Celebrate Marilyn Monroe’s Centennial With These Rarely Seen Photos

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It’s easy to forget the human side of someone who becomes a huge icon, and Marilyn Monroe is no exception. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth, it’s natural to project our feelings onto her image. But seeing Marilyn through the lens of photographer Bruno Bernard – known as Bernard of Hollywood – offers a fresh perspective. He met and photographed her in the mid-1940s, before she was famous. Back then, she was still Norma Jeane Mortensen, a woman leaving her old life behind and stepping into an uncertain future.

The book The Marilyn Monroe Century: From Norma Jeane to Icon—A Story in Photographs, by Joshua John Miller and Mark A. Fortin, tells the story of Marilyn Monroe’s life and career as seen through the lens of photographer Milton Bernard. Bernard immigrated to the United States in 1937, fleeing Nazi Germany. He met Marilyn when she was a young, struggling actress, and Miller—Bernard’s grandson—notes that the two quickly bonded. Both had experienced difficult childhoods—Bernard as an orphan who’d lost his home, and Marilyn after enduring abuse and instability in foster care—creating an instant connection and a sense of mutual understanding.

These photos by Bernard capture Marilyn Monroe at different moments. One shows her radiant in a borrowed tangerine dress at the Hollywood Bowl in 1953 – she didn’t have much money then and needed to borrow from the wardrobe of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Another is likely his most famous shot, taken during the filming of The Seven Year Itch, where she’s laughing as her white dress blows up around her. Though they weren’t as close by then, Bernard felt a pang when Marilyn, spotting him among the photographers, reminded him, “Remember, Bruno, it all started with you.” A third photo reveals a more thoughtful Marilyn, waiting for her cue on set.

A photo Bernard took in 1949 at Palm Springs’ Racquet Club captures the start of Marilyn Monroe’s rise to fame. In it, she’s playful and at ease, welcoming a friend who was taking the picture. She had already begun using the name Marilyn Monroe, but Bernard always remembered her as Norma Jeane, even after her death in 1987.

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2026-06-01 22:06