Marilyn Monroe's original photos without retouching
Today he is one of the great legends of Hollywood history, but it was not always like that. Norma Jean Mortenson's beginnings in the industry were not easy. As she tried to get her career off the ground, the actress cheated from job to job, until she reached Tom Kelly's doorstep ...
She was in 1949. In exchange for $ 50 (at the current rate it would be about $ 500), the budding star undressed before the lens of photographer Tom Kelly. With what she did not count the sweet norm was with her that a few years later she would be one of the most sought-after actress in the industry under the name of Marilyn Monroe.
With Marilyn already at the top, 20th Century Fox insisted on convincing the actress to deny being the girl in those photos. An embarrassed Marilyn admitted to being the woman from the Golden Dream calendar and that the shame that she had generated in her after her had led her to ask Tom Kelly to retouch the images as much as possible to prevent anyone from recognizing her in her posing .
Now, more than 65 years later, the original, unretouched photographs from that shoot have seen the light of day. The online gallery Limited Runs has published some images that we bring you from the hand of Esquire. This was the most natural Marilyn Monroe.
They discover images of the first nude of Marilyn Monroe (and Hollywood)
It's a scene from "The Misfits" that never saw the light.
New images of Marilyn Monroe naked were discovered more than 50 years after they were shot during the filming of the 1960 film "The Misfits" that starred the American icon alongside Clark Gable.
In the sequence, which was removed from the final version of the film and thought to have been destroyed, Monroe drops the sheet covering her body after a romantic scene with Gable in what would have been the first nude of an American actress. in a feature film.
More than half a century after being captured, the writer Charles Casillo reveals in the book "Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon" (Marilyn Mornoe: The private life of a Public Icon) that the tape with the images, which were considered too daring, it was never destroyed.
The play discovers that Frank Taylor, one of the film's producers, kept the images of Monroe naked, which were later handed over to Curtice Taylor, the producer's son.
"A lot of times, unused takes were destroyed. But Frank Taylor believed they were so important and innovative that he kept them," explains Curtice Taylor in Casillo's book.
"The Misfits" was the last feature film for both Marilyn Monroe, who died the following year from an overdose of sleeping pills, and Clark Gable, who died days after filming ended after a heart attack.
Until now, it had been thought that the only nude of the actress had taken place in her last tape "Something's gotta give" (Something's gotta give), which was never completed.
The images of Monroe's nude, with sound, last about 45 seconds, make up a more natural scene than the one that was finally included in the final version of the film, says Curtice Taylor.
"Why would a woman who is sitting on a bed cover herself with a sheet, when there is no one in the room, while she tries to put on a blouse at the same time? It doesn't make sense," explains the producer's son.
