MARILYN MONROE - CARLYLE BLACKWELL JR - BRUNO BERNARD.

Maybelline photographer Carlyle Blackwell Jr., Hollywood actor, race car driver and innovator of natural color photography in the 1950's.

Carlyle Blackwell posing Marilyn Monroe in 1952.

Black and White photos by Carlyle Blackwell, 1952.

Below are several pictures of Marilyn Monroe by Carlyle Blackwell Jr., using natural color, natural lighting and

                  Maybelline..... of course!!!! 

Carlyle Blackwell Jr. collection of Marilyn Monroe using natural light and color in 1953.

Below, Marilyn Monroe's pictures are  discovered by Hugh Hefner.

When 27-year-old Hugh Hefner launched his debut Playboy Magazine, with “Sweetheart of the Month” Marilyn Monroe gracing the cover in December of 1953, he had no idea that it would become a world wide success.  

The famous women of the 1950’s that appeared in Playboy Magazine include Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Tina Louise, Joan Arnold, Kim Novak, and Brigitte Bardot.

Playboy Magazines first centerfold in the 1954 Issue.click.

Photographers and artists like Carlyle Blackwell, Bruno Bernard and Zoe Moezert paid $50/hr for nude models to pose..... Many of their models became Hollywood Stars. 

t

Today Bruno Bernard is remembered as the man who immortalized and mastered the art of pin-up photography.  He has been called "King of Glamour" and Rembrandt of Photography.

His daughter Susan Bernard is in charge of his photographs.  His website can be viewed at Bernard of Hollywood.  Susan Bernard's book Marilyn Intimate Exposure is available on amazon.com.

Zoe Moezert 

In the late 1930's Mozert also became famous as a movie poster artist. She painted the poster for Carole Lombard's "True Confession", and the Howard Hughes film "The Outlaw" with Jane Russell.

My Dream Girl: A Collector's Guide to Zoe Mozert, by Norm Platnick and Rick Huisking. Twelve years in the making, this new volume attempts to bring together everything known about Zoe Mozert's printed works, 

Dolores Del Monte, March 1954 Playmate and The Maybelline Story.

Playboy centerfold Dolores Del Monte didn't even know that she was a Playmate until 1979. She used to pose for Bruno Bernard and Zoe Moezert and was glad she was  receiving $50/hour.

Dolores Del Monte, Miss March 1954 Centerfold.

Bruno sold some of her pictures to The Baumgarth Calendar Company, which in turn sold the pictures to a young man named Hugh Hefner

.

t was Dolores's son, Steve who found out when he was browsing the contents of the 25th Anniversary 

issue of Playboy. He called his mother from College and informed her that she was one of Playboy's first centerfolds.  For 25 years she had no idea what had happened to the picture she had posed for so long ago. Today she is a regular at Playboy Mansion parties. 

I met Dolores Del Monte last year at a book signing in Laguna Beach at the 484 North Gallery and found her story absolutely fascinating.  Imagine not knowing you were Miss March, 1954 until 1979.  She turns 80 this year and still is a great beauty with the longest eyelashes I've ever seen.

   

Delores Del Monte's story made me curious to see if any Maybelline ads were shot by these famous Hollywood Photographers..... Paul Hesse and Carlyle Blackwell are two I can document, however I'm sure Tom Lyle used a variety of the best, to capture the perfection he demanded. 

Check in tomorrow to see the final day of Hollywood's Glamour Photographers and.....Photographer and Race Car Driver Carlyle Blackwell Jr's pictures on the track.

JOAN CRAWFORD - PAUL HESSE - MAYBELLINE

Paul Hesse clearly understood the power

that an image can have over the public. 

Paul Hesse was the first professional photographer to  create a true-to-life likeness but idealized, glamorized and enhanced by his ground breaking technique of producing only delicious color values.

To Maybelline-The eye make-up I would never be without, signed.....

Hesse designed rear projection screens for creating custom backgrounds that framed his subjects.  The twinkling background in this Maybelline ad made Joan Crawford's eyes sparkle with expression......  Women who wanted that Star Quality chose Maybelline.....
Tom Lyle, contracted Crawford to be Maybelline's official spokesperson between 1946 and 1960.

This Hesse photo of Joan Crawford was so highly stylized and hyper-realistic..... she just leaped off the page.  

Hesse took this photograph of Joan Crawford and gave it a style that captured the hearts and minds of the American public.  He inspired countless celluloid  dreams of beauty, glamour and sex appeal.

He was so admired in Hollywood that the actor Bob Cummings modeled his television character on the popular Bob Cummings Show (1955-1959) after him.


Stay tuned for Merle Oberon, Paul Hess and Maybelline next week.

PAULETTE GODDARD AND "HOLLYWOOD'S PHOTOGRAPHIC ZIEGFELD" PAUL HESSE,

Paul  Hesse’s fascinating career mirrors the rise and fall of the Hollywood studio system and you can trace the history of photography through his work. His photos present Hollywood as a mythical and slightly surreal place where blemish free beauties with perfect teeth smile endlessly for our pleasure. The Hollywood fantasy that Paul Hesse helped create is still being used to sell movie tickets today but it has lost some of its luster.....
                 Old Movies Nostalgia.

Paulette Goddard best known for her film performances 

and her marriage to Charlie Chaplin and Burgess 

Meredith.  You can see the meticulous attention to detail

and use of lighting in this photograph.  Hesse  

selected his models clothing, created the scene and  

assisted in the makeup. When a Maybelline ad was 

being shot, Tom Lyle Williams, Emery Shaver and 

Arnold Anderson were also present, making sure 

Maybelline's Brand was perfectly presented.

A child fashion model - Paulette Goddard moved to Broadway as a Ziegfeld Girl, performing the elaborate Ziegfeld Follies productions. Goddard went on to become a major star of the Paramount Studios and was  one of Tom Lyle's favorite Maybelline model's throughout the 1940s.

"Glamour photography started to lose its appeal when the powerful Hollywood studio system that had been in place for decades began to crumble. Major studios were no longer interested in grooming young stars or signing long-term contracts with them." From the blog, Old Movies Nostalgia.

Burgess Meredith with his wife Paulette Goddard and Merle Oberon with Lucien Ballard.

Charlie Chaplin and his wife Paulette Goddard.

    ANOTHER WORD FOR GLAMOUR WAS MAYBELLINE.

I argue that glamour is an enticing and seductive image that is woven around people places and things to make them seem more magnificent than they really are. It rests on a series of values including beauty, wealth, sex appeal, mobility, theatricality, dynamism and leisure. The most effective bearers of glamour in the last two hundred years have not been aristocrats or the established rich, but those, like Otero, who were outsiders who rose from nothing by sheer determination and force of personality. They captured the dreams of the masses with an aura that combined exclusivity with accessibility. In the twentieth century the major motion picture studios would learn how to manufacture this aura as a corporate product linked to consumption.

Learn more about Glamour: A History at the Oxford University Press website. Visit Stephen Gundle's faculty webpage.

Paulette Goddard

"A WOMAN'S GREATEST POSSESSION IS A 

MAN'S IMAGINATION." 

Quote by, TOM LYLE WILLIAMS.....MAYBELLINE.

Read more about Tom Lyle Williams and the  Stars who appeared in Maybelline's glamorous color ads in.....

The Maybelline Story and the Spirited Family Dynasty 

Behind It.