Colin Slater - Marilyn: Lost Images from the Hollywood Photo Archive

T he Hollywood Photo Archive is not only a wonderful collection of cinematic history. It captures the collective memories of Hollywood. The gunmen, the gallants, the ghosts, and the stars of the big screen are represented in an impressive archive of more than 180,000 pieces.

The collection has been assembled over forty years by Director Colin Slater. In Slaters early days, as he began to learn his craft, it was the great directors, Wilder, Lean, and Welles, who advised him to study and learn from the film stills. Slater went on to own an important public relations agency, The Adventurers, in association with the legendary journalist and film executive, Fred Hift. Together with 500 stringers, the company worked on almost every motion picture produced and released in the U.K., gathering stills from the stars and press collateral from the studios. Added with Hifts lifetime of files, the Hollywood Archive was born.

The outstanding archive provides a treasure trove of prints for film buffs; delve in and discover wonderful film stills, celebrity portraits, and heroic stage performances. For more information contact wkdirections@outlook.com.

Many of the photos in this book were used by the studios to publicize their stars, particularly around the release of a new film. They would often be sent out to newspapers and magazines along with gratis movie tickets and a press release to encourage critics to write about the studios latest releases. These photos would include actual stills from the films, studio portraits in costume, film premieres, newsworthy events (like Monroes performances in Korea before the troops), and even informal candid shots of actors between takes. After their use in the press, they were often not seen again, forgotten and/or filed away in some obscure studio backwater. Fortunately, the efforts of such collectors as the Hollywood Photo Archive have rescued hundreds of publicity photos of Marilyn Monroe, some which remain wellknown, but many of which, such as the photos that follow, are just now being rediscovered.

The other genre of photographs used by the studios were costume tests, not generally circulated to the public but mostly used internally.

Finally, we celebrate Marilyn Monroes early years with a cache of photos of Norma Jeane Mortensen (or Daugherty), from her infancy to just before she signed her first contract with 20th Century Fox. Before her fame grew in the 1950s, Marilyn had already appeared on dozens of magazine covers as Norma Jeane, a brief modeling career lost on all but the most ardent fans of Monroes legacy.

Baby Norma Jeane in 1927. She was born June 1, 1926, in the Charity Ward of Los Angeles General Hospital to Gladys Monroe Baker Mortensen.

Norma Jeanes mother sometimes borrowed her daughter (here about age three) from her foster family for outings to the beach or the movies. After Gladysa film cutter at Consolidated Studioshad to give up her first two children, her alcohol intake increased.

Norma Jeane at about five, a natural blonde whose hair, like many childrens, darkened with the yearsuntil, of course, Hollywood.

A very natural, even rural-looking Norma Jeane around 1940 in a photo originally given to a family member.

At Van Nuys High School in Van Nuys, near Los Angeles, Norma Jeane (far left, already smiling directly at the camera) was nicknamed the Mmm Girl, partly because of her stutter, partly because shed developed so quickly.

Norma Jeane in 1942, her assorted apparel unfortunately distracting from her face. The portrait was likely done in a local photo studio for her family.

This 1942 portrait illustrates Norma Jeanes surprisingly curly pre-Hollywood hair, noted by the Blue Book Modeling Agencys Emmeline Snively, who also reminded her client what the play said: Gentlemen prefer blondes.

Norma Jeane, photographed outside the Radioplane Corp. plant on June 26, 1945, by David Conover, overcame shyness and a stutter. She reportedly clipped a magazine item advising, By acting confident, you will seem confident, and others reaction will then instill genuine confidence.

Newly signed model Norma Jeane, nineteen, was posed by photographer Richard C. Miller against an unobtrusive tree in this overly busy blouse.

The newly professional model and hopeful starlet confidently faces the future in 1945. To further the modeling career that would lead her to Hollywood, Norma Jeane used up all her savings and pawned her jewelry.

As a Blue Book model, Norma Jeane posed for a shampoo ad in 1945.

A Los Angeles native, Norma Jeane enjoyed posing in outdoor and rural settings. In autumn, 1945, photographer Andre De Dienes took her to a farm in the San Fernando Valley for a series of barnyard shots.

When she wasnt posing in a swimsuit, either Norma Jeane or her photographer often made some slight, sexy adjustment, as with her bared midriff in this shot by Transylvanian-born Andre De Dienes.

William Carroll shot the voluptuously innocent Norma Jeane at Castle Rock State Park in California in 1945, the year she signed with Emmeline Snivelys Blue Book Modeling Agency. Within a year she became a leading pin-up model, initially in military magazines.