During the previous decade she had become the most famous woman in the world. Apart from films, she sang provocatively (once for JFK), was endlessly photographed (she was on the cover of the first Playboy) and married and divorced two famous men.

This is the 100th anniversary of the actress’s birth and new books testify to her legendary status. The luscious Marilyn: The Lost Photographs, The Last Interview (WeldonOwen, £40) showcases an encounter in July 1962 when photographer Allan Grant and writer Richard Meryman met Marilyn in her Hollywood home (the photo essay appeared in Life magazine two days before she died). Photographed in heels, capri pants and a loose top. She was never lovelier.

Monroe was at a point in her life when she was seeking out serious roles rather than the frivolous fluff so often offered her. In many of the photos we see Marilyn in full beam; the Hollywood smile and heavy-lidded eyes. In others there’s the real Marilyn – the sad, searching woman so often abused by men – her mask fallen.

Hollywood stereotyped Monroe as the ultimate dim blonde, a little girl trapped in a woman’s body. But she was also a striver. She enrolled in the Actors Studio in New York, constantly battling against her image. The idea of the bimbo wanting to play Chekov or reading James Joyce was enormous fun for the men who so belittled her.

In truth, MM was a great reader. In Marilyn and Her Books (Little, Brown, £20) Gail Crowther looks at the poetry, fiction and self-help guides that furnished her bookshelves. In 1999 Christie’s auctioned the star’s belongings and a huge number of books was listed in the catalogue. Marilyn was nothing if not eclectic. There’s Kerouac’s On the Road and Gibran’s The Prophet, books by Hemingway and Freud. The sale raised $600,000 for an organisation promoting adult literacy.

‘[Marilyn’s] intelligent and lively mind, and her ambition, courage and humour came from her reading,’ writes Gail Crowther. ‘Marilyn’s books reveal more to us about her than just about anything else.’

The year Marilyn died the Beatles held their first recording session at EMI’s Abbey Road studios. Two years later on 2 March 1964 shooting began on the band’s first (and arguably best) film A Hard Day’s Night.

Playing themselves in mockumentary style the movie’s full of irreverent Scouse banter. No longer just pop stars they were well on the road to national treasure status.

The film is now the subject of a BFI Film Classics book (Bloomsbury £12.99) perceptively written by broadcaster Samira Ahmed. Directed by Dick Lester the film follows the Beatles escaping hoards of screaming fans; giving cheek to bowler-hatted and toffee-nosed train commuters; in the TV studio (Lester cut his teeth in TV); and performing songs including ‘All My Loving’ and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’. Ahmed compares the film to ‘an exhumed thing, like Tutankhamun’s tomb, but still alive, fizzing with energy.’

The changes of the early-60s didn’t benefit Hollywood’s pop-resistant Old Guard. Alfred Hitchcock had a huge success when he reinvented the horror movie with Psycho (1960) but by ’62 he was in the doldrums. Hitch was losing his sparkle.

In Fashioning Hitchcock (Bloomsbury, £30) Caroline Young looks at how Hitch dressed his stars. The director was often seen as having an almost fetishistic interest in the actresses who played his icy, blonde heroines. In Vertigo (1958) – often seen as his best film, and one of the finest movies ever made – the hero (Jimmy Stewart) has an obsession with a woman (Kim Novak). After he thinks she has died he tries to get another woman to dress and act like the first. ‘By studying the clothes of [Hitchcock’s] films, we have a deeper insight into the motivation of his characters, the complexity of the story and of Hitchcock’s inner world,’ writes Young.

Hitch was a bon vivant: he loved food and travel and cigars… and beautiful women like Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint and Ingrid Bergman. Many of his films have production design and wardrobe choices that make them a joy to watch over and over again.

Bluesky: @kenwilson84.bsky.social

Samira Ahmed talks about A Hard Day’s Night at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 22 August 2026. Psycho: the film with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra playing Bernard Hermann’s soundtrack live is on 1 November 2026 at Glasgow City Halls.