The legendary war photographer Larry Burrows would have turned 100 this week. So, too, Marilyn Monroe. Three photos of her, by Burrows, appear in the National Portrait Gallery show that opens in London next week. Burrows’s son, Russell (the husband of the late Barbara Baker Burrows, a longtime picture editor at LIFE), wrote this piece for us. With thanks to David Friend.
By Russell Burrows
She never went away, but this Spring we are surrounded by pictures of her –– Marilyn Monroe would have been 100 on the first of June.
She was captured by every influential photographer of her day, but there are still some surprises. Larry Burrows, my father, is among them.
Burrows, who went on to become perhaps the signature photographer of the Vietnam War, was assigned by LIFE magazine in 1956 to record the British reaction to Monroe when she arrived in London with playwright Arthur MIller to star alongside Laurence Olivier in the film The Prince and the Showgirl. Several of Burrows’ photographs from her time in the UK will be on show at the National Portrait Gallery in London when it opens its Marilyn Monroe summer exhibit next week : https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2026/marilyn-monroe-a-portrait]
In Suez, Lebanon, and the Congo, Burrows covered conflict before spending nine years in Vietnam. But for 25 years, he also photographed actors, authors, artists, and politicians.
He died, along with fellow photographers Henri Huet, Kent Potter, and Keisaburo Shimamoto, when their helicopter was shot down over Laos on February 10, 1971.
Larry Burrows was born in London on May 29, 1926. This would be his 100th birthday too.
Russell Burrows
