The 1950s were a time of prosperity in the USA, and conservatism. In Hollywood, some of the greatest American sex symbols found fame – among them a blonde, Marilyn Monroe, and a brunette, Elizabeth Taylor.
In 1948, Marilyn Monroe was twenty-two years old. After two years in the movie business, she had failed to make an impression. Her first contract with Twentieth Century Fox led to a few bit-parts before she was dropped. Undeterred, she took a room at the Studio Club and attended workshops at the Actors’ Lab, while posing for pin-ups on the side.
“In her movies,” Marie Clayton wrote in ‘Unseen Archives’, her 2005 pictorial biography of Marilyn Monroe, “she projected a unique and fascinating persona — a child-woman who was both innocent and full of sexuality, someone men desired, but women found unthreatening. In real life,” Clayton added, “she was a beautiful and complex woman with deep insecurities, who just wanted to be loved.”
