951, before she was, well, MARILYN -- that larger-than-life sex goddess and Hollywood icon. Back then, she was a struggling contract player for 20th Century Fox, with just a few bit roles under her belt. But in Monroe, Shaw recognized something special and chameleonic. She was not just a "calendar girl," Shaw said, "but a contemporary Aphrodite who could at will transform herself into a counter girl, a waitress, and/or beach playmate." Through the highs and lows of her life, Monroe remained close to her beloved "Sam Spade" -- her nickname for Shaw, after the private-eye character -- and often called him for advice, or just to spend a day together.
Lee Remick, 1960
The actress was among the many stars Shaw photographed for LIFE; here she is in New York in 1960, posing for a feature that ended up on the magazine's cover. ("A girl with a lilt in her eyes," LIFE called her.)
Ina Balin and Duchess, 1960
In a Shaw photo published by LIFE for a cover story, stage and film actress Ina Balin goes for a ride in Bermuda with her Great Dane.
Marilyn Monroe, 1957
Marilyn clowns on the beach in Amagansett, New York, in a shot from what Shaw called his "Aphrodite sequence." Even though Shaw and Monroe had been close friends for years, he recalled "it was especially challenging at this point in her career to convince Marilyn to embrace the makeup-free, natural setting." To get her to relax, Shaw threw out words -- the one that inspired this pic was "Medusa" -- and had Monroe, who was studying improv at the Actor's Studio at the time, respond to them.
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