When a person's image becomes more than just real life, imagining them as a living, breathing, feeling person becomes nearly impossible. Such is the case with Marilyn Monroe, born June 1, 1926, and now celebrating her centenary. Those of us who love her cannot help but experience a wide range of emotions about her face, body, manner of speaking, moving, and singing. But to see Marilyn through the eyes of photographer Bruno Bernard—the man who would later become known as "Hollywood's Bernard"—is to see her in a new way. The young woman Bernard met and photographed in the mid-1940s was not yet Marilyn Monroe: she was still Norma Jean Mortensen, a woman leaving one life behind and rushing toward another.
A book by Joshua John Miller and Mark A. Fortin «"The Age of Marilyn Monroe: From Norma Jean to Icon – A History in Photographs"» tells the story of Marilyn's life and career through the eyes of Bernard. Bernard came to the United States in 1937, fleeing Nazi Germany. When he met Marilyn, she was still a struggling, aspiring star. Miller, Bernard's grandson, explains that Bernard, an orphan forced to flee his homeland, and Marilyn, who experienced abuse and hardship in various foster homes as a child, felt an instant kinship—"a sense of belonging," he says.
This is evident in Bernard's photographs of Marilyn, three of which are included here. One of them shows Marilyn performing at the Hollywood Bowl in 1953, resplendent and joyful in a tangerine draped dress. The dress wasn't her own: she was broke at the time, so she borrowed it from the film's cast wardrobe. «"Gentlemen prefer blondes"» . During the filming of the movie «"Seven years of desire »"Bernard took perhaps the most famous photograph of Marilyn—the one in which she laughs with joy, trying to hold up the skirt of her flowing white, backless dress—even though by then he and Marilyn had grown apart. Another picture, included here, shows a more pensive Marilyn on the set, waiting for her to come to life. Bernard was hurt that by this time his old friend had almost forgotten about him—but he noted in his diaries from the moment Marilyn spotted him in the crowd of photographers and said, "Remember, Bruno, it all started with you.".
The third photograph, taken by Bernard at the famed Racquet Club in Palm Springs in 1949, gives a glimpse of that very beginning. Here, Marilyn is a future superstar, flirtatious and relaxed, greeting a close friend who just happened to be behind the camera. She had already adopted the stage name Marilyn Monroe. But until his death in 1987, Bernard always considered her to be Norma Jeane.
—Photograph by Bruno Bernard— Courtesy of the Bernard Foundation Archives of Hollywood —Photograph by Bruno Bernard— Courtesy of the Bernard Foundation Archives of Hollywood —Photograph by Bruno Bernard— Courtesy of the Bernard Foundation Archives of Hollywood