“The scene was President Kennedy’s forty-fifth birthday bash at Madison Square Garden, and Life photographer Bill Ray wanted to find a unique angle. He surreptitiously broke away from the police-cordoned press pod and climbed up above the stage. When Marilyn Monroe walked into the spotlight to sing her now-famous rendition of “Happy Birthday,” Ray had a perspective nobody else got, above and behind the sparkly dressed star. It was just one of hundreds of singular images made by the photographer, a sampling of which opens in a newly curated exhibit at Monroe Gallery of Photography on Friday, Nov. 28.”
