It is
a scene out of a movie but in this case, it is nothing less
than a pivotal moment in a real-life Hollywood legend’s life: Clad in a
show-stopping velvet dress and fur stole, a young Marilyn Monroe glides
across the floor of the Club Del Mar in Santa Monica, Calif., in January
1952. The starlet is there to receive an award from Hollywood’s Foreign
Press Association.
The blonde bombshell captivates the room. She is single,
and few men that night fail to notice her. In more ways than one, and that no one could possibly have
imagined, the 25-year-old Marilyn’s life was about to change. A mere month and a half later, in March 1952, she went on her
first date with a major league baseball legend named Joe DiMaggio. They wed in 1954 (although the storybook marriage lasted nine months, before Monroe files for divorce on the grounds of
“mental cruelty”).
Beyond the upheavals in her personal life, the actress’ career was
about to truly take off: by the end of the year she would perform in her
first starring role, alongside Richard Widmark in the thriller, Don’t Bother to Knock, while in 1953 she starred in three major movies — the noir-tinged Niagara and the romantic comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire - each title a bigger box-office hit than the one before.
Six decades after that night at the Club Del Mar, LIFE.com
offers a gallery of pictures (none of which ran in LIFE magazine) by
photographer Loomis Dean, who captured the young Marilyn on the cusp of
stardom — and in the midst of what might well have been the last
genuinely carefree time in a life that would endure more and more pain,
controversy and heartache as the 1950s rolled on.
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