She didn't own a camera until she was around thirty-four. That wasn't a deadline, it was her starting line: she became the photographer Marilyn Monroe trusted more than any other on earth.

In 1952, a small, quiet photographer spent all night photographing Marlene Dietrich. No studio lights, no retouching. A young actress saw those pictures and said: if you could do that with her, just imagine what you could do with me. That was Marilyn Monroe. The photographer was Eve Arnold, William Eggleston's mirror: he was born with everything; she was a rabbi's daughter on a film-developing assembly line when someone gave her a Rolleicord. Her only training was six weeks of night classes, where the great man ridiculed her first attempt. Almost everyone goes home at that point. Eve Arnold went to Harlem.

Her spine is the Joan Crawford sto ...