Marilyn appears in the March issue of UK nostalgia magazine Yours Retro (#85) as part of a 3-page feature, ‘Headturners’, exploring how Hollywood starlets were transformed into screen goddesses by teams of hairdressers and makeup artists.
David Conover’s 1944 photo of an 18-year-old Norma Jeane Dougherty on duty at the Radioplane munitions plant is contrasted with a 1952 glamour shot by Frank Livia, showing the Monroe allure in full effect. Her ‘discovery’ by Conover led to more modelling shots and a contract with the Blue Book Modelling Agency, headed by Emmeline Snively, who taught her to lower her top lip when she smiled.
With her shapely figure, Norma Jeane was more suited to pin-ups than fashion work, and by 1946, after a slew of magazine covers left her at risk of overexposure, Snively suggested she dye her hair blonde, and modify her widow’s peak by electrolysis.
Although reluctant at first, Norma Jeane agreed to the procedure that February when Raphael Wolff approached her to make a shampoo advertisement. For the next few months, her hair was gradually straightened and lightened at Wolff’s expense, by stylist Sylvia Barnhart at Frank and Joseph’s Salon on Hollywood Boulevard.
The process was longer and more difficult than expected. Nonetheless, Norma Jeane’s new look led to other modelling assignments, and in September, she signed her first film contract with Twentieth Century-Fox under a new name, Marilyn Monroe.
In the coming years, she perfected her appearance with help from make-up artist Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder, and some minor cosmetic enhancements, such as having her front teeth straightened, and an implant adding cartilage to her chin.
Meanwhile, her honey blonde shade was gradually lightened to ‘pillow white’. For the rest of her life Marilyn had weekly facials, and Sunday sessions with Pearl Porterfield – former colourist to the original blonde bombshell, Jean Harlow – to touch up her roots.
As noted in Yours Retro, many of Marilyn’s predecessors (Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Lana Turner) also underwent rigorous makeovers, with Margaret Sullavan and Ingrid Bergman among the few to push back.
By the 1960s the ‘natural’ look was in, with Mia Farrow giving her blonde locks the chop. But while today’s beauty trends appear sleeker than of yore, appearances can be deceiving!
And finally, you can read more about Norma Jeane’s transformation in Michelle Morgan and Astrid Franse’s book, Before Marilyn: The Blue Book Modelling Years.
The Marilyn Report 