Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe’s idol, was Hollywood’s original blonde bombshell before tragic demise: book
The world of Marilyn Monroe and early Hollywood is the stuff of legend, and one such legend claims the girl who took the world by storm in the 1940s was actually the child of another famous blonde.
Author Bill Warren has uncovered an all but forgotten aspect of the life of the Hollywood star who died suddenly in 1962 at the age of 27.
Warren’s book, Marilyn: The Rise To Stardom, is a book about one of Hollywood’s most popular movie icons, and one of the only books ever written about her. Marilyn’s memoirs were penned in Hollywood’s golden age and were first adapted for the screen in the late 1930s, but Marilyn never filmed them — until now.
Hollywood’s golden age, the 1930s, was a time when movies were still regarded as the gold standard of entertainment and most major artists, from actors to composers to songwriters, were given big Hollywood slots to develop their talents. Marilyn, meanwhile, was on the fringes of Hollywood life, making a name for herself as a movie stunt performer.
She had a brief affair with a Hollywood director named Jack Warner, who had a soft spot for the dark-haired girl who was sometimes called the most beautiful woman in the world.
In the late 1930s, Marilyn became romantically involved with Jack Warner, and Warren writes that “all the signs of a very, very serious relationship were there” in her relationship with Warner.
Eventually, Warner suggested Marilyn should star in a movie he was preparing for a film director named William Wyler. But Hollywood was still a small town with low-budget productions in the 1940s and the project was put on hold until the studio system became more organized and efficient.
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In 1943, Warner’s film was finally made, and Marilyn’s big break came when her performance as a vamp in “The Seven Year Itch” was deemed worthy of a star on Hollywood’s own Hollywood Walk of Fame.
“The Seven Year Itch” was also the name of Marilyn’s second feature in 1945, and it marked the start of a string of hits and several films in the late 1940s and early 50s that would vault her into becoming the world’s most famous