Order Here:- https://www.bibliophilebooks.com/epages/Bibliophile.sf/sec6e14928847/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Bibliophile/Products/86134 On 2nd August 1945, Norma Jeane Baker walked through the doors of the Blue Book Modeling Agency. "The school offers a non-professional course featuring charm, posture, figure control, wardrobe building and personal development." Married at just 16 to James Dougherty of the Merchant Marines, Norma worked on the factory floor, spraying parachutes and was spotted by a US Government photographer David Conover. Her modelling career began and by the early 1940s, Miss Sniveley had moved her establishment into a building on Sunset Boulevard, next door to the famous Bublichki restaurant and was publicising her beauty contests. The agency gathered steam at a monumental rate and moved to a more central location, the Ambassador Hotel and changed its name to the Blue Book School with a location of luxurious gardens, palm trees, and a beautiful pool for the models. With superb detail on the background of Hollywood in these early days, every page has a stylish archive black and white photograph with tanned beauties in their bathing costumes, amid rumours that Blue Book was a house of mischief. Norma Jeane had been brought to the hotel by photographer Potter Hueth, wearing a simple white dress and armed with her modelling portfolio. Her statistics were 'Size 12, height 5.6, 36 bust, 24 waist, 34 hips. Blue eyes, perfect teeth and blonde, curly hair.' The notes and even the receipt given to the young model for $25 is reproduced on page 55. Here are the famous red sweater early shots, the dirty blonde hair, the naturally beautiful young Marilyn, a fair and honest girl, yet whose marriage was getting in the way of her aspirations. Very early photo shoots and advertisements for American Airlines, the girl next door is being made famous, going from brunette to a blonde, wearing a bikini and in more seductive poses and transforming into a glamorous starlet with a new name, Marilyn Monroe. There are facsimiles of letters and telegrams she wrote, publicity photos, posing outside her home in 1946, and on location shoots with Miss Sniveley's notes on the back of field trip photos. All the shots packed away by Miss Sniveley have never been seen until now. Many girls are modelling clothes and employed for the weekend as a model to entice punters to the gambling tables at the Las Vegas Flamingo Hotel. Many of the best photos are the colour poses by photographer Laszlo Willinger of Norma in bikinis and swimsuits, and following her transformation a publicity photo wearing a plunging, pleated gold lamé halter neck evening dress. A signed photograph to Miss Sniveley shows that there is no doubt Marilyn enjoyed meeting up with her old mentor once again. This is an extraordinary chronicle filled with very rare photographs and never-before-seen documents of detailed records and correspondence throughout their professional relationship and beyond. 238 large pages 10½" x 8", colour and mono photos throughout. FACEBOOK: @bibliophilebargainbooks TWITTER: @AnnieBookReview

• published: 18 Jun 2019
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