Joshua John Miller, Grandson of Bruno Bernard and Chairman of the Bernard of Hollywood brand, spoke at the Forever Marilyn unveiling in downtown Palm Springs on June 20, 2021. This is his story of how his famous grandfather, Bruno Bernard, helped launch the career of Marilyn Monroe.
Joshua John Miller
Bruno Bernard (February 2, 1912 – June 3, 1987), also known as Bernard of Hollywood, was an American photographer best known for the glamour photography of Marilyn Monroe and others.
It Began with Photographer Bruno Bernard
My grandfather, Bruno Bernard, known as Bernard of Hollywood, met Marilyn in Los Angeles one day as he was leaving a dental appointment. They struck up a conversation and became fast friends. They were strangers in a strange world, Hollywood in the 1940s. My grandfather was a refugee from Berlin during the Nazi occupation and Marilyn, Norma Jean, was an orphan who bounced around foster homes her whole childhood. They immediately forged a friendship for the rest of their lives.
Where my grandfather was already on the rise as one of the top glamor photographers in the business, with photo studios on Sunset Boulevard, and even here on Palm Canyon, Marilyn was still struggling for a break, having only scored bit parts thanks to a contract with Fox that was running out and not being renewed. Marilyn wondered to my grandfather one afternoon whether she should throw in the towel. But my grandfather convinced her; he said, “Let’s go to Palm Springs.” There was a place called the Palm Springs Racquet Club.
Marilyn at Palm Springs Racquet Club
If you don’t know what it was, it was sort of the Studio 54 of the 1940s and 50s. He was the only photographer allowed on the grounds of the Racquet Club at the time, and he took a picture of every Golden Age star that would stay there. He also kept all their secrets, so they trusted him with their photos. When he brought Marilyn into the Palm Springs Racquet Club, she felt as if this moment would change the rest of her life.
New Year's Eve - 1948
It was New Year’s Eve, 1948, and he brought her to a New Year’s Eve bash. He introduced her to a gentleman named Johnny Hyde, who happened to be the President of the William Morris Agency (which represented some of the biggest names in Hollywood). Well, he fell in love with Marilyn, and Marilyn fell in love with him, and he basically constructed with Marilyn… But people must understand that Marilyn wasn’t built by the studio. She built the studio. He created her image. She created the dream that other people, white, black, green, orange, any gender, could be anything that anyone wants to be if they go after it. That’s what Marilyn represented and what my mother, Susan Bernard, who carried my grandfather’s legacy, always taught me.
As a member of the LGBTQ community, I’ve always been inspired by Marilyn’s moxie and determination to make a stand in the world as an artist and as a woman.
Marilyn was a woman who, when Ella Fitzgerald performed at a nightclub, no one would see her in the early days. Marilyn said if I go to the nightclub every night, will the press come and cover this exceptional African American singer? She helped put Ella on the map!
That Iconic Picture
Over the years, when Marilyn rocketed to fame, she and my grandfather remained good friends. The relationship leading to the iconic picture inspired the statue before us today. The Seven Year Itch, a movie Marilyn was shooting, was doing reshoots on the Fox lot. Unfortunately, there were two reasons it had to be reshot. Her husband, Joe DiMaggio, was unhappy she was letting her skirt fly in the wind. But Marilyn, being Marilyn, does what Marilyn wants to do. So she did 50 takes.
Later, they reconstructed the whole set for the Seven Year Itch on the Twentieth Century Fox lot. My grandfather was invited to join her and was the only photographer allowed on the set. This time, the effect worked. When the breeze made Marilyn’s skirt go flying, he laughed, and my grandfather snapped the picture that would cement her as a star and a legend.
That night, she told my grandfather that she would never forget that she had become Marilyn partly because of his support and belief in her and Palm Springs.
Her words to my grandfather were, “It all started with you.”
So, in many ways, Marilyn started here in Palm Springs. So she should be back again.”
Welcome Home Forever, Marilyn.
