Unpublished Photos of Marilyn Monroe
Today would have been Marilyn Monroe's 83rd birthday. So in memory of the of the iconic blonde bombshell, here are some never before seen photos of Marilyn before she became famous.These unpublished photos of Marilyn, discovered by Life.com last month, are of a softer, more innocent 24-year-old woman who has yet peaked to fame.
It's a side of Monroe that the American public has rarely seen.
"She hasn't really exploded as a star, yet she was on the brink of something big," says Dawnie Walton, deputy editor at Life.com, a Web site harboring more than 7 million Life magazine photographs. The site was launched in March.
"I was amazed looking at her face. Although she looks very innocent, there is something very ... sexy."
Photographer Ed Clark told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune a friend from 20th Century Fox alerted him that the studio had just signed "a hot tomato."
"She was unknown then, so I was able to spend a lot of time shooting her," Clark said. "We'd go out to Griffith Park and she'd read poetry. I sent several rolls to Life in New York, but they wired back, 'Who the hell is Marilyn Monroe?'"
Life.com staff members say there are 15 million photographs in the Life archive dating back to the late 1850s, even before Life officially began publishing in 1936. Two years ago, the publication began slowly transferring the photographs into a digital archive.
To read more click here. To see more photos of Marilyn, go to Life.com.
