Before Marilyn Monroe became famed for her platinum blonde locks, she set off to find stardom with her natural honey-hued hair.
And these are the photographs from Marilyn Monroe’s first professional shoot that show off her natural beauty that consequently led her to celebrity status.
The photographs, of the then 19-year-old, are now to be sold after the legendary snapper Joseph Jasgur passed away.
The pictures of the star, then called Norma Jeane, show the young hopeful in a side street, unrecognisable from the blonde bombshell she would become.
Jasgur was commissioned in 1946 by the Blue Book agency to take pictures of various aspiring models, among them the brown-haired Norma Jeane Dougherty.
The pictures show her in a side street in West Hollywood behind Beverly Boulevard and she is wearing a jumper, black hat and is slightly plump in the face.
It was these snaps that Norma Jeane presented to Ben Lyon, the casting director at 20th Century Fox, who signed the wannabe and turned her into Marilyn Monroe.
The pictures are believed to give the truest depiction of the woman who rose to the very summit of American society and died aged just 36.
There are dozens of pictures of Monroe taken by Jasgur in the sale as well as release forms signed by Monroe for her first assignments.
