| Marilyn Monroe's affinity for the camera was her ticket to stardom. Arriving in Hollywood in the early 1950s as Norma Jeane Baker, selling 'Marilyn' became her life work and she quickly succeeded in becoming a page one headliner, a columnist's dream and a photographer's best friend. In a stunning collection of rare photographs in the book Marilyn In The Flash, Her Love Affair with the Press 1945-1962, by photographic preservationist David Wills and published by Dey Street, an imprint of William Morrow Publishers - the blonde bombshell's true personality can be seen. Daily Mail Online has obtained some of the hundreds of electrifying pictures of the Hollywood goddess. Norma Jeane's figure was a perfect model size, 'except in one place', Emmeline Snively, proprietor of the Blue Book Modeling Agency, remembered. 'The blouses were always too tight across the front'. 
+15 Marilyn Monroe posing for Playboy in December 1953. 'At 5'5' tall, she measured 36-22-34 and while her weight fluctuated throughout her adult life from 118 to 140 pounds, she always maintained that hourglass ratio,' recalls Emmeline Snively, proprietor of the Blue Book Modeling Agency 
+15 Marilyn Monroe was declared 'a movie press agent's dream', by Time magazine in 1952. At the mention of her name, men made a wolf whistle 
+15 Robert Wagner with a seductive Marilyn Monroe on his lap during a test scene for Let's Make It Legal on June 14, 1951. Wagner was the 'test boy' for Fox at the time and played the male lead for actresses being screen tested for possible contracts. Their film careers took off at the same time and were receiving 5,000 fan letters a week 'At 5'5' tall, she measured 36-22-34 and while her weight fluctuated throughout her adult life from 118 to 140 pounds, she always maintained that hourglass ratio'. In future years, she would be hailed as 'a genetic marvel of feminine proportions' because her legs gave the illusion of length by the very short distance from her waist to the upper thigh combined with her narrow back, rib cage and large breasts. Whatever her weight, she always photographed ten pounds lighter. With one little twist of that derriere she stole the show with her unbridled sex appeal leaving Joan Crawford and Lana Turner in the dust and every other star looking dull by comparison. 'Monroe who has zoomed to stardom after a three-year stretch as a cheesecake queen is easily the most delectable dish of the day', gossip columnist Hedda Hopper is quoted in the book. She was also an interviewer's dream. She had her own brand of 'breathy, unexpected wit' that the photographers and the public loved. When asked why she posed nude for the 'Golden Dreams' calendar in 1952, she responded, 'Hunger'. Asked what she had on, she answered, 'The radio'. 
+15 Marilyn as Sugar Kane Kowalczyk in Some Like it Hot. This was her most famous movie that also starred Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon but problems quickly surfaced on the set with Monroe's erratic behavior, forgetting her lines, showing up late or not at all. She started to believe that director Billy Wilder was her enemy. She silenced him when he tried to give her direction and cried when she did a bad take 
+15 Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe attend the premiere of The Misfits on January 31, 1961. Her husband, Arthur Miller, wrote the screenplay for it but their marriage was breaking up at the time. This was Marilyn's final film appearance 
+15 Marilyn held a press conference at the Hotel Continental Hilton in Mexico City while on a private trip to the capital. The FBI was concerned about the actress's relationship with Frederick Vanderbilt Field who was disinherited by his wealthy family over his leftist views. The Feds were monitoring any possible ties to communism 
+15 Monroe and husband playright Arthur Miller spent a two week vacation in Jamaica in January 1957, and dodged questions from the press about her possible pregnancy. Tony Curtis claimed she was pregnant with his baby when she confessed her affair with Curtis to Arthur When asked if she was wearing underwear, she quipped, 'I'm wearing Chanel No. 5' Actor Robert Wagner remembers Marilyn from 1950 when they were both contract players at Twentieth Century-Fox. They were making $75 a week, take-home pay a mere $55. He was taking acting lessons on the Fox lot across the hall from Marilyn's drama coach, Natasha Lytess. The two became friends and often lunched together at the Fox studio commissary. Wagner was the 'test boy' and played the male lead opposite an actress screen testing for a studio contract. He tested twice with Marilyn in the early fifties and remembered her as being nervous but very focused and important to her to do her best. By then she had begun to create that 'Marilyn Monroe' character. 'It was really something she made by herself. She made it her own', Wagner states. 'The camera loved her and she loved the camera.' 'She was surprisingly shrewd... and extraordinarily driven'. Monroe made any news photo a work of art and lived up to the promise of her screen image and became one of the greatest stars in Hollywood history. She sought out the press in a mutually beneficial relationship that lasted her entire life and career. 'Can you please tell me who Marilyn Monroe's publicity agent is?' Wallis Simpson, The Duchess of Windsor commented to her publisher Charles Pick in 1955 when photographs of Marilyn supplanted her on the front page of all the daily newspapers. Marilyn arrived in Tinseltown when stars were no longer bound by contract to one studio. Marilyn shows off her physique in these beautiful screen tests 
+15 Marilyn Monroe had her hair straightened and bleached for the first time in 1946. She was willing to pose for any picture and cooperated with many photographers to feed the publicity machine supplying pictures to 400 newspapers across the country that had to fill two papers of shots a day. Still photographers made Monroe a star before the movie studios made her one 
+15 Monroe and fellow sex symbol, Betty Grable, arrived together at Ciro's for a party Walter Winchell gave for gossip columnist Louella Parson. Both of their husbands, baseball slugger Joe DiMaggio and the trumpet playing band leader, Harry James were out of town. Grable was pin-up girl number one of World War II and the highest paid entertainer in the United States. Marilyn didn't have to worry about Grable's success impacting her own. Betty retired from the screen in 1955 
+15 Walter Winchell (pictured right) was one of the biggest gossip reporters of the era and a good friend of Joe DiMaggio. He took the slugger's side during his divorce from Marilyn and released a gossip item saying he knew the reason for the divorce but he wasn't going to divulge it. He was the only reporter to attend Marilyn's funeral only because of his friendship with DiMaggio 
+15 Monroe ran out on the infield of Dodger Stadium with Los Angeles Angels outfielder Albie Pearson for an Angels-New York Yankees game in August 1962. Marilyn was making an appearance in a pre-game ceremony on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy fund. A record crowd of 51,584 fans watched the Yankees beat the Angels They were becoming independent contractors. Movie magazines and gossip columnists took over doing publicity for stars. At the beginning of her career, Norman Jeane was encouraged to try acting by US Army Air Forces photographer David Conover who was shooting 'morale-boosting' pretty girls for Yank Magazine in 1945. Her next stop was the Blue Book Modeling Agency where owner Emmeline Snively recommended her to freelance photographer Andre de Dienes. The timing of her arrival in Hollywood was perfect. Movie/fan magazines were transitioning from black-and-white photos to vibrant colored shots of the stars. Technicolor was super-charging movie screens. The sharp brilliance and saturated colors of Kodachrome film showed off Marilyn's sexy curvature in men's magazines like See, Tempo, Quick, Gala and Laff. 
+15 Marilyn In The Flash features hundreds of unseen pictures of the Hollywood icon throughout her career that highlight the media's love affair with her When she morphed from having curly brown locks and became a captivating blue-eyed blonde, her first husband, Jim Dougherty, signed divorce papers. Norma Jeane hooked up with Hollywood agent Johnny Hyde who was responsible for bringing her to the attention of the head of talent at Twentieth Century Fox, Harry Brand. The name Norma Jeane morphed into the mellifluous 'Marilyn Monroe' in 1946 and the grooming and polishing of the new starlet was set in motion. It soon turned into a tidal wave. Photo syndicates couldn't get enough and the magazines were close on their heels. She was escorted to the best cocktail parties, introduced to editors, columnists and radio representatives. At one magazine soiree, 'Marilyn took control of her own PR, showing up late wearing a spectacular red gown – one size too small – and making a knockout entrance'. 'It was a short trip from the locker doors and garage walls of male fans everywhere'. Star-maker machinery was at work when Marilyn became the first centerfold in Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine in December 1953. Minor movie roles were coming in but all of her commercial endorsements opened more doors to the fame she so passionately pursued. She posed for ads for shampoo, soap, liquid makeup, hair color, garden umbrellas and patio furniture. 'Monroe's screen persona was the result of considerable forethought, the skill of expert hands – two of them her own—and a significant dose of fear'. Marilyn had to be 'ready' in face, form and psyche and always kept the cast and crew waiting. Hairstylist George Masters recalled, 'Whenever she was being made up and I was doing her hair that extraordinary platinum, some incredible change occurred and she became 'Marilyn Monroe'. Fascinating archive footage of Marilyn at The Savoy (related) 
+15 Marilyn with her date and boyfriend Mexican screenwriter Jose Bolanos at the Golden Globe Awards on March 5, 1962 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Marilyn had flown down to Mexico to buy furniture and came back with a new boyfriend. DiMaggio was expecting her to return to him 
+15 The blonde bombshell returned to Hollywood from New York to play Cherie in Joshua Logan's film of William Inge's critically acclaimed Broadway play Bus Stop in 1956. A reporter asked her if the high-neck dress indicated this was a new Marilyn. She responded, 'No, I'm the same Marilyn - it's just a different suit' 
+15 The sex symbol successfully battled a sudden gust of air from the subway vent in Manhattan while filming The Seven Year Itch in September 1954 in New York. It was all in the script for the film. Joe DiMaggio was on set with columnist Walter Winchell but DiMaggio left in a huff when Marilyn took little control of her skirt Marilyn Monroe at President Kennedy's birthday party in 1962 'Her voice changed, her hands and body motions altered and suddenly she was a different woman from the plain girl I'd seen a few moments before. She was brilliant'. Marilyn on the silver screen brought 'big bang to the movies and big bucks to her studio'. She was the most photographed motion picture star and she loved being photographed. French actress Catherine Deneuve believed Marilyn had a light that belonged only to her – something that comes from her but is beyond even her. 'It's something that happens when the camera loves you that much'. This collection of photographs were taken by many members of the press – journalists and photographers, 'who nurtured Marilyn's dream, preserved her words, captured her light on film, and allowed her to shine for future generations'. 'Marilyn's gifts to the world are her films and the thousands of dazzling photographs we continue to enjoy'. 'Few have provided such an extensive and diverse photographic legacy that continues to increase in popularity with each successive year'. | 
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