The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Fifty Bucks for Nudity?

By May 1949, it appeared that Marilyn had reached an emotional impasse with Johnny Hyde. He still wanted to marry her and was becoming insistent about it. However, she would not be bullied into matrimony, and was just as adamant in her position. Earlier, he had taken an apartment for her at the Beverly Carlton on Olympic Boulevard in Beverly Hills, now the Avalon Hotel, while she was living with him in his home. It was just for the sake of appearances. However, by May she was living in it, and determined to pay her own rent and expenses. She needed to do something to generate income on her own, though. “I was never kept,” she would say in 1962, looking back on this time. “I always kept myself. I have pride in the fact that I was on my own.” In a few months, Johnny would arrange for her to make a brief appearance in a dreadful movie called A Ticket to Tomahawk. Again, it would not amount to much. When her car was repossessed, she knew she needed to take action.

One day, while searching through her business cards hoping that one might inspire her to seek work, she saw one given to her by a man named Tom Kelley. Marilyn had met him under strange circumstances. Back in October (of 1948), she was on her way to an audition when she became involved in a minor automobile accident. One witness at the scene was Kelley, who, as it turned out, was a former employee of Associated Press, having worked for that news-gathering organization as a cameraman. Marilyn told him she had an important audition and, because of the accident, no way to go to it, and no money for a cab either. He felt sorry for her and gave her five bucks and his business card. That was the last time she thought about him, until now finding that card.

Rather than call Tom Kelley, Marilyn decided to simply appear unannounced at his studio in Hollywood. After a brief conversation with her, Kelley told her that a model he was about to shoot for an ad for Pabst beer had called in sick. Would Marilyn like the job? Of course. He then shot a few rolls of film of Marilyn playing with a beach ball. They shook hands, he gave her a few bucks, and she left.

Two weeks later, on May 25, Tom called Marilyn to tell her that the mock poster that had been produced for the beer campaign was a hit with Pabst and had somehow gotten into the hands of a person who manufactured calendars in Chicago. He wanted her to pose nude. It would be discreet but, definitely… nude. She thought it over, but not for long because she really didn’t have a problem with it. Thus, two nights later, Marilyn found herself writhing around on a red velvet drape, posing, preening, and pouting while arching her back to make even more obvious two of her greatest assets. Meanwhile, Tom Kelley snapped away. The photos that resulted are extremely tame by today’s standards, but still she didn’t want to be acknowledged as having posed for them, which is why she signed the release “Mona Monroe.” She was paid just fifty dollars. (A great Marilyn Monroe quote comes to mind: “I don’t care about money. I just want to be wonderful.”) Years later, she would describe the experience as “very simple… and drafty!” And that was the end of it, as far as she was concerned.

For now. ^*