50 Rare Historical Photos of Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe is no doubt one of the most iconic female celebrities this world has ever seen. During the 50s and 60s, she changed the way women were portrayed and made "sexy" a powerful tool that could be used to catapult one into stardom. Monroe was both a model and an actress and she excelled in both. She made such a cultural impact that the American Film Institute rated her as the sixth greatest female screen legend from the Golden Age of Hollywood. You can say what you want about Monroe but no one could deny her beauty. Scroll through this gallery if you want to see some rare historical photos from the "blonde bombshell" known as Marilyn Monroe.

Despite being relatively underpaid compared to other stars of her era, Marilyn Monroe was a million-dollar movie star before she died. She lost her job at Twentieth-Century Fox in 1962; Monroe was working with the studio to produce Something’s Got to Give which was a remake of My Favorite Wife. 

Just like we mentioned in the previous slide, Marilyn Monroe’s star power wasn’t enough to separate her from other stars, at least in terms of earnings. Reports from her years of fame paint a picture of a star that was relatively underpaid, especially when you compare her earnings to what other stars took home. 

Marilyn Monroe’s influence on pop culture and American entertainment at large remains glaring many decades after she passed away. But she was just as enigmatic when she was alive; her real name confused a lot of people at her peak as she was known by many names. 

Marilyn Monroe’s mother, Gladys, was institutionalized at a point during the young Monroe’s life, causing Marilyn to be placed in the foster care system. According to reports, once Monroe was placed in the system, finding the perfect home for her proved a difficult challenge as she went through 11 sets of foster parents and houses looking for the right match. 

One of the things that people knew Marilyn Monroe for was the fact that she was often around one acting coach or the other. Rarely was Monroe seen without an acting coach; her first acting coach was Natasha Lytess with whom she worked on 22 films over the course of six years. 

In 1999, Marilyn Monroe’s personal possessions were auctioned; naturally, the auction was graced by famous faces, including Mariah Carey who bought Marilyn’s famous piano for a whopping $662,500. Estimates of the piano’s value had put it at between $10,000 to $15,000, meaning Carey paid several times the piano’s estimated value. 

Marilyn Monroe’s first marriage to Joe DiMaggio didn’t exactly go as planned partly because of his episodes and alcohol problem. That marriage failed and the lovers went their separate ways but apparently, they were a thing again shortly before Monroe died. 

One of the fondest memories about Marilyn Monroe was when she sang Happy Birthday to President Kennedy. She wore a beaded Jean Louis gown while doing so; that gown’s value multiplied severalfold as a result of her performance. 

Marilyn Monroe was only a teenager when she first walked down the aisle; she was married to James Dougherty before she married Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. Marilyn was only 16 when she tied the knot with Dougherty; their union didn’t last long though as she became a successful movie star and he became an LAPD detective. 

You can make a case for Marilyn Monroe setting the trend for movie stars making a sizable portion of their income from endorsements and advertising campaigns for brands. In 1953, she was named the Most Advertised Girl in the World by the Advertising Association. 

Despite how the media would sometimes portray Marilyn Monroe as an unintelligent person, she was actually quite smart and had a high IQ. You can credit her love for reading for some of that intelligence though; a lot of people don’t know that Marilyn was an avid reader of books and had a large collection in her home library. 

Marilyn Monroe’s signature blonde look is how most people remember the entertainment icon but that wasn’t her natural hair color. Many people don’t know that Marilyn was born a brunette; when she began modeling in 1947, her hair was the curly brown type. 

When she was starting out, Monroe was advised by the head of a modeling agency called Emmeline Snively to alter her facial appearance by tweaking her hair a bit in order to succeed in show business. She obliged and had it bleached and straightened as we said earlier but she also had electrolysis performed to remove her widow’s peak. 

At one point when Monroe was starting out, money was tight so she was desperate to get a $40 check cashed. While going around different stores looking to get the check cashed, Monroe encountered a police officer and asked him to help. 

Marilyn Monroe’s love for books, her ability to grab novel concepts quickly, and her high IQ all painted a picture of a highly intelligent personality. However, the thing with intelligent people is that they also tend to be quite conscious of themselves; Marilyn Monroe was no different herself. 

Even after she had appeared in so many movies, Marilyn Monroe still had to deal with serious nerves. Her co-star on Bus Stop, Don Murray, claimed she would break into rashes every time they had to do a scene together. Makeup artists were tasked with concealing her rashes whenever they popped up. 

Ella Fitzgerald wasn’t very fortunate in her career at first; the super-talented jazz singer struggled to get bookings to perform at events. Some sources claim she couldn’t get gigs because she was black, while others credited her lack of sex appeal for her inability to get gigs. 

As one of the most famous and successful entertainers in the world, Marilyn Monroe broke new ground in entertainment and recorded several feats no other female had managed. When she wanted to do more dramatic movie roles, she started her own production company known as Marilyn Monroe Productions in 1955. 

Marilyn Monroe was highly cerebral and she was quite active politically as a result; many people don’t remember just how politically active she was. Monroe was actually one of the founding members of the Hollywood branch of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy.

Marilyn Monroe’s death was officially ruled as a barbiturate overdose but there are a couple of suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. A Chicago Tribune article claimed that the first police officer that responded to the scene thought it was a case of murder. 

Because Marilyn Monroe’s mother was institutionalized for most of her daughter’s childhood, Monroe grew up with a fear of ending up like her mother in mental institutions. She broke the jinx though because although she periodically saw a psychiatrist, she was rarely institutionalized. 

In order to buy the crypt next to the one Marilyn Monroe was buried in, Hugh Hefner paid $75,000 for it in 1992. Hefner had never met Monroe but he still thought it would be symbolic to spend the rest of eternity next to her, and he didn’t mind parting with so much money in order to do so. 

While she was starting out in the movies, Marilyn Monroe was left with no choice but to submit to the casting couch. Even though she would eventually become a well-paid and successful actress, success didn’t come easy for her.

It was ironic that Marilyn Monroe was institutionalized after she and her third husband, Arthur Miller, got separated. She converted to Judaism and had to testify at multiple hearings before she married Miller so separating from him after all that must have triggered something in her. 

One thing you can’t take away from Marilyn Monroe is her incredible generosity when she was alive; the star was quite generous throughout her years. Even when she was in foster homes or institutions, her generosity was evident.

In furtherance of the discussion of Marilyn Monroe’s incredible generosity towards kids, the story of children benefitting from the star actress’ kindness didn’t end with her death; it continued even after she died. 

During the early days of the Second World War, Marilyn Monroe was a young housewife going by the name of Norma Jeane Dougherty. She worked in a military drone-producing factory where she was found by a photographer on a mission to find ways to inspire the American troops.

In her younger years, Marilyn Monroe was known as Norma Jean Baker, a youngster that was in and out of foster homes. She was also under the guidance of family friends at different points because her mother was institutionalized and she never knew who her father was. 

Although she will forever be remembered as Marilyn Monroe, this wasn’t her first choice. Her first choice of a stage name was Jean Adair, which was played off her real name, Norma Jeane. However, her mother’s maiden name was Monroe so she chose Monroe for this reason. 

Eli Wallach was an actor that was closer to Marilyn Monroe than a lot of other actors; according to him, Monroe had an on and off inner switch which she seemed to flip whenever she wanted. He described walking on Broadway with Monroe one day before she became swarmed with attention. 

While casting for the lead role of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Truman Capote had Marilyn Monroe in mind as his first choice. Capote even had her perform two scenes for him to see if it was what he pictured.

Marilyn Monroe was known for her on-camera glow and talent among other things, but her on-camera glow wasn’t quite natural. According to reports, she went to considerable lengths to achieve the glow; she would slather on a layer of Vaseline or Nivea Crème before getting her makeup applied in order to look more luminous on film. 

Talk about like minds attracting each other; it has been established many times that Marilyn Monroe was quite intelligent and possessed a high IQ so it isn’t surprising that she was drawn to intellectual men. Her marriage to writer Arthur Miller proves this fact but it wasn’t the only indication.

As a result of her marriage to Arthur Miller, the FBI had a file on Marilyn Monroe and they continued to keep tabs on her, especially after she requested to visit the Soviet Union. As a result of it, her only house, a Brentwood, California hacienda was bugged; after she died, her home was purchased by Veronica Hamel and Michael Irving. 

One problem that plagued Marilyn Monroe throughout her career was her inability to memorize her lines. Monroe had a tough time keeping her lines at heart, and as a result, there were jokes that she couldn’t make two lines meet. 

Marilyn Monroe owned a Maltese Terrier called Mafia Honey which was a gift from Frank Sinatra. The dog’s name was apparently inspired by Sinatra’s apparent criminal ties; the dog itself was taken in by Gloria Lovell after Monroe’s death. 

Joe DiMaggio had an infamous romance that had been sparked again for a while before she died but when it comes down to it, they were married for only 8 months. A lot of factors contributed to their short marriage, but the popular subway scene in The Seven Year Itch must have played a part.

Jean Harlow was Marilyn Monroe’s idol; just like Monroe, Harlow was a beautiful actress that died young. Monroe was even planning to do a Jean Harlow biopic in which she would star as her idol. The two actresses had a lot in common, even in death.

The irony of Marilyn Monroe’s passing is the fact that her estate has earned a lot more money since she died than when she was alive. At the peak of her career, she had two films with million-dollar contracts each; she was also paid $1 million for her performance in Cleopatra in the same period. 

Joe DiMaggio’s marriage to Marilyn Monroe ended after only eight months but apparently, he remained stuck on her after their union ended. DiMaggio hired an investigator to follow Marilyn at one point; the investigator turned up at his dinner one day to inform DiMaggio and his companion, Frank Sinatra, that she was with another man. 

Marilyn Monroe was quite the bombshell even before she dyed her hair blonde, but once she went blonde, men everywhere couldn’t resist her. As a result, the blonde bombshell became a sex symbol among men of her era. 

In order to become incredibly famous and enjoy a thriving career as an actress, Marilyn Monroe had two plastic surgeries and even had her front teeth modified so they wouldn’t stick out as much, something that most people don't know since she always looked so natural. 

Before she became super famous, Marilyn Monroe grinded it out and worked her butt off to find success and fame; she was featured in sixteen movies in less than four years in that period. Unfortunately, she wasn’t built to cope with the mental stress of it.

1950 wasn’t a great year for Marilyn Monroe because she suffered personal trauma when Johnny Hyde died. Hyde was her agent and her lover as they had been together for about two years before he died of a heart attack. According to reports from that time, Monroe was terribly shaken by Hyde’s death.

There was nothing that Marilyn Monroe desired more than children; she loved children and was quite desperate to have her own. While she was married to DiMaggio, she tried to have children but she had an increased risk of ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages because of her endometriosis. 

After launching her own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, Monroe proceeded to produce her own movie, The Misfits which was a real disaster. First, the movie director was addicted to alcohol and so he was drunk on the set most of the time. 

Marilyn Monroe was involved in messy love affairs like her mother was; the actress was known for her many affairs, and she was even involved with an older 20th Century Fox chairman. Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography described Marilyn Monroe’s affair with his son Charlie Junior in 1947.

In the 50s and 60s, some celebrities were accused of being Communist and therefore had to go on trial. Arthur Miller, Monroe's husband at the time, was one of these celebrities, and so he was made to testify to reveal others who had been involved in Communist activities. 

Lots of people have received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but not many have had their actual body parts immortalized in cement. In 1953, Marilyn Monroe and her co-star, Jane Russell, placed their hands and feet in wet cement in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles.