They were taken before Marilyn Monroe became branded as the voluptuous blonde who oozed sex appeal in dozens of Hollywood films. They were taken before rumours of an affair with President John F. Kennedy swirled and her mental breakdowns became public. They were taken before the beautiful actress’ mysterious overdose that resulted in her death at the age of 36.
“I was amazed looking at her face. Although she looks very innocent, there is something very … sexy.”
Upon investigating the photos, Walton says, she found there were few notes left on the negatives. She says the photos were probably taken for a cover shoot that were never used. Monroe appeared on her first Life magazine cover in 1952.
At the time the photos were shot, Monroe had her first small breakout role as a mistress in The Asphalt Jungle. The star was better known as a model at the time, though she’d had a handful of cameos in films.
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.”
Photographs later in the 1950s and early 1960s would display a much more confident and sexual Monroe — images that would become iconic in popular culture.
There is the famous photograph of a busty Monroe in a white halter dress, standing with her skirt blowing up in 1955 for her role in The Seven Year Itch. In 1962, American photographer Bert Stern shot a tipsy, sometimes nude Monroe in a series of delicate shots that would be known as The Last Sitting. Monroe died about six weeks later, on August 5, 1962.
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.
From time to time, unpublished photographs will be found that the company doesn’t know existed. Other times, the photographs may have been taken but never selected to be used for publication.
Last March, to commemorate the 11th anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s death, Life.com released a series of unpublished photographs of the singer. In April, Life.com released newly recovered, never-before-seen photographs of Martin Luther King Jr. taken by a Life photographer on the day King was assassinated at a Memphis, Tennessee, hotel in 1968.