Marilyn Monroe is back in the spotlight again, as the 50th year anniversary of her death approaches. Recently LIFE magazine released "rare early photos of the superstar in training," taken by J.R. Eyerman. And currently the Steven Kasher Gallery in Manhattan is exhibiting photos of the starlet mostly taken during the last year of her life (and the year after she was in a padded room in Manhattan), taken by Lawrence Schiller. The photographer took some of the more iconic photos of the starlet, but the images on display are his rare outtakes which have never before been seen. As for the LIFE photos, taken by J.R. Eyerman—they write:
“I’m sending only brief captions,” a LIFE magazine correspondent wrote to his editors in February 1949, in notes accompanying photographs of a little-known actress with a few small roles in mediocre films under her belt. “For one thing, time is of the essence in getting the pictures to a plane. For another, the processes shot are not terribly complicated, showing as they do how Marilyn trains herself for hoped-for movie stardom by consulting specialists in singing, dancing and drama and how she is worked on by them in the effort to produce a wrapped-up package of talent to back up her photogenic sex appeal.”
Click through for a look at both sets of photographs, and check out Schiller's exhibit—titled "Marilyn And Me"—between now and June 30th.
