Returning from an exhibition opening shortly after her husband’s death, Françoise Kirkland does not weep—she opens the archives. “I realized that the reason for my despair was not just missing Douglas, but the overwhelming realization that he would no longer take pictures,” she writes.
“Douglas’ pictures have this warmth and humanity. They have romance—not per se love, so much as romanticism, as kind of a heightened emotional experience,” observe filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and his wife Catherine Martin, who knew the Canadian photographer well before his death in Los Angeles in 2022.
Leafing through the volume, one discovers Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton entwined in Paris in 1964. Their faces so close one can sense their mingled breath—he, his gaze magnetized toward her; she, eyelids closed, surrendered. This image of volcanic passion, almost blush-inducing, was chosen for the book’s cover.
Further on, Marilyn Monroe appears reclining in white sheets. To photograph the star at her zenith in 1961 during the filming of An Evening with Marilyn Monroe, the photographer positioned himself on the floor, slightly below her, creating an upward angle. From this series of 55 photographs for Look Magazine, which made him famous, emanates a surprising tenderness. Trained in Irving Penn’s studio, Douglas Kirkland understood that photographic genius resided in simplicity.
When he prepared the session with Marilyn in 1961, she only required “a bed with white silk sheets.” Françoise Kirkland fully embraces the erotic subjectivity of these images.”The erotic tension that sparks desire is something physical—yes, very physical—and yet also mental,” she affirms frankly. “Watching my lover like a voyeur, knowing he is not aware, lusting and admiring him for doing what he does with passion, takes my breath away.”
The book thus unfolds its sentimental vocabulary. We see Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio embracing on the set of Titanic, but also Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor dancing before a studio Eiffel Tower for Moulin Rouge!, and Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in Beverly Hills in 1980, radiating complicity.
Co-editor Sarah Menahem describes the collection as a “joyful dictionary of love.” One of the book’s most amusing photographs is probably that of Peter Sellers aiming his camera at Britt Ekland from a cherry-red Fiat 500 in front of the Colosseum. The two actors, then married, were filming Paparazzo in Rome in 1965—he a passionate amateur photographer, she a willing muse zipping by on a scooter.
Another, equally striking, shows Tom Hanks carrying Daryl Hannah dressed as a mermaid with pearlescent scales for the film Splash. Yet another features Grace Jones, body painted by Keith Haring, emerging from the studio like a nocturnal deity. One photograph particularly amuses Françoise: a self-portrait taken in Paris in 1972. “We were working on a story for a magazine on L’Hôtel in Paris which was the old Oscar Wilde Hotel that had been refurbished into a very trendy place in the early 70’s.”
The camera sits at the foot of the bed, the remote hidden beneath the sheets. “Douglas was very big on selfies before the term ever existed,” she recounts. The scene is simultaneously playful and startling in its intimacy. “It is a sweet memory.” When asked whether Douglas truly photographed her every morning, as legend has it, she demurs with humor: “If Douglas had actually photographed me every morning since we met, it would amount to approximately 20,759 photographs.”
Could these images be incorporated into her next project, “Muse,” dedicated to women photographed by Douglas? “Of course I have kept all the photos he took of me, but I doubt that the world is eagerly waiting to see them.” Meanwhile, Romance closes with what Françoise Kirkland describes as “the willingness to surrender with complete abandon. To feel wild, reckless, with a heart full of contradictions, full of love, is a state of grace.”
Her book never looks backward. It celebrates love in the eternal present. “Plein les yeux. Plein la tête. Plein le cœur. Plein le corps.”
Romance, by Françoise Kirkland and Sarah Menahem, with photographs by Douglas Kirkland, is published by Damiani and available for €50.
