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Marilyn Monroe’s birth centenary lands alongside the 70th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s first album and first film. These milestone dates are the perfect excuse for the Centro Cultural de Cascais to host “Becoming Marilyn & Becoming Elvis”, an exhibition presenting the superstars in their youth, shortly before fame struck.
The photographs in this show, from the prestigious American MUUS Collection, are by André de Dienes and Alfred Wertheimer, who captured, respectively, the cinema diva and the king of rock ’n’ roll on the threshold of stardom. They can be seen from 16 May until 6 September. Before that, a film season dedicated to Marilyn Monroe will be screened at the Carlos Avilez Auditorium of the Estoril Arts Academy and at the Estoril Casino Auditorium. It runs from 12 to 17 May and includes films such as The Seven Year Itch (1955), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Misfits (1961).
Love Me Tender
It was in 1956 that Elvis Presley’s (1935-1977) first record, Elvis Presley, was released, along with his first film, Love Me Tender, making it also a year rich in historic television appearances by the American artist.
The “Becoming Elvis” section of the new exhibition at the Centro Cultural de Cascais reconstructs, through the lens of Alfred Wertheimer (1929-2014), two weeks in the life of the young Elvis, then just 21 years old: the journeys between Memphis and New York, the romantic encounters and the backstage moments of his first television appearances on the programme Stage Show.
Despite the dizzying speed of his rise, Wertheimer managed to capture more than 2,500 photographs of rare intimacy, a human portrait that fame would make impossible just a few months later.
From Norma Jean to Marilyn Monroe
Meanwhile, the section dedicated to Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) revisits the images André de Dienes (1913-1985) captured over the course of a decade around Norma Jeane Baker: from their first meeting in November 1945, when she was just 19 years old and an unknown model — she didn’t yet even have platinum blonde hair — to the night-time sessions during years of insomnia and depression, when the actress’s vulnerability was already clearly visible.
Ahead of the exhibition, the Fundação D. Luís I presents a film season dedicated to Marilyn Monroe, concluding on 17 May at the Estoril Casino Auditorium with a two-part screening of The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe (2015), by Laurie Collyer. The screening will feature a special appearance by actress Kelli Garner, who plays Marilyn in the film and who will also attend the exhibition opening.
In September, it will be Elvis’s turn to receive a film season in Cascais. We’ll be waiting for it.
“Becoming Marilyn & Becoming Elvis – Photographs from the MUUS Collection”, Centro Cultural de Cascais, Avenida Rei Humberto II de Itália, 16 (Cascais). 16 May-6 Sept. Tue-Sun 10.00AM-6.00PM. €5