Marilyn: The Lost Photographs • The Last Interview

In advance of the highly anticipated release of Marilyn: The Lost Photographs The Last Interview, Scott Fortner and Elisa Jordan sit down with authors Chris Flannery and Jason Greene for an in depth conversation about one of the most significant Marilyn Monroe projects in decades.

Bringing together Marilyn’s final recorded interview with Richard Meryman and the complete archive of photographs taken by LIFE photographer Allan Grant, this new volume offers an unprecedented look at Marilyn in the final weeks of her life. For the first time, her words and her image are presented together in their entirety. Unfiltered, unretouched, and deeply human.

Recorded just weeks before her passing in 1962, Marilyn Monroe’s final interview stands as one of the most revealing documents of her life. Conducted by Meryman and captured on reel to reel tape, the conversation preserves Marilyn’s words exactly as she intended. What originally appeared in LIFE magazine represented only a fraction of what was said.

Paired with this interview is Allan Grant’s remarkable photographic session, more than 430 images taken inside Marilyn’s Brentwood home, with over 300 never before published. Captured in a single setting, with minimal styling and no heavy retouching, the photographs present Marilyn not as a constructed icon, but as a woman in her own space. Across the sequence, she reveals a full range of emotion through subtle shifts in expression, posture, and presence, demonstrating a mastery of image that is both instinctive and deliberate.

Together, the interview and photographs form a powerful time capsule. Marilyn speaks candidly about fame, identity, creativity, and the pressures placed upon her, topics that remain strikingly relevant today. She challenges the public perception of her as a persona, revealing instead a woman of intelligence, humor, and emotional depth. Her reflections on art and performance underscore her commitment to her craft, while her observations on life and human connection reveal a perspective that is both grounded and insightful.

Flannery and Greene share the journey behind the project, from their first meeting with Allan Grant’s widow, Karen Grant, to the discovery, preservation, and restoration of the original audio recordings. They discuss the responsibility of serving as stewards of this material, and the importance of presenting Marilyn as she intended to be seen and heard.

The book itself reflects that philosophy. Marilyn’s words are organized by theme, offering a clearer understanding of the ideas she explored, while the photographs are presented as they were captured, preserving the authenticity of the moment. The result is not simply a collection of images or an interview transcript, but a cohesive and deeply personal portrait of Marilyn Monroe at a pivotal moment in her life.

This episode offers a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes of a project already being recognized as one of the most important contributions to Marilyn scholarship in decades. Before the book’s release, hear directly from the authors as they share how these materials were brought together, and why, more than sixty years later, Marilyn’s voice continues to resonate with such clarity, power, and relevance.

ATM Podcast: @allthingsmarilynpodcast
Scott @marilynmonroecollection
Elisa @la_woman_tours

Credits
Artwork by @marilynmexico
Soundtrack by @silver_technicolor

Transcript

Scott Fortner: [00:00:00] This is the All Things Marilyn podcast. My name is Scott Fortner, Marilyn Monroe collector, historian, and owner of The Marilyn Monroe Collection. 

Elisa Jordan: And I'm Alisa Jordan. I'm an author, the founder of LA Women Tours, and I am also a Marilyn Monroe historian. 

Scott Fortner: We have a great episode of the All Things Marilyn podcast today.

Scott Fortner: Alisa and I have interviewed Chris Flannery and Jason Green, and they are the authors of a new book that's coming out, Marilyn: The Lost Photographs, The Last Interview. So Alisa, what's in the book? 

Elisa Jordan: This is a really interesting book because Marilyn gave an interview at what we now know to be the end of her life.

Elisa Jordan: She gave an interview to Richard Merryman, who worked for Life Magazine, and Allan Grant took the accompanying photos a short time later. And Jason Green and Chris Flannery have acquired the interview and the photos and put them together in a book that will be coming out in the late spring. 

Scott Fortner: And what's really incredible is it's 430-some photos.

Scott Fortner: Most of them have never [00:01:00] been published before. And I know what you're thinking, "Oh, yeah, never-before-seen photos. We've seen that before." But the truth is these are actual photos of Marilyn from the session with Allan Grant that have never been published. There are over 300 images that have never been published before, and everything is included in this book, along with transcripts of Marilyn's final interview.

Scott Fortner: And of course, as Alisa mentioned, she gave the interview basically just weeks before she passed away. 

Elisa Jordan: The magazine was still on the stands when she died. 

Scott Fortner: The timing here is really poignant and a really intimate look into Marilyn's life just in the final weeks leading up to her unexpected and really tragic passing.

Elisa Jordan: Yeah, I think this interview and these photos mean a lot to Marilyn fans because the way Life presented her, it was in her own words. She's photographed in her own home. As we discuss in the interview with Chris and Jason, they didn't retouch the [00:02:00] photos, so you're seeing the real Marilyn. You listen to any of the footage, and they do have some snippets here and there on their social media, she's speaking in her real voice.

Scott Fortner: That is a point that I'm glad you made. A lot of times when I post audio of Marilyn from this last interview, the small portions that have been released, I always get people saying, "That's not Marilyn's voice," because they're used to the on-screen Marilyn. 

Elisa Jordan: Right, the Lorelei Lee voice. 

Scott Fortner: They're used to the Lorelei Lee voice.

Scott Fortner: And when they hear the real voice, it's a bit shocking because I guess a lot of people don't realize that wasn't Marilyn's actual voice, what they heard on-screen. 

Elisa Jordan: Her image was so powerful, people believed that Lorelei Lee or Pola from How to Marry a Millionaire is the real Marilyn, and that was something Marilyn faced in real life, and she rebelled against it, as we know.

Elisa Jordan: Mm-hmm. But it's something that carries over today, and Chris and Jason have been very careful to present Marilyn as a real person. [00:03:00] She is seen as she really looked, and if you listen to the interview, that's how she sounds. They were very careful and respectful, and I appreciate that very much. 

Scott Fortner: So you can go to YouTube, do a search for Marilyn Monroe final interview, Marilyn Monroe Richard Merriman.

Scott Fortner: That gives you an idea of the clips that actually have been released for the public to hear. The book, however, goes through the transcript for the entire interview, and there are many different topics that are discussed, and we're gonna get into that in today's interview with Chris and Jason. Shall we dive in?

Elisa Jordan: Let's do this. If 

Scott Fortner: Jason and Chris, welcome to the All Things Marilyn podcast. We're super excited to have you here today. 

Jason Greene: Thanks for inviting us. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. 

Elisa Jordan: Before we dive in and start discussing the book, if you could share with our listeners just a little bit of background so they get to know you and how you came to make this book.

Elisa Jordan: Chris, we'll start with you. 

Chris Flannery: Jason and I have known each other a long time, maybe longer than you and Scott have known each other actually. So we're certainly north of 15 years of knowing each other, probably closer to 20. We've talked about photography over the years because I've been involved in the in and out of the business, and it's a very interesting subclass of IP.

Chris Flannery: There's a lot of focus around music these days and other rights and ... But we've always been fascinated by photographs. I certainly have. I was approached by Neil Preston, the famous rock and roll [00:05:00] photographer who I've worked with over the years, and when he worked for People magazine, Karen Grant, who was Alan's wife, now widow, was his picture editor at People magazine.

Chris Flannery: They knew each other, and Neil knew the backstory of what had happened after Alan passed in 2008, and Karen had recently had a health bump and had decided that it was time for Marilyn to be out in the world. And Neil said, "I thought of you and what you've done. Would you be interested?" And my first call was to Jason.

Elisa Jordan: Wow. Neil Preston is a legend. I don't know if Marilyn fans are aware of rock photography, but I'm very aware of his reputation and his work. 

Scott Fortner: Yeah. Jason, share a little bit of your history here. 

Jason Greene: Yeah. Just to add on to that, Neil Preston is not only a legend, but he's an incredibly kind person and just has the greatest stories ever from being on tour with Queen and Zeppelin and bands like that in the '70s.

Jason Greene: So you can [00:06:00] imagine what went on then. But I come from a little bit of a different angle to this. When Chris and I first met, we were actually both in sports and, and I was more sports and entertainment. I worked for a large company in Los Angeles that you guys are aware of called Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Crypto.com Arena and Coachella and is a large concert promoter, and I worked in that world, and that's how we met Chris.

Jason Greene: Uh, and we just remained in touch, and then Chris ended up calling me, uh, and said, "Hey, we have this opportunity. Are you interested? And oh, by the way, Marilyn's 100th birthday is in 2026." And so this started in November of 2024, was the first time Chris called me. December of '24 we flew to LA and we met with Karen and Chrissy, her daughter, and Neil Preston was there as well.

Jason Greene: We went to their house in Brentwood, California. [00:07:00] Not far away from Marilyn's house. And we spent about four to five hours with them just talking, and stories, and history, and looking at all of the images. And by March, we had signed our agreement to acquire the copyright to all of these images. We're truly fortunate and grateful for Neal, uh, and Karen Grant, who's Alan's widow, who just is super generous, super kind, super entrusting, and really saw us as the next guardians of these images.

Scott Fortner: Jason, tell us a little bit about what it was like when you were first introduced to Karen and when you started to learn more about what she had. There were 432 photos of Marilyn in that archive. We'd love to hear what your thoughts are about that initial meeting, and then Chris, if you could chime in too.

Jason Greene: We went up to Brentwood, and we went to her house, and Neal was there, like I had mentioned, and Chrissy, her daughter, was there. The [00:08:00] couple takeaways from that first meeting for me were, one, the depth of the photo shoot. Even though it's 432, it doesn't seem like a lot, and several of them are in series, as you've seen.

Jason Greene: Just the emotional depth within those 432 images. The second thing was this little pile of vintage images that she also had that Alan had handmade in the '70s and '80s. He never commercialized stuff in the sense of what happens today. Yes, he licensed a couple photos to a German magazine or to some newspaper in the US, and we have vintage images with, you know, writing on the back like, "You get one time use," and, "Please return to Alan Grant."

Jason Greene: So that was one thing that really stuck out with me. And then the second, and Chris will corroborate this, but Karen is one of the funniest, sharpest people [00:09:00] that I have ever met in my life. Being around her, it was almost like being around my grandmother. It was just a great time. And when we spoke at the memorial service and she was there, we all went out for ice cream after with her and sat in a car for an hour and a half and had ice cream.

Jason Greene: She could turn any situation into the funniest situation. So th- those are two of the things that really stood out for me. I 

Scott Fortner: think I wanna hang out with her too. 

Chris Flannery: Yeah. She's, as Jason said, she'd be everyone's favorite grandmother. We knew that this was also about them trusting us because they'd really preserved Marilyn's sort of memory.

Chris Flannery: And they lived in that community. As Jason said, they're half a mile away from Marilyn's house, and they bumped into people in their community life that knew her in that area. For Alan, it was just another job. 

Jason Greene: Chris, you have a better recollection, but she was friends with... Was it Pat or? 

Chris Flannery: It was Marilyn's housekeeper Eunice.

Chris Flannery: They got to know each other over the years. I don't know if you knew this, [00:10:00] Scott. And they would have lunch once in a while together. Hmm. And so because... I don't know, they bumped into each other in a dry cleaners. It was something like that. But when she was at People, Allan was commissioned, although he'd put the camera down for the most part, he was commissioned in the early '80s by People to go in and photograph Marilyn's house.

Chris Flannery: Hmm. And so we've also got those color photos. So it was after it had been sold and someone had lived there for a long time, but I think it was r- pretty much intact in terms of the rooms and that kind of stuff. I don't think the layout of the interior changed. And so they'd lived this, and she had many clippings about Marilyn, and I think one of the things we've learnt on this journey is particularly those people that had interactions with Marilyn late in her life, she was with...

Chris Flannery: She was a presence in their lives- 

Scott Fortner: Hmm ... 

Chris Flannery: from there on in. And I mean that in a really almost spiritual way, right? That there was a force. And I remember talking with [00:11:00] Meredith about this. Marilyn was sort of part of this. She was part of their life because they did something, and a month later she'd passed, and it was so unexpected and shocking and everything else.

Chris Flannery: So we knew that for Karen and Chris it was really important that they felt we could continue Allan's legacy and do it in a way that they couldn't, that they hadn't been able to. And I was familiar with Allan's work because he did a very famous shoot at Capitol Studio A of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, and having worked with the Sinatra family for many years, very aware of that shoot.

Chris Flannery: It's a great shot. Allan was Life's man in Hollywood. Mm-hmm. And so the house also, Jason, was like a museum of photos. Some of them were cover shots, some that didn't end up being cover shots but were great photos of Allan's. And so it's just really interesting to hear about that Life magazine culture and what the great people that have walked through there, and Karen knew those people, the Eisenstat's [00:12:00] and these famous photographers who were part of that community of great Life photographers.

Chris Flannery: Allan worked there 20 years. Hmm. And so he was part of that. He's in the book. So it was just phenomenal, e- everything that Jason said. So I think we had to get to know each other in a way that there was much more than just some transaction because they were sharing history with us. For sure. And they had to know that we valued that history, and I think in some ways we value it maybe even higher because it's not just Marilyn, it's also Allan and Richard Merriman and how that whole story- Right

Chris Flannery: we- weaved together. That was our insight, that there was something much bigger Than just a photo shoot 

Scott Fortner: Chris, just talk a little bit about how you got from meeting Karen to bringing in Richard Merriman's daughter into this project. 

Chris Flannery: I'm a great believer in synchronicity, [00:13:00] and you gotta see the big picture, right?

Chris Flannery: And it's a round world, as a business partner of mine would say, and a small world. And they shared with us at that time a very rough audio. You remember Jason? Uh, I think Chrissy was playing it on an iPad. It's really hard to hear, but it was ... We knew that there was something else there. We ... To hear her voice is so impactful, and it therefore creates a narrative to the photos that, that really makes it unique.

Chris Flannery: With the greatest respect to Bert Stern and Larry Schiller and Milton Greene and many other photographers who shot Marilyn in a much more glamorous setting, now hearing her voice and knowing that it all happened in her house, that she'd invited these gentlemen in, and how important it was at a time where she felt affronted.

Chris Flannery: And if you listen to the whole audio, she's very careful not to mention the studio's name and people's name. She's very respectful about that. But you can hear her pain with that, [00:14:00] that she feels she's not been well-treated. And so it really sort of is this time capsule that we found there. And so we completed the deal with Karen.

Chris Flannery: I went out and picked everything up and traveled back with Marilyn, and we just needed to get it digitized and scanned and preserved quickly, right? So we could really start to see what was there. And then when we listened to the audio, I said, "This person must be... Let me look." And so I searched for Richard Merriman and found that he had a daughter.

Chris Flannery: Karen, there'd been some tragedy in Richard's life with his first wife and that Karen knew her. And Karen ultimately was just amazed that we'd found the Merriman family. And so I looked, and sure enough, there's a wedding announcement, the daughter of Richard Merriman in New York Times. So I started looking New York area, and I got a couple of hits and looked in, and there was a Facebook link.

Chris Flannery: And I said, "Maybe this is her." It seemed right. She was living in Connecticut. Some other things about it made it feel real, and [00:15:00] I sent her a Facebook messenger and said, "Hey, are you Richard Merriman's daughter? If so, I'm with a partner who just acquired the Alan Grant photo archive of the Marilyn shoot, and we have a copy of the audio.

Chris Flannery: Would love to talk to you about this." Mm. And she texted me back within a couple of days and said, "I am. Would love to talk to you. Let's talk." Wow. Wow. And, and then the small world moment is her daughter and my son were at the same small liberal arts college together in the same year. Wow. Both were athletes, and in fact, my son Took her daughter as a date to their first athletic formal in their freshman year at college 

Scott Fortner: Wow.

Scott Fortner: Okay. That's a sign 

Chris Flannery: For realzies. Yeah. Yeah. 

Scott Fortner: Wow. That's amazing. That is really amazing. Yeah. So I will share, just full disclosure, years ago somebody sent me the full- Mm ... four hours of audio. You told me, yeah. And it really is amazing to sit and listen to Marilyn. And you're right, she's very careful, she's very strategic.

Scott Fortner: And you can hear [00:16:00] the pain in her voice over the way that she had been treated by the studio. It's really quite something. 

Elisa Jordan: You mentioned that Allan Grant was hired in the '80s to photograph Marilyn's house. Could you give a little bit of insight into that as to what the story was and why they wanted photos of it?

Elisa Jordan: Because in this interview, Marilyn's house is almost like a secondary character. The focus is on Marilyn, but her home really is part of that experience. 

Chris Flannery: I think there was an article being run because the house had been sold, and the photos were used in People. I've never been able to find the actual issue that it was in, Elisa, but we've got the images.

Chris Flannery: There are 60 color slides of it. And I agree with you, it's not just the setting of the interview and the photo shoot. I think it's such a significant place, and that was really made apparent in everyone that we've spoken to in the Marilyn world, people like Scott and the people at the [00:17:00] Marilyn estate and others, that it's a very important and significant place.

Chris Flannery: And I think Karen felt the same thing about it as well. And so my understanding is People were doing an article about the sale of Marilyn's house in the early '80s. I've never seen them, but I think there's some pictures somewhere that Karen has of her and Eunice and Allan together at some function. And maybe even Scott Eunice went there that day with Allan to give him a little more color around the house.

Chris Flannery: There was something that happened, but I'm sure we'll put this out there and someone will tell us what day that People magazine came. Y- yeah. Your fans out there will help us track it down, but the internet has not been that powerful for me yet. 

Scott Fortner: We'll see what we can do. 

Elisa Jordan: Related to that, you've brought together two major aspects of Marilyn's life, which was right at the end, her final interview and her final photo shoot.

Elisa Jordan: And if you're in the Marilyn community or if you're a fan, you often hear about unseen photos, [00:18:00] and that's usually not the case. We've seen them. But you were kind enough to send us a preview of the book, and a lot of these photos really are- Unseen. When you were working on it, did you know how big this could be?

Chris Flannery: We saw the proof sheets, the contact sheets that Alan had created, and there were 12 contact sheets that were created. You can go through and count them up and figure it out. When you actually see them and you see them properly sequenced and you can see them at a decent size, it takes on a different dimension.

Chris Flannery: And I think fairly early on, Scott, we shared these with you, and I know we shared them with Greg. And I went to visit Greg at his house, actually, after I'd picked them up. They were sitting in the back of my car and I'm at Greg's house, and I'm talking to him, and I realize he's not listening to me. He's just looking at these photos so intently, and I just shut up and sat there in that amazing room of his with, with all the memorabilia around.

Chris Flannery: And he's, "I had no idea." Right. [00:19:00] And he had met Alan. I guess Alan was doing a poster signing one day or something, Jason, and I think Greg had just moved to LA and he signed one. He said, "I had no idea." And I think, Scott, you might have corroborated that when we discussed with you, because there was the Aid in Life, and then there was those that were on that poster, and a couple others.

Chris Flannery: Alan printed about 60 images, Elisa, just to give you a sense. So those are the ones that somewhere someone may have seen. So there's still 370 that had never been seen before, and I don't know that we quite realized it until you really start going through them. Jason? 

Jason Greene: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would say especially when you start going through them one by one and you start to see the different poses, the different emotions, the close-ups where it's really just her face or her head.

Jason Greene: And on the cover of our website is one of those which just blew me away when I [00:20:00] saw it. It blew my wife away when she saw it. And so that's when I think Chris and I both were like, "Oh my God, this is incredible." No disrespect to any of the other photographers, but I think Scott and Elisa, you would be able to correct this, but I'm not sure that there are any other shoots where she is down to earth like this at that stage of her life and career.

Jason Greene: Maybe there is, and you guys know, but 432 not glammed up images, but more just almost like she's just in her house by herself and casual with I think there was one hair and makeup person, and that was it, and Richard for the interview, and then Alan for the photo shoot. It was really surprising to see all of that and the idea of bringing that to the world.

Jason Greene: I always joked with Chris that I think that we are gonna have a small impact on the world That's what I always say to him. And it could be very tiny, but it's [00:21:00] something that in 30 years people remember that in 2026 these new images, this new story, the spoken word, all of that coming out for the first time when there hasn't been a lot of newness in the Marilyn world for a while.

Scott Fortner: It really is amazing to think that there are these photos, and not just a few, but hundreds. So there were additional photos that were released from the magazine shoot. I know in the past I've seen a contact sheet from- Yep ... the Alan Grant Sitting. These photos though were so amazing and it really goes to show Marilyn's expertise at being a model because she's wearing the same thing, she's in the same room, and she just has so many different emotions and looks and feelings all as part of this one photo shoot in her dining room.

Scott Fortner: She's in her dining room for every single photo. 

Chris Flannery: Yeah. It's a one-woman show, Scott, right? 

Scott Fortner: It, it really 

Chris Flannery: is 

Scott Fortner: incredible. 

Chris Flannery: It's one s- one set, one piece of furniture, one window. It's all right there. But [00:22:00] there's her entire emotion there, right? 

Scott Fortner: As I've mentioned, this is the book that I hear that everybody's waiting for, not just for the photos, but for the interview because only portions of that interview have been released in the past, not the full interview.

Scott Fortner: So as individuals that were probably growing to become bigger fans of Marilyn as this project came along, tell us about what it was like hearing those tapes for the very first time and you're hearing Marilyn's own voice. 

Jason Greene: Chris mentioned we were at Karen's house for our first meeting. So Karen, Chrissy, Neil Preston, and us.

Jason Greene: And Chrissy had it and as soon as she hit play, my heart dropped. I, I was never a Marilyn fan before this. I was never not a fan. It just wasn't in my orbit really. Knew who she was, thought she was beautiful, but not in my orbit. But once we started to get into it and then we had that meeting, it was incredible.

Jason Greene: It was as if you were in the room with her having [00:23:00] coffee or talking about life with her. And we only listened to maybe five or 10 minutes I think that day. It w- it wasn't a long clip, but it was so impactful for me and just made me wanna get involved all the more when I heard it. There's four hours of interview.

Jason Greene: It's 100-page transcript and that was distilled down to A thousand words in Life Magazine. There are 1,500 words. So there's so much that she talks about. Hearing her voice just gave me tingles, and it still does. Because we have it, so I, I play it here, and we've cleaned it up. We got the original reel-to-reel tapes digitized, and everything is super clear.

Jason Greene: So I sometimes just go and I'll listen to it, and also I post sometimes on Instagram. I'll cut a little bit and I'll put up a photo and her voice with it. Uh, but that, that was the impact on me. 

Chris Flannery: I remember talking to [00:24:00] Meredith Landis about this and getting some more background, knowing that the tapes were sitting in a basement somewhere in New England and just hoping that they were still in good condition.

Chris Flannery: And Meredith has been a tremendous partner, uh, just as Caren and Chrissy have been in terms of telling the story, because we said, "This is the time you have to tell the story." And our vision from the start was if we could bring these two unreleased pieces of work out together in their entirety, we felt that would be impactful and something that will be cherished by Marilyn fans.

Chris Flannery: But as we listened to it, it was so relevant for today. What she's talking about, struggles with fame, which sometimes people bring on themselves and sometimes is in this world of the influencer. It was her humanity, how sharp she was, how well-read she was, how kind and funny she was. Some of the [00:25:00] jokes that she's cracking on the side with Pat, Pat's talking about baking and, "I've been baking all day," or something Pat says at one point.

Chris Flannery: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marilyn's voice is so kind. It's like Jason said, you just felt like you're at the table and you're invited around for a cup of afternoon tea or something. It, it's really something I feel very privileged that we've had the chance to listen to it in this much cleaner way without the background hiss.

Chris Flannery: I don't know the version you have, Scott, but the one we had that had this loud hum in the background. Yeah. It's not easy to hear. Yeah. Richard's quiet because the mic's set up by Marilyn. But I feel over time she opens up. She had her own questions and things that she wanted to say. She'd prepared for that, right?

Chris Flannery: Right. And she's got the things that she wanted to talk about. And it was revolutionary at the time. In 1962, and this is one of the things that Caren told us- Was, and Meredith corroborated, he rented that piece of equipment himself. He [00:26:00] paid for the tapes. He did that himself. It wasn't given to him by Life.

Chris Flannery: They didn't do that. And he was the only journalist at Life doing that at that time. And there were some of the older guard apparently would make fun. He was relatively young. I'm not quite sure of his age when it was done. But they would say, "Can't you take proper notes?" And I think that it was so important why he did it.

Chris Flannery: Mm-hmm. There are so many reasons that with hindsight that we can look at, 'cause he promised Marilyn that she would have edit over what she said, that whatever she said were going to be her words. And on Life it says, "Marilyn in her own words." And that was his way of absolutely guaranteeing to her that these were her words.

Chris Flannery: He gave her a copy of those tapes. He gave her a copy of the transcript. He gave her a copy of his first cut of the work, and he did all of that within two or three days of those interviews. He turned it fast. Yeah. Karen said there were [00:27:00] stories at the Life office on the West Coast of him coming in and saying, "Who can transcribe this?

Chris Flannery: I gotta get this done." And he had a real urgency to do it. The other story that's there within the story is the way that they worked to do it. And today it seems obvious that people would record, but back then it wasn't. And that's why I think this is a very unique set of audio. It's not a publicity tour.

Chris Flannery: It is her at home talking about a specific subject. She knows it's the press, but she's also talking carefully about how the press has misinterpreted things that she said. 

Scott Fortner: It's just such an interesting listen because there's so many different topics. And one of the things that I've noticed and that I actually wrote about- In the introduction for the book was Marilyn was in a very different place when they started discussing doing the interview as compared to where she was when she actually did the interview.

Scott Fortner: She started [00:28:00] talking with Merriman at the start of the year 1962, and by the time they had gotten together, a lot had changed since they first started talking about doing that interview, which we can talk about. One of my favorite lines, though, in the interview is Marilyn is answering a question from Merriman.

Scott Fortner: You can hear Marilyn's phone ring in the background and Marilyn says, "If it's an Italian, tell him I'm not home." And I'm like, "Ah, who is the Italian?" It could be anybody, right? Yeah. But who is it who's calling Marilyn and she doesn't wanna talk to him if they're Italian? 

Elisa Jordan: On that original reel-to-reel that you're speaking about, can you actually hear his voice?

Elisa Jordan: And the reason I ask that is because he was pretty famous for taking his own voice out of interviews, or at least when it was in print, you didn't see his questions, so it was just the person talking. At the very least, that's what he did with Marilyn. And I've always wondered how the interview evolved as they were talking.

Elisa Jordan: So were you able to hear that process? 

Chris Flannery: Yes. [00:29:00] You can hear his voice. It's quieter than Marilyn's, but you can hear the conversation quite clearly. But that was his style, and I think he did the same thing with Elizabeth Taylor in the interview with her and many of the other people. And so out of respect for that and his process, we did not include his questions in The text of the book because it's Marilyn's words and it was collaborative between the two of them and Scott, you're 100% right that January and early February when they met in New York and you kindly shared with us the correspondence between them, it's very different than what happened after June with the shutdown of the film.

Chris Flannery: Although she's talking about going to Madison Square Garden for President Kennedy's birthday party and singing and that she's had the courage to get up there and sing and turn away Maria Callas from her dressing room who wanted to come in and say hi to Marilyn but Callas had already performed. [00:30:00] It's so open and honest the way that she's talking with him.

Chris Flannery: It's really a treasure a- and he's thoughtful. She never gets angry but she says some pointed things here and there to him, which I think are great. "I didn't say that. You said that about me." He said, "Yes, I did say that about you, didn't I?" And then they'll laugh about it. I think it may have been a different kind of format for her as well, Scott, to have that record.

Chris Flannery: She talks about that a little bit. "Is this thing on? Are you sure that's recording? Is the light..." She's doing that as well as you listen to it and so that sort of interstitial stuff I think at some point we'll figure out with the Marilyn family how best that could be told, but there's something else with that.

Chris Flannery: I think in book form it wouldn't be that interesting to get the back and forth because sometimes it's a lot of the same question, uh, Elisa, that they're asking. It's not a different question. It's provoking and helping Marilyn I think to go a little deeper into the subject rather than just take it [00:31:00] as a, from her first answer, help push her a little bit.

Scott Fortner: He's probing her and trying to get her and she lets him know really clearly when he's gone too far. Mm-hmm. He talks about revving up the machine and she goes, "I'm not a car. You don't crank me up." Yeah. I can't remember the exact words that he used but something like- And she said also something 

Chris Flannery: like, "I, I'm not a thing.

Chris Flannery: I'd never wanna be a thing," right, or 

Scott Fortner: something. Right, right, right. 

Elisa Jordan: Yeah, I do know what you're talking about. He says something about he's trying to ask her about her process and how do you crank up for a scene or something. Oh, yeah. And she says, "I don't crank anything. I'm not a Model T." 

Scott Fortner: Yeah. Right. 

Chris Flannery: And then laughs about it too, right?

Chris Flannery: So there's good rapport there. Right. There's not any hostility. I sense enjoyment. 

Scott Fortner: Right. Jason, tell us what you think the fans will learn about Marilyn that's new after reading the interview in your book. 

Jason Greene: As we talked about earlier, I have a different perspective because having not been in this world, a lot of it was new to me.

Jason Greene: I'll give one thing or a couple [00:32:00] things that probably the fans probably know because they know so much but the world maybe doesn't know. One is how intelligent she is. The world portrays her as just a blonde pin-up girl. E- even today that's the image. But- extremely intelligent. And the second thing is what I'll call her sense of social justice, and she even says it in the interview.

Jason Greene: Scott, you may remember this. She talks about the world needs more love. The Jews, the Arabs, the Blacks. This is what she says in nine- 1962. And politics aside, it couldn't be more relevant today in this world, right? And so to be that way back then, which was extremely rare, I presume, or I know, is something that I was very shocked and surprised at.

Jason Greene: Those would be the two things that, uh, maybe the Marilyn [00:33:00] community knows, but maybe not the depth of it, and they will be able to glean more insight into those areas. 

Chris Flannery: How about you, Chris? One thing that Jason and I combined on from the start was we wanted to make this available for people to then make their own viewpoints on who Marilyn is and what she had to say for herself.

Chris Flannery: Our job was to bring her voice and her own words, and then let people decide who she is. I think there's probably been more misinformation published and made in the last 20 years, and as we get further and further away from her tragic death in 1962, that's perpetuated, right? That it's been about everything but her or her film career and everything else.

Chris Flannery: And I think that the important thing that we're doing here is giving fans, new, young, old, just people that are intrigued, a chance to decide who she was, not for it to be interpreted. And I think that's what Merriman did do, and [00:34:00] Alan did do beautifully, was to see her as the human being that she was. So that's our hope, that people dig into this and find something that's relevant to them, learn something new, a- and absorb it as new information, because I think for the most part it is new.

Chris Flannery: It may support your worldview or it may, it may change your Marilyn view. But the things that kinda come through that she talks a lot about art and being an artist, and that clearly is very important to her, and she means that as it relates to physical drawing art. It means written art and text and writers.

Chris Flannery: And so she sees herself as a very creative being and living in a creative space, which she was, and she said, "You can't just turn it on. I can't just cry on cue and give you one drop tear. I can't do that. If I could, that'd be great, but I can't." Mm-hmm. And so I think that is a really important piece of [00:35:00] this.

Chris Flannery: She admits, "Okay, I'm late sometimes, and then other times we get there on time, and they keep us hanging around for two hours." So what's up with that- Yeah ... kind of thing. 

Speaker 4: Yeah. 

Chris Flannery: She, but as an artist, you can't always just show up and do what you're doing. She talks a, a fair amount about how delighted she is that she is a sexual being and a sexual person.

Chris Flannery: And she's not talking about sex per se, but it's just there with her. But she's looking at it i- in a much more complete view, I think, of what that means to, to be, to have emotion and have feeling, and what those things are comes through. And Jason talked about her kindness. She talks about the people that, again and again she'll talk about she loves dealing with kids or talking to kids because they're the most honest.

Chris Flannery: And she said they want an interview because they wanna show so-and-so in their classroom that they got a, an autograph from Marilyn Monroe. And then she talks about everyday people on the trash truck or whatever. She said, "They're my favorite people because they just accept you as-" who you are. She [00:36:00] talks about maybe if she could do it because of where she came from, they could also do something as well, or their kids could do something as well.

Chris Flannery: And so I think that hopefully people will find things that are meaningful to them and whatever their life has been. But what I do believe is it's really relevant to today. And the photos, the more time that we spend with it, what I realize is that the photos done at a different time to the interview capture the words incredibly well.

Chris Flannery: It is a masterpiece that she is performing and Alan has captured. And again, the only way that they could do that is because of the use of new technology at that time to record it and to make that available so that they knew where that was going. And here we are on a podcast in the new age of audio finding something from [00:37:00] 64 years ago that luckily was put in a time capsule and we can bring back to life.

Scott Fortner: Mm-hmm. Looking at the photos, it's like she's being interviewed right in that moment. A lot of people don't realize that they were taken at a different time. I think your more informed Marilyn fan knows that the photo shoot was taken after the interview, but I think a lot of people think that those are photos of her actually being interviewed in the moment.

Scott Fortner: So she did an amazing job. One of the things in the audio that I love is she talked about how important it was that her fans got their money's worth, that she wanted to give them the best because they were paying to come and see her, and it was really important to her that she gave them the best of her, and I thought that's a true artist.

Elisa Jordan: When it comes to the presentation of the book, did you work with a designer or did you have an idea of what you wanted the book to look like? The book is very clean when it comes to the layout. It's feminine without being too girly, and the book is also organized by [00:38:00] topic. It's not a straight transcription of the interview.

Elisa Jordan: We're getting insight into Marilyn topic by topic. Was that your idea? Was it the editor's idea? Was it the designer's idea? How did that all come together for a final presentation? 

Chris Flannery: Jason and I can take no responsibility for any of the good things that have been done in this book because we worked with a first-class team.

Chris Flannery: They really knew what they were doing. Karen, our editor with the publisher, really... We delivered the material for them and said, "You know how to make a book. You're publishers. Tell us how this should be done." And that's what they did, Lisa. They felt that it was important not to have the other voice. There was many ways we could've gone, and we talked about it very actively.

Chris Flannery: But the more you look into the way that Merriman had organized the story, when you see the way that he cut up the transcription and pasted it down, he was looking at themes. [00:39:00] And we felt she'll talk about her childhood in this piece and in this piece and in this piece. And if you did it chronologically, you'd think she was repeating herself, which sometimes she did.

Chris Flannery: And so I think by organizing it by topic, with childhood and... The interview was really about fame to start with. So that's there, but I think it was a much more logical way to see the material. The interview's three and a half, four hours long, and it's not meant to read as a narrative piece. It was, like Scott, you said, he's probing her, right?

Chris Flannery: And there's a good rapport, and I think by organizing by topic, it's a much better way to really see all that Marilyn had to say about her childhood in this one place, rather than you're on page 200 and you're reading about her childhood and on page 150, and you're trying to then to thread that together.

Chris Flannery: Jason? 

Jason Greene: Yeah. We worked with a great publisher called Weldon Owen, part of Insight Editions, [00:40:00] and both the actual publisher, Roger, and the editor, Karen, were incredible. Not just in how they designed the book and presented it to us, but also in the way that they worked with us. It was a very interactive process once they had their first draft, and they were very open to our suggestions, our changes.

Jason Greene: Collectively, we chose the cover photo, the cover image, some stuff that we wanted included that they made room for. So it was actually a very smooth working process. And the interesting thing that, like Chris said, they almost got it right on the first pass. When we received the first draft, it was like, "Wow, this is gonna be super cool."

Jason Greene: It's exciting to see it evolve and take shape. 

Chris Flannery: Also, we got great feedback from Rich Merriman's family and from the Grant family about it as well. They were just thrilled to see it [00:41:00] in that way. So it was, uh, that was really, for us, that was in some ways our clients, right? Because we've been entrusted with that.

Chris Flannery: And so that they- saw that coming together and those two hemispheres really kind of locking in- Mm-hmm ... the photos and that together was very satisfying for us. 

Scott Fortner: One of the things I noticed when looking through the book and all of the photos of Marilyn, they're not retouched. You are showing the photos As they were as part of the archive when you acquired them.

Scott Fortner: So talk a little bit about why you decided to not have enhanced photos, because from what I can see, they are just the originals. They're not enhanced at all. 

Chris Flannery: Yes and no. You're right in that we felt we wanted to show her in her home as naturally as we could. There are some things, Scott, that we did take off.

Chris Flannery: There were some hairs here and there. But what we didn't want to do was affect how Marilyn looked. So more it was as the negatives have picked up a spot [00:42:00] of dust here. Those kind of things we did fix. But what we didn't want to do Was enhance her in any way. They're not cropped and edited. They are pretty much shown as the frame is.

Chris Flannery: And I think that all of us felt like we wanted to show it as it was. This is the first time the complete work has ever been seen, so see it as it was. Don't let the editor's view get in there. And we've got a hair out of place here and there. That's life. It's okay. Right. We wanted to leave it as naturally as I think she intended it and the artist in Allan Grant intended.

Chris Flannery: I don't think it was heavily lit. She wasn't heavily made up. And I think that's important that that shines through. 

Elisa Jordan: What I like about what you're saying is you're not trying to present a Marilyn who doesn't exist. The idea is to present Marilyn in her own words the way she really looks. I've seen the photos.

Elisa Jordan: She's still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. [00:43:00] That's the way she looks. 

Jason Greene: Mm. It, it, it made it artificial and unnatural to what you're saying, Elisa, and we didn't like that. 

Scott Fortner: I think what I love about this photo shoot is, and I might struggle a little bit with how I'm trying to convey the sense of the message or the feeling is, these are photos of Marilyn representing herself as part of this interview.

Scott Fortner: They're not glamorized. They're not sexualized. They're not necessarily staged. It's Marilyn in her home. It's the most extensive photo shoot ever of Marilyn taken in her home. As we talked about earlier in the interview today, that house is so much part of the story today. And of course, it's just come out this week that there's a new legal threat around the home where the owners are now suing the mayor and the city of Los Angeles, and that's taking over the news again.

Scott Fortner: But that house is just such a part of Marilyn's history and her story. 

Chris Flannery: I think one thing that's also important here is Life. Life was the arbiter of [00:44:00] good taste at one time in America. That's my interpretation, right, of, of that as a Brit. And Life was invited into tens of millions of American homes every two weeks, and it sat on the coffee table in the center of the house.

Chris Flannery: It was a symbol of America at that time. And so part of, you know, Merriman and, and Grant as, as, as Life lifers, you know, and so they knew the sensibility of Life. So they were seeing it through that lens, and I think they all understood that this was about presenting Marilyn to- everyone across America in August of 1962.

Elisa Jordan: It's, it's really her. You are seeing the real Marilyn. She's not retouched. She's not over made up. And like you were saying earlier, it's like you're sitting down with her at her kitchen table listening to her. And when you see the [00:45:00] photos, it kind of feels like that too. It's a very intimate presentation of her, and she orchestrated that herself, which was different for her.

Elisa Jordan: She was very aware of her image, and she was really trying to connect with, I think, her public at the time. 

Scott Fortner: Well, and it's even more poignant that this was her last formal photo shoot and also her last- Yeah ... interview, and she passed away just days later. This is our last look at her during her lifetime.

Scott Fortner: One question that I have for both of you is what impact has the project had on both of you? What was the hardest part? What's been the most challenging, and what's been the most rewarding? 

Jason Greene: I, I think the most rewarding, I'll start there. As I mentioned earlier, I think that we are going to impact the world, not just the community, but the world, a little bit.

Jason Greene: And having the only, call it new story, new photos, new information and, and giving that to the world [00:46:00] and being able to say we gave Marilyn the final word. That's pretty cool. That's rewarding. The second thing for me, and I don't know if Chris experiences this as much, but I have three young kids that are 13, 11, and nine, and up until now, they never knew who Marilyn was.

Jason Greene: But now she's a part of our lives, and they talk about it. They talk about it at school. There's a career day where I have presented this at their school, and even my oldest son in middle school says one of his teacher, Marilyn is his favorite. And I said, "Okay, we'll give her a photo in return for an A." So those types of things, both outside my family and within my family, has been extremely rewarding.

Jason Greene: Getting to know all the people that we've met along the way, like you guys and others, and how welcoming the community has been. And on the challenge side, I'm not generally a creative person. That's not my background or [00:47:00] makeup. Chris falls more into that, and he can talk more about, but hi- his skill set is broad, but he is a more creative guy than me.

Jason Greene: And going through this process has been extremely challenging from a creative standpoint and coming out of my shell and making suggestions and taking control of creative processes that maybe I shouldn't be in control of. An example is the website. My wife is an artist and an art teacher, but she did the website for us at my direction.

Jason Greene: Uh, mostly I was, "Hey, change this, do that, make it here, make it there." And I've even now, since that time, have taken that on in adding stuff to it, adjusting. And those were all personal areas of weakness in my life and challenge that I'm having to push through. And then the other piece is how do we get this out there?

Jason Greene: How do I have the greatest [00:48:00] impact, whether it's selling prints or, as you guys saw in the book, we reached out to artists to reinterpret Marilyn. Those types of things I take credit for in terms of coming up with some of those ideas So that's really challenged my skillset on a broader scope. 

Chris Flannery: What I would add, and Jason's doing himself a disservice.

Chris Flannery: He's much more creative than he gives himself credit for, but maybe he's just having a chance to exploit that part of himself. When you don't work for a company, you just kinda have to, you gotta wing it sometimes. If Jason's right, everything he said there, I would add in I've worked a lot with people like the National Portrait Gallery and these huge institutions, and seeing their reaction to the images and the story, and we're doing an exhibit in Brazil.

Chris Flannery: I'm getting to experience what this means elsewhere, and that is really rewarding and very affirming that we've got something here, that we're bringing [00:49:00] to the world a story. We feel very honored and privileged to be trusted by everyone to, to do that, and hopefully we're good stewards around that. We don't wanna be seen as exploitative, but we do want to make it available, because Karen said that to us.

Chris Flannery: She said, "It's time that everyone sees Marilyn." 

Scott Fortner: Love that. And welcome to the world of Marilyn fandom, by the way. I can see that she's permeated your lives the way that she has Elisa's and mine. 

Elisa Jordan: How's the Kool-Aid tasting? Excellent. Sugary. 

Chris Flannery: Tastes pretty good. I actually have two of the last Barrow's pictures that have sat on my office wall for years, I bought some time ago, and so she's been close by me for a while.

Chris Flannery: But one of these days I'm gonna have to switch those out and put some nice Allen Grant pictures up there. The community's just fantastic, and I think there's very few people you could do this with where you would get that kind of sense of welcome from a community. Mm. She has good fans for a [00:50:00] reason.

Elisa Jordan: When people hear this, they're going to want to know where they can find you. What's your website? What's your social media? How can people look for the book? How can people keep in touch with you? 

Chris Flannery: Where all good books are sold is where you'll find it. We don't know of any foreign language translations yet, so it is just in English.

Chris Flannery: But we do believe that the English language version will be available in most countries via the large book sellers. We're also working on some special editions which will be sold through galleries and collectibles with other things in there that are more appropriate, not for the mass market, but for fans- Specialized

Chris Flannery: and collectors. Yeah, exactly. Mm. Right. With special components and things to it as well, which will be above and beyond and different than the straight retail book. 

Scott Fortner: And we will be doing exhibits together. You're at the National Portrait Gallery. Absolutely. Portions of my collection will be there on exhibit this summer.

Scott Fortner: And the Academy Museum? 

Chris Flannery: Yes, indeedy. 

Scott Fortner: So we'll be exhibiting together at the Academy Museum as well. Are there any plans or conversations around [00:51:00] releasing the audio of the interview? 

Chris Flannery: We have had some conversations, yes. 

Scott Fortner: Go on. I'm probing, like Richard. 

Jason Greene: Yes. We hope that there will be something that the audio will be part of something bigger 

Scott Fortner: Wonderful.

Scott Fortner: Thank you 

Jason Greene: We're, we're, we wish we could say more. 

Scott Fortner: Okay 

Chris Flannery: Some of the audio will play at some of the museums. We're just figuring out what that is, Scott. We don't know. But all of them welcome this idea, and so there will be places where you can start to hear that audio. But in its fullness, it needs some refinement rather than just, like, you can't just play it.

Jason Greene: The book has all 432 images. Some are part of contact sheets, some are individual, but every image is in the book. If you buy the book, you will see the entire photo shoot, in addition to the written text from the Merriman interviews. Also, there are some extras within the book that we think people will be excited by, such as [00:52:00] Alan Grant wrote an essay in 1990 on his experience w- that day with Marilyn.

Jason Greene: It, that has never been released, never been published. There's also artwork in there, historic artwork as well as new artwork that's reinterpreted. There's samples of Richard Merriman's work. As we put the words and the images together, it was, as Chris alluded to earlier, it was also about honoring the other people involved in all of this and giving their story light, too.

Jason Greene: I will say that the essay that Alan Grant wrote is absolutely fascinating and is, I think, incredible. We're so lucky he wrote it and that it's in the book. I just wanted to say that because the book is more than just the photos and the text of the Merriman's interview. 

Scott Fortner: I actually contributed one of my collection artifacts for the book also.

Scott Fortner: It was a letter that Marilyn- Yeah ... received from Merriman. Yeah. And I found it fascinating how he was letting her know that she [00:53:00] was in charge, and at the same time saying, "You don't need this. You're a huge star already. You don't need this interview, but we really wanna tell your story and talk about fame."

Scott Fortner: So the way that he built her up was, I thought, interesting, and so I bought that years ago at auction, and I thought, "Gosh, this would be incredible to add to this story." Thank you. Scans of that are available in the book also. I'm really happy to contribute to it. 

Chris Flannery: Thank you. 

Jason Greene: And to mention Scott and Greg Shriner writing the forward to the book.

Jason Greene: Mm-hmm. We couldn't be more honored to have sort of the two largest collectors and experts in this world, and leaders of the community, validate what we thought we had. So- 

Scott Fortner: Well, thank you. Yeah ... 

Jason Greene: super, super grateful to have you guys involved in this as well 

Scott Fortner: It was a thrill to be part of it, so thank you for the opportunity.

Scott Fortner: One of the amazing things as we draw to the end of our interview with Chris and Jason, at the end of Marilyn's interview with Richard, she said, "Please don't make me look like a joke." And if anybody was ever wondering where that line came [00:54:00] from, it was this interview, and this is how Marilyn ended it. And you can hear on the tapes Marilyn say, "Please don't make me look like a joke."

Scott Fortner: And I hope that people see that we're striving to represent and respect Marilyn as we share her legend, keep her legend alive, talk about her, keep that legend going. And so it's really been an honor to have both of you with us today to talk about your project and this book. And I am super excited. And again, it's the one book that people are talking about how excited they are.

Scott Fortner: There's so many books coming out, and this is the one that's just bubbling to the surface for people. They're like, "I want The Lost Photos book." So big things are coming. Enormous. 

Elisa Jordan: Thank you, 

Jason Greene: guys. Pleasure. You're amazing. Thank you for having us. 

Scott Fortner: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank 

Elisa Jordan: you. 

Scott Fortner: Elisa, that was amazing, don't you think?

Elisa Jordan: Yeah, I was really impressed with them. 

Scott Fortner: It's incredible how Marilyn just works her way into people's lives. I think that's what happened to you, that's what happened to me. And then we have here two gentlemen who just stumbled into something that was huge, and now she's very much a part of their life, their daily life also.

Elisa Jordan: And not only [00:55:00] that, but they took the time to get to know Marilyn, so to speak. Mm-hmm. And did a really great job in how they presented her. I'm impressed because, like we talked about during the interview, you and I got to see a little sneak peek of the book. 

Jason Greene: Mm-hmm. 

Elisa Jordan: And they really went out of their way to present Marilyn respectfully, authentically.

Elisa Jordan: Mm-hmm. And kudos to them, kudos to the Merriman family and the Grant family for trusting the right people. Mm-hmm. Because it could have been very easily turned over to the wrong hands and been a disaster. You and I have seen instances of that. Right, right. And that's not this book at all. 

Scott Fortner: I am quite sure that all of our listeners will absolutely love this book if they buy it.

Scott Fortner: Remember that you can get a copy of it starting in May at marilynslostphotos.com. We want to thank you for tuning in to the All Things Marilyn podcast. If you've got any feedback or suggestions for topics for us to cover, you can email us at allthingsmarilynpodcast@gmail.com, and you can follow us on Instagram [00:56:00] @allthingsmarilynpodcast.

Scott Fortner: Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time for All Things Marilyn.