Bruno Bernard was a German-born photographer who had fled Nazi Germany and settled in Los Angeles. He was known for his “glamour photography” style — soft lighting, expressive poses, and an emphasis on natural beauty rather than heavy makeup or artifice. Bernard’s work captured a warmth and sensuality that Hollywood soon came to love. He took thousands of photographs of Marilyn Monroe, including the iconic white dress images as she stood over a subway grate.
The encounter happened by chance on a July day in 1946 in Hollywood. Bernard was leaving a dental appointment and saw a young woman strolling along Sunset Boulevard. That woman was Norma Jeane Dougherty (her married name at the time). Struck by her beauty, Bernard gave her his business card and invited her to his studio for a “strictly-professional” test photo shoot. She was an aspiring model who took him up on the offer.
The photos were taken at Bernard’s small studio on Wilshire Boulevard. Norma Jeane arrived wearing simple clothes, minimal makeup, and her natural curly brown hair. Bernard later recalled how immediately she understood how to move in front of the camera — playful, confident, and photogenic without instruction.
“Those shots were enough to book her on her first job which was a bandage advertisement, where Norma Jean would be bandaging a dog that same week,” said Susan Bernard, the photographer’s daughter. According to Susan, at Monroe’s first ever professional photoshoot, she felt upstaged by a dog!
For the shoot, Bernard borrowed his dentist’s dog, Rolf, who happened to be the closest dog in proximity to the studio. Everything was great at the shoot and Jean even fed the pooch treats from the box. But when she saw the images, she felt she was upstaged by the dog.
“And from that moment on, there was never a time when Norma Jean/Marilyn wasn’t the most important thing in the room,” Susan said. After that, Norma became Marilyn and she was never professionally photographed with a four-legged friend again.
Bruno Bernard’s 1946 photos are now seen as the birth of Marilyn Monroe’s image — before fame, before Hollywood polish. Bernard himself later said: “She had that magic from the very first moment in front of the camera. I didn’t discover Marilyn — she discovered herself.”
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