Friday, January 26, 2018

Looks Like Someone Ran Out of Peroxide



Hello, Norma Jean.

13 comments:

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    2. I don't know the date of this photo, Debra, but it looks like it was taken while her career was soaring. Probably in-between films.

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  2. I told someone once I saw her as a brunette and they didn't believe me. Amazing how different yet the same she appears.

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    2. Oh, I know, maddie. I've seen plenty of pictures of her as a brunette before, but those are from the 1940s, before she became a star, and may even have still been going by the name of Norma Jean Baker. Her later persona is not yet in place in those photos. She comes across as a chipper girl next door (assuming the girl next door was a pin-up model who occasionally posed nude.) What I find fascinating about this particular photo is that so much of it is Classic Marilyn. The long-lashed eyes half-closed, the painted smile verging on a kiss, that air of playful, languorous, seductiveness she conveyed so well, it's all there--but not the blond hair! It makes me wonder, how important was that color scheme, anyway? Could she have done without it and still have been as big a star?

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    3. Either hair color, I'm sure with her acting she would have still been a star....but it may have changed some of the roles she took, or really added a whole new dimension to roles she was in. I mean, the whole white dress flapping up above the air vent would have felt much different.

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  3. She is beautiful no matter the hair color.

    cheers, parsnip and mandibles

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    1. She may have been one of the most photogenic people who ever lived, parsnip. And, of course, a lot of people found her attractive in person, too.

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    1. Adam, her natural hair color was reddish-brown, but the black-and-white photography makes it look darker. To my eyes she actually look Spanish (which she wasn't) in that picture.

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  5. I’ve never seen a later photo of her with darker hair. I didnt know she ever went back to it for any reason.

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    1. Mitchell, I know of no films or public appearances Monroe made as a brunette. I'm not an expert on the mechanics of hair dye, but maybe she was on vacation and washed the blond out.

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