Biography Captures The Charisma And Confidence Of Photographer Inge Morath

"'I'm fascinated by the necessity of quick decisions,"' Inge Morath told me more than 30 years ago, when she came to NPR for an interview. Morath was in the business of quick decisions — as a photographer and photojournalist she was the first woman to be accepted as a full member of the Magnum photo agency."

"Now, her life is the subject of a new biography by Linda Gordon. It recounts Morath's escape from Nazi Germany, her boundary-breaking career, and her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller."

Morath met Miller — and his then-wife Marilyn Monroe — in 1960 while she was taking publicity stills on the set of the film The Misfits. It was Monroe's last film, and Miller had written it for his wife.

"'Inge took some very, very beautiful and sympathetic photographs of Marilyn Monroe,' Gordon says. 'But Miller had struck her as intensely interesting — and he was quite impressed," Gordon says."

"Miller and Monroe's relationship had been on the rocks for some time. He and Morath had an affair and the two married in 1962. They were together for 40 years, until Inge's death in 2002."