Golden girl

Eighteen-year-old Norma Jean Dougherty was working on the assembly line at the Radioplane drone factory in California during World War II when her life changed. When everyone’s lives changed.

Just 18, and with a smile that could stop traffic, she was spotted by photographer David Conover as he took images of women working on the USA’s assembly lines for a magazine article. While her picture wasn’t used, Conover encouraged Norma Jean to become a model. Lucky for her – and tens of millions of fans – she took him up on it. From there came a career as a pin-up before a move into film, and worldwide, never-before-seen superstardom.

One hundred years after her birth, a new photo book, Marilyn Monroe 100 celebrates the most famous woman of the American Century – and it’s every bit as gorgeous as she was. There are the early modelling shots of Marilyn (she changed her name in 1946) – where she artfully poses in a selection of revealing shots; Hollywood images in which she goes from girl next door to platinum-blonde goddess, and finally her later years: the fragile, insecure icon looking for affirmation and direction.

As the book says: “Monroe knew how to be photographed; she had the rare ability to seem, at least in still photographs, both completely spontaneous and also incredibly deliberate. Her pictures, even at their most naturalistic, hum with subtle effort.”

“Monroe knew how to be photographed”

What the book does so well is talk about Marilyn’s perfectionism. Her appeal wasn’t down solely to her looks, but her character – and how she could project it. While she’d started as a model, she became obsessed with acting, and went to the Actors Studio in New York to improve her technique – stealing the show in films like Some Like it Hot, The Seven Year Itch and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. “I want to do the best that I can do at that moment when the camera starts until it stops,” she said. “At that moment, I want to be perfect. As perfect as I can make it.”

As this book demonstrates so beautifully, she more than succeeded.