January 5, 1950 Shooting of The Fireball, in which she plays Polly, a roller-skating groupie, begins.
Publicity still for The Asphalt Jungle, 1950, probably photographed by Frank Powolny. The Asphalt Jungle, directed by John Huston, piqued the curiosity of a broad public about Marilyn Monroe. Her role as the young lover of an aging gangster gave rise to a question that spread like wildfire: “Who’s the blonde?”
Publicity shot by Frank Powolny, 1950. in a dress for All About Eve. In this Oscar-winning film, starring Bette I )avis, Anne Baxter, and George Sanders, Johnny Hyde had managed to get Marilyn a small role. The critics were very impressed with her performance. Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, and certainly no great fan of Marilyn’s, gave her another contract as a result.
June 1950 The premiere of John Huston’s Asphalt Jungle takes place. This film is the story of an aging gangster (Sam Jaffe) who, just released from prison, looks for a new gang for his last coup. Marilyn plays Angela Phinlay, the blonde, youthful lover of the gangster. The Asphalt Jungle is her first demanding script. In the same year Marilyn has a memorable part in the Academy Award-winning All About Eve. The public finally takes notice of Marilyn Monroe and admires her, and Hollywood producers present her with better offers.
Photograph by Ed Clark for Life. After her small roles in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Etc. the press begins to celebrate Marilyn’s erotic aura.
December 10, 1950 Johnny Hyde negotiates a seven-year contract for Marilyn with 20th Century-Fox.
Publicity still in a costume from The Asphalt Jungle.
December 18, 1950 Johnny Hyde dies. Shortly thereafter, while filming As Young As You Feel at 20th Century-Fox, Marilyn meets two more influential men: Elia Kazan, one of the most distinguished stage and film directors; and Arthur Miller, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.
Publicity still for the film Hometown Story, 1951.
April 18, 1951 Shooting begins for Love Nest, the second production under Marilyn’s new contract and one of the numerous films that called for a well-proportioned blonde. In this fairly mediocre movie, Marilyn plays Roberta Stevens, an ex-WAC. The premiere is held on October 10, 1951.
Besides her films, an almost endless number of pinup photographs for publicity purposes were taken of Marilyn. They built on her image as a glamour girl.
September 8, 1951 The first full-page feature about Marilyn appears in Collier’s. Further cover stories in Lookand Life follow.
The accessories were always the same: high-heeled shoes, T-shirts or bathing suits, and, in this case, even a potato sack. These are two publicity stills from about 1952.
Marilyn’s hairstyle in 1952 is youthful and modern. She plays with Barbara Stanwyck in Fritz Lang’s Clash by Night. Irene Thirer writes in the New York Post: “That gorgeous example of bathing beauty art, Marilyn Monroe, is a real acting threat to the season’s screen blondes.”
March 13, 1952 The story of the nude calendar photos surfaces, and the public recognizes the connection between the new film star and the pinups that hung in many garages and barbershops. Marilyn, after many tears, refuses to deny that she made the photos. She pleads that they were taken when she was penniless so that she could pay for food and rent: “I was hungry,” she tells reporters. Her touching story quickly turns the scandal into a gigantic publicity success. Later, in December 1953, a picture from the series appears on the cover of the newly founded Playboy.
In the film We’re Not Married Marilyn appears as Annabel Norris, the winner of a beauty contest for Mrs. Mississippi. When the truth comes out that she is not legally married to her husband, Jeff (David Wayne), she then takes part in the Miss Mississippi contest and wins it. The comedy concludes with a second, this time legal, marriage.
June 1, 1952 On Marilyn’s twenty-sixth birthday, she is told that she has been given the coveted role of Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, one of the most important musicals of the fifties.
Publicity still from 1952. This shows Marilyn at the provisional end of the bikini era in a luxurious nightgown.
Publicity still for Don’t Bother to Knock, Marilyn’s sixteenth film. In this film she had her first dramatic leading role, that of a psychotic baby-sitter, costarring with Richard Widmark. The role was particularly difficult for her, having up to that time played only sexy blondes. The reaction of the critics was mixed.
Marilyn as a vamp. Publicity still by Frank Powolny, 1953.
Marilyn arriving at a film premiere in Hollywood. Unknown photographer, about 1952.
September 2, 1952 M.M. is the “Grand Marshal” for the Miss America contest.
Color portrait as a vamp in a fluffy fur stole, about 1952.
Publicity shot by Frank Powolny, 1952.
Of all the Marilyn photographs, it was this portrait by Frank Powolny that immortalized her. Andy Warhol chose this picture as the basis for his famous silk-screen series. One version of this print on a red background (in a relatively small format, 101 x 101 cm, on canvas) was recently sold at a New York auction for the astronomical sum of $3.8 million.
Through Philippe Halsman’s famous series of 1952, Marilyn Monroe made it to the cover of Life for the first time. Photographing the twenty-six-year-old Marilyn with half-closed eyes and slightly parted lips, Halsman made her into a sex goddess. He described the situation: “Finally I asked her to stand in the corner of the room. I was facing her with my camera, the Life reporter and assistant at my side. Marilyn was cornered and she flirted with all three of us, and the photograph eventually made the cover of Life. The cover gave her the status of a star. . . .” The pictures on the left are contact prints of the series.
Glamour photo in a lace negligee by Bernard of Hollywood, 1952. Marilyn in a negligee, eyes closed, in her apartment in a suburb of Los Angeles, 1952. Philippe Halsman, traveling for Life at the time, remarked on the furnishings: “What impressed me in its shabby living room was the obvious striving for self-improvement of the alleged dumb blonde. I saw a photograph of Eleonora Duse and a multitude of books which I did not expect there either, such as the works of Dostoyevski, Freud, The History of Fabian Socialism, etc.”
Philippe Halsman continued: “On the floor were two barbells. ‘Are you using them?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’m fighting gravity.’ ” Photograph by Philippe Halsman, 1952.
Photograph by Philippe Halsman, 1952, on the same occasion. Halsman: “Later, between two interminable dress changes, she appeared in a semitransparent negligee and I complimented her for not needing a bra. ‘But, Philippe,’ she explained, ‘I told you that I was fighting gravity.’ ”
This photo was also taken in 1952, also for Life, by Alfred Eisenstaedt.
Marilyn reading James Joyce’s Ulysses. Photograph by Eve Arnold, about 1952.
In 1952 bandleader Ray Anthony composed and arranged a song entitled “Marilyn.” For the presentation of the song at a press conference in Hollywood, Marilyn was flown in by helicopter. Photographs by Bob Willoughby.
October 4, 1952 An alleged, but somewhat uncertain, marriage to Robert Slatzer, an Ohio journalist, takes place in Tijuana, Mexico, marriage and divorce haven. According to rumors, the marriage lasts for three days. 20th Century-Fox insists on an immediate annulment. In the closing weeks of 1952 filming begins on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The movie is a smashing success for Marilyn in 1953—the same year in which she achieves stardom in Niagara.
Marilyn in an ice-cream parlor in Beverly Hills, 1953. Photograph by Andre de Dianas.
The color portrait is from Bernard of Hollywood.
June 26, 1953 M.M. and Jane Russell (costar of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) kneel on the sidewalk in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Hollywood’s famous movie palace, in order to place for all time their handprints and their footprints in cement. Finally, they carve their names next to the imprints to the cheers of the surrounding crowd. Marilyn stresses the preeminence of her role in the movie: “It is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,and I am the blonde.” In the movie she sings the classic “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”
Two publicity stills for Niagara, 1953. Rarely in any film has an actress been so beautifully directed and photographed as Marilyn was by director Henry Hathaway and cameraman Joe MacDonald.
Marilyn Monroe during the shooting of Niagara; on the left is the actor Dale Robertson. Publicity still for Niagara. The movie, filmed in Technicolor, received glowing reviews. The New York Timeswrote: “Obviously ignoring the idea that there are seven wonders of the world, 20th Century-Fox has discovered two more and enhanced them with Technicolor in Niagara, which descended on the Roxy yesterday. For the producers are making full use of both the grandeur of the Falls and its adjacent areas as well as the grandeur that is Marilyn Monroe.”
September 13, 1953 Marilyn makes her first TV appearance, on the Jack Benny show.
Publicity stills for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the film most people associate Marilyn Monroe with. Although she was paid the mini-stipend of $1500 a week, whereas costar Jane Russell received several times that amount, Marilyn remained self-assured: “It is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and I am the blonde.”
Ronald Reagan, who as an army officer unwittingly had advanced Marilyn’s career with his commission to David Conover in 1945, meets the star at a Hollywood banquet. Photograph by Bernard of Hollywood, about 1953.
October 1953 Marilyn meets photographer Milton H. Greene at a party given for Gene Kelly. In the coming years Greene helps free her from the strictures of her contract with 20th Century-Fox. She signs a recording contract with RCA.
The photographer John Florea took this picture of Marilyn Monroe during the shooting of How to Marry a Millionaire, 1953. It is in the 20th Century-Fox Portrait Gallery.
Publicity still for How to Marry a Millionaire, 1953. Photograph by Bert Reisfeld.
Marilyn in a particularly seductive pose, taken by John Florea, 1953.
November 4, 1953 Premiere of How to Marry a Millionaire. Three women—M.M. as Pola Debevoise, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable—rent an exclusive apartment in New York and try to land a trio of millionaires. This successful comedy enhances Marilyn’s fame as a star and ranks with the success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
During the shooting of How to Marry a Millionaire, 1953.
At the premiere of How to Marry a Millionaire, with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, 1953. The film, which followed immediately on the success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, considerably advanced Maril3ni’s fame as a star. In the ads for the film, Marilyn was listed before Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall.
Publicity still for How to Marry a Millionaire.
In the spring of 1953 Marilyn Monroe received Photoplay magazine’s plaque for “the fastest rising star of 1952”. For the award ceremony she borrowed this spectacular gold lame gown that designer Bill Trevilla had created for Gentlemen Trefer Blondes and that literally became Marilyn’s own. After the ceremony, for which she appared two hours later, her hip-swinging departure was so provocative that pandomonium broke out in the audience.
December 15, 1953 Shooting for The Girl in Pink Tights begins, after Darryl Zanuck refuses her the leading role in The Egyptian. Frank Sinatra takes on the leading male role. Although Marilyn is the greater box-office attraction, Sinatra receives $5,000 a week to Marilyn’s $1,500, a result of her seven-year contract. M.M. protests by not showing up and is suspended by 20th Century-Fox on January 4, 1954.
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