Marilyn Monroe had a figure that ranged from magnificent to stout throughout her lifetime.Her face and skin were ravishing and on the rushes for "The Prince and the Showgirl", Dame Edith Evans said "Look at Marilyn, she could be five years old ".Her terribly deprived childhood gave her a look of vulnerability and in her movies she sometimes looked as though she didnt quite want to be there,As a teenager there wasnt a beauty contrivance she didnt employ to enhance her appearance.At thirteen, she was perming her long light brown hair and using powder on her porcelain skin.By the time she was fifteen, Marilyn said later, "The world had opened up to me.There were boys round every corner".Her guardians decided that marriage was the answer and set their sights on the local athlete,Jimmy Dougherty, who was then dating the Santa Barbara Beauty Queen.She asked Jimmy what he was doing "hauling that little sexpot around in his car".But Marilyn won the day and very soon was married to Jimmy. The War intervened and very soon Jimmy had joined the Navy.Marilyn,in her turn, worked shifts at a local spraying plant.One day a phographer named Conover came and took pictures of the female staff for the War Effort.Marilyn was wearing overalls which showed her figure off to perfection.This time it was men,not boys, who were interested.She joined the Blue Book Model Agency managed by Emmeline Snively.Emmeline said she had never had a model who had worked so hard to fulfil her potential in magazines.And so by "Laff" and "Peek" and "See", Marilyn came to 20th Century Fox,Emmeline persuaded Marilyn to dye her mousy brown locks blonde.She was taken to the Fox hairdresser on the lot and her hair was cut short in a sophisticated upsweep.Marilyn wasnt sure at first, she felt her long hair was part of her identity.Then she saw it worked.
