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Unpublished Monroe Photo’s Surface

Story courtesy of Mike Celizic – MSNBC.com

The call came from 20th Century Fox studios, and the invitation was irresistible. The studio had just signed “a hot tomato” and wondered if LIFE magazine photographer Ed Clark wanted to take some pictures of her. The “hot tomato” was an obscure 24-year-old actress and model called Marilyn Monroe. She’d had some small parts in movies, but nothing that put her name on a marquee. Clark took her to Griffith Park in Los Angeles, where, according to LIFE, Monroe read poetry and he took pictures, several of which were shown on TODAY Tuesday.

Clark sent the film to New York. Though LIFE has not published a print edition since April 2007, it still exists as a Web site, which reports that the editors back then replied to Clark via telegram: “Who the hell is Marilyn Monroe?”. The editors had other complaints about the photos of a young woman with pouty lips. They voiced them in a note filed with Clark’s photos in the magazine’s archives: “This take was overdeveloped and poorly printed.”

And so the pictures sat in their file from August 1950 until just recently, when LIFE discovered the never-seen shots while digitizing their photo archives. With what would have been Monroe’s 83rd birthday passing on Monday, LIFE has released the photos of the woman who would shortly take Hollywood and the world by storm and become one of the 20th century’s most iconic symbols of glamour.

You can read the full story over at MSNBC.com – here which includes a slideshow of the photo’s.

Also check Life.com for the full set.

Photo: Ed Clark/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Tags: 20th Century FOx, Edward Clark, Griffith Park, Life Magazine, Marilyn Monroe