Behind-the-Scenes of Marilyn Monroe’s Iconic Flying Skirt Photo While Filming ‘The Seven Year Itch’

There are hundreds of photos of Marilyn Monroe, one of Hollywood’s most iconic stars, but the most famous photo of all was shot on September 15, 1954 by photographer Sam Shaw on the set of Seven Year Itch. However, there is more to the story than that, including why she faced the photographer and posed the way she did.

In the early 1950s, Sam Shaw was working in the film industry as a stills photographer. While on the set of biopic Viva Zapata! in 1951, he met Monroe, who at the time was a struggling actress employed on contract at the 20th Century Fox studios. Shaw couldn’t drive and Monroe, then the girlfriend of the film’s director Elia Kazan, was asked to give him a lift to the film set every day.

Shaw and Monroe developed a close friendship. She called him ‘Sam Spade’, a reference to the fictional private detective created by Dashiell Hammett. Soon he began photographing her in informal portraits that captured her playful personality. Shaw said, ‘I just want to show this fascinating woman, with her guard down, at work, at ease off-stage, during joyous moments in her life and as she 
often was – alone.’

By 1954, when Monroe was chosen for the lead role in Billy Wilder’s comedy The Seven Year Itch, she was on the way to becoming a major star. She was 28 years old and had played lead roles in films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire (both released in 1953). She had married her second husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio, in January that year

In The Seven Year Itch, Monroe played the glamorous neighbour with whom middle-aged publishing executive Richard Sherman, played by Tom Ewell, becomes infatuated. At one point in the script, Monroe and Ewell stroll through a New York street and walk over a subway grate.

Sam Shaw and Marilyn Monroe, backstage at 20th Century Fox studio, Los Angeles, California, 1954. (Photo © Sam Shaw Inc.)

When reading the dialogue for this scene, Shaw saw the opportunity to use an idea he’d had several years earlier. He had been visiting the amusement park on Coney Island when he saw women exiting a ride and having their skirts blown upwards by a blast of air coming from below ground. He suggested to producer Charles Feldman that this scene could provide a set-piece poster image for the film, with a blast of air from the grate blowing Monroe’s dress in the air.

The movie scene was originally shot outside the Trans-Lux Theatre on Lexington Avenue, at around 2am. Despite the shoot’s timing, a crowd gathered to watch. Monroe was wearing a white pleated halterneck dress. A wind machine underneath the grate sent the dress billowing up above her waist, revealing her legs. As the scene was re-shot, the crowd became increasingly boisterous.

At the publicity stunt in New York, a large crowd of bystanders and press were invited to create hype around the filming. (Photo © Sam Shaw Inc.)

After the filming had finished, Shaw arranged for the moment to be recreated in a press photocall. Photographers including Magnum’s Elliott Erwitt stood around her as the dress was again blown upwards. Shaw, having organised the event, secured himself the best position to record it. As Monroe posed with her dress flying high, she turned to face him and said, ‘Hey, Sam Spade!’ He pressed the shutter on his Rolleiflex.

The iconic image of Marilyn Monroe was shot by photographer Sam Shaw during the filming of The Seven Year Itch. (Photo © Sam Shaw Inc.)

Shaw’s picture, with Monroe looking provocatively into his camera, is the best of the images from that shoot. The shots taken that night were published the next day in newspapers and magazines around the world. They not only brought great publicity for the film, but also cemented Monroe’s image as one of the sex symbols of the era.

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Candid Photographs of Siouxsie and The Banshees in the Late 1970s

Siouxsie Sioux found fame with Siouxsie and The Banshees, the band she so-created with Steven Severin. Many pictures of Siouxsie Sioux and the rest of the group and their friends were taken by photographer Ray Stevenson, the brother of Nils Stevenson, who managed the band and was the Sex Pistols’ road manager .

These photos are the start of a legend, and they’re a glimpse into some of punk rock’s earliest memories. Below you’ll find pictures of Siouxsie captivating the shaggy late 70s crowds alongside her bandmates and other legends, like Sid Vicious, Adam Ant and other young people trying to make their creative voices heard and making history.

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52 Glamorous Photos That Capture Vintage Brides in Front of Mirrors

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Layered Curly Hair: The Favorite Hairstyle of Women From the 1960s

The 1960s was not just beehive, coiffure, big hairstyles, these photos show another interesting hairdo of women in this era: The layered curly hair.

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25 Amazing Photographs Documented Everyday Life at the "Alcoholic Haven" Sammy's Bowery Follies in the 1940s

In 1944, LIFE magazine described Sammy's Bowery Follies as an "alcoholic haven." The part-local dive, part-tourist trap always drew a huge mixed crowd. It was opened in 1934 at 267 Bowery (between East Houston and Stanton Streets) by Sammy Fuchs, who branded it as the Stork Club of the Bowery. He welcomed everyone from vaudeville acts to "Bowery bums"... or as the NY Times had put it, “drunks and swells, drifters and celebrities, the rich and the forgotten.”

"From 8 in the morning until 4 the next morning Sammy’s is an alcoholic haven for the derelicts whose presence has made the Bowery a universal symbol of poverty and futility. It is also a popular stopping point for prosperous people from uptown who like to see how the other half staggers." – LIFE Magazine, Dec. 4, 1944

Sammy’s Bowery Follies provided a home for burned out vaudeville acts that couldn't get booked anyplace else, and welcomed patrons who regularly passed out drunk on the premises. But it was raucous and fun—a place people could loosen their ties, let down their hair and sing along with popular show tunes of the day.

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Amazing Then and Now Pictures of Women From London's '80s Subcultures

In 1980, photographer Anita Corbin started taking pictures of young women in London's pubs and clubs, documenting the unseen lives of various subcultures. Over the course of nine months her project turned into a series, Visible Girls, that offered a glimpse into the worlds of punks, mods, skinheads, rastas, and rockers.

The Visible Girls' portraits toured the country in the 1980s and '90s, and the images stood out as rare pieces of social history, showing women from youth tribes in their natural environments. However, Corbin lost touch with the women themselves.

Then, in 2014, according to BuzzFeed, Corbin reconnecting with the visible girls – now all middle-aged women – and one by one they started to get in touch with her.

Corbin has now interviewed more than a third of them for an exhibition of new portraits and the original pictures. She is now in contact with 70% of the original women photographed, and plans to photograph more of them by the end of 2018.

Here, some of the women featured in the exhibition tell their stories in their own words:

Nicole and Sue, then also known as Quasi and Squasher, at the Royalty, Southgate, 1981, and in a bar in Slovenia in 2017

Sue Lenham (right): Nobody else was into rock 'n' roll when I was at school – it was too retro. My dad brought us up, which was unusual in the 1960s, and my family situation was challenging. I had to be independent and I think the [rocker] scene let me express myself.

I found out later that my dad had been an Edwardian [a particular type of teddy boy]. It turned out we had frequented the same haunts! Unknowingly, I followed in my dad’s footsteps. He had had a challenging upbringing too and was also very independent as a result. Maybe we both saw our subcultures as an escape.

In the early days, Nikki [Nicole] and me would sneak off to Mildenhall air base to practise our dance moves on their great wooden dance floors. The men there assumed we were gay because we danced together, which was good really because we didn’t want any of them bothering us whilst we were practicing.

Nikki has always been in my family of choice. I didn’t get on with my sister and Nikki had experienced considerable family problems, so we were both sort of orphans and became each other's family. I looked out for her.

When we reconnected for the new photograph… Jeez, after 20 years it only took five minutes to realise we were still sisters under the skin. It was bloody awesome.

Nicole Le Strange (left): I was 18 in this picture, it was 1981. I was a rockabilly – I loved the music, the clothes, the hairstyles, and the dancing. But also, it was my refuge. I experienced the most horrendously abusive childhood, so my subculture was a safe place for me: More than anything else, it was where I was accepted completely.

I grew up being told by my mother that I wasn’t good enough because I wasn’t a boy, because I was ugly, because I was too tall and too skinny. I remember her saying to me, 'If abortions had been legal when I’d got pregnant with you, you wouldn’t even be alive.'

Then I met the people who became my friends [in this rockabilly group] – Sue particularly – and they didn’t try to mould me. They didn’t want me to change. I felt like a superhero. The clothes I wore then certainly weren't a costume – I dressed like that all the time because I wanted to – but it sort of was my "superhero costume"; it was when my outward appearance truly reflected my inner feeling, and I was totally accepted for that.

I had never really liked this photo, but reflecting on it I realised suddenly one day it’s not about how I look, it’s about what that photograph means. There I am at such a hard time in my life, but I am with Sue, the only person in the entire universe who loved me unconditionally. With whom I could (and still can) be exactly who I want to be. Even into my early thirties, I remember watching the movie Thelma & Louise. There’s this one line, “You get what you settle for”, and I realised that until that point that had been my life.


Carrie and Gill in Crystal Palace, south London, in 1980 and 2017

Carrie Kirkpatrick (left): I got into punk first at the age of 12 and went really quite wild with it. It was this massive energy, a means of escape from difficult situations at home. I didn’t really know what punk meant, but I found it really empowering. Going to gigs and drinking and taking drugs was exciting, another identity that was much more me. I felt free.

I was in so deep with punk that I was getting into trouble with the police. At that point there was a whole skinhead revival, and Gill suggested we get into it. It was easier to be part of that scene, and we didn’t have any trouble any more because skinheads were somehow more structured by nature, not so wild. It was all more clipped, with smart clothes, perfect hair, and nails. Perhaps because of its working-class community roots, it was a lot more straight-as-a-die.

The politics at the time were dreadful. I lived in south London – I grew up surrounded by right-wing views and the reason for that was sociological. South London had seen a lot of immigration in certain areas and it was very much a "them and us" attitude. I spent a lot of time making sure I deprogrammed my conditioning around racism. In our skins group, we were conscious of it [racism] being all around, but actually our lot weren't really that bothered with it. I've become cautious of people who have never moved on from that time.

Gill Soper (right): It was good fun being a skin. It was rebellious and different. Between '78 and '79 there was so many [subcultures] to choose from: punk, disco, reggae, the mod revival, 2 Tone. And when you're young you're fickle and you latch on to the newest thing, which for us was being a skinhead. Everyone I knew was a punk one day – then shaving their head and wearing jeans and braces the next.

It was the clothes that drew me – well, if I’m honest, it was actually the fellas to start with. But closely followed by the clothes and the music and the attitude. It was a hard look – I wasn’t aggressive, but it was strong. When we all went out together it felt so good. We all had suits made. There were the shirts, the feather cuts, and the shoes. But I didn’t feel like the skins were my family. There was a sense of belonging I suppose, but it was more like an escape. I guess the clothes, the music, the scene, the group, it all offered life a bit of structure.

I was a punk originally, but I couldn’t go the whole hog with it because I was also into disco. If you turned up at a disco event with a blue mohican you wouldn’t be so welcome.


Linda and Susan outside Southgate tube station, 1981 and 2017

Susan Stecker (right): [My sister Linda and I] weren’t part of a subculture really. I was 16 then, too young then to be aware of what subcultures were. But we wouldn't have been scared of a punk or crossed the street if we saw some. I don’t remember ever being frightened or feeling intimidated by going up to London. I don’t think we were scared of very much really. The world seemed a less scary place back then – either that or it was the courage of youth!

There was quite a lot of us [in our social group], but I was still young and hadn't quite found out who I was and I liked all different sorts of things and it was probably just the start of going out for me.

We wore whatever was in fashion really – I think the sweatshirt I’m wearing was from Miss Selfridge but we also shopped at local boutiques. Going by what I am wearing in this picture, I wasn’t properly clubbing by then – it would have been something better than that horrible jacket!

A lot of the clubs would be playing disco but I also liked Spandau Ballet, Adam and the Ants, Heaven 17, David Bowie, so it was the start of, I suppose, the new romantic stuff. I had my own stereo with cassette and record player and lots of 12-inch singles.

Linda Robinson (left): I remember this photograph being taken but I only saw it for the first time over 30 years later when it was on Facebook. I was hysterical with laughter. I had to call Susan. We were like, "OH GOD HOW AWFUL WE LOOK!" My kids were wondering what on earth I was shrieking on the phone about at 7am.

In my teens, I loved having my photo taken – Southgate station had a photo booth so we would all crowd in there. I had an Instamatic – I was always at Boots getting pictures developed. If I took a photo that I didn’t like I ripped it up and no one would ever see it, but it’s different for my four daughters. I can see the stress they go through, looking at images of themselves on social media, worrying they don’t look good. If someone takes a photo of you now, it's out there forever.

We are Jewish so that was our scene. In our early teens we would hang out at McDonald’s, the Baskin Robbins in Golders Green; we would go to pubs, not drinking but hanging around outside. We’d go to Hampstead and meet at the Milk Churn for a salad or ice cream and hang out there all night, to meet new people, but boys mainly.

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15 Interesting Photographs That Capture Murals and Street Art of London From the Mid-1980s

In the 1980s there was a growth in the amount of murals and street art across London, a mix of decoration or serious and politically inspired.

These photos were taken in 1985 and 1986 and demonstrate not only considerable skill and effort but many also reflect the social and political concerns of the time. Some of these murals still exist, however they are now much faded. These photos show them shortly after completion with their detail and vibrant colors.

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