Lawrence Schiller

The ubiquitous Lawrence Schiller was born in 1936 in Brooklyn, and grew up in San Diego. After graduating from Pepperdine College, he went to work for Life magazine and the Saturday Evening Post as a photojournalist. His photographic abilities, both technical and artistic, laid the foundation for what has become nothing less than an astonishing career.

Schiller first made his name by photographing popular culture icons such as Sophia Loren, Richard Nixon, Timothy Leary, O.J. Simpson, James Earl Jones, Barbara Streisand, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Joe DiMaggio, and Clint Eastwood, just to name a few.

He moved easily through contrasting public worlds, developing stories for Life magazine while shooting nude photographs for Hugh Heffner and Playboy magazine. Schiller was always at the forefront, and always at the right place at the right time, experiencing historical events and developing relationships that would launch his career onto a path of success in a variety of mediums.

He published his first book, LSD, in 1966. Since then he has published eleven books, including W. Eugene Smith's Minamata and Norman Mailer's Marilyn. He collaborated with Albert Goldman on Ladies and Gentleman, Lenny Bruce and with Norman Mailer on The Executioner's Song and Oswald's Tale. He has directed seven motion pictures and mini-series for television.

From 1996 through 2002, Mr. Schiller published four books that became national bestsellers: American Tragedy, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Into the Mirror, and Cape May Court House. All made the New York Times Bestseller List. American Tragedy, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town and Into the Mirror were made into television mini-series for CBS. Mr. Schiller produced and directed each of the motion pictures.

Other motion picture credits are: Double Jeopardy, The Plot to Kill Hitler, The Executioner's Song, Peter the Great, Murder: By Reason of Insanity, Her Life As a Man, The Patricia Neal Story, Child Bride of Short Creek, Marilyn, The Untold Story, The Winds of Kitty Hawk, Hey, I'm Alive, The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, and The Man Who Skied Down Everest.

Lawrence Schiller's projects have won countless awards, including seven Emmys and an Oscar for his work over the years. He is a consultant to NBC News and has recently written for The New Yorker and George magazines.

Schiller's haunting and beautiful portfolio of photographs of Marilyn Monroe is from the last professional photo session of the sex goddess, while making Something's Got to Give in 1962. She was fired from the movie and was dead two months later. Almost a half a century has passed since May 1962, and still these astonishing, daring, and beautifully crafted photographs—never available as limited editions, until now—continue to captivate and enthrall us.

His collection of images chronicling America in the 1960s is an important document of our time. With daring forthrightness, a decade of turmoil, creativity and entertainment is unrolled before our eyes. Schiller's uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time, affords us the privilege of surveying all of this history, captured with succinct and powerful images that have defined and continue to define the national conversation.