In early 1943, while Jims parents were away the young couple moved into their house at 14747 Archwood Stereet in Van Nuys to look after the place while the in-laws were away.
It was in late 1943 when Jim (who had joined the merchant navy) was billeted to Catalina Island. Catalina Island had had the very first movie theatre equipped for projecting sound-films and was something of a playground for Hollywood moguls who would sail the 27 miles from the mainland in their yachts to visit the theatre.
The island's main town was Avalon and that's where Norma Jeane and Jim moved to. His job was training the new recruits and the island was almost exclusively inhabited by marine recruits at that time.
Norma Jeane would walk their dog Mugsy, wearing tight, white, shorts and blouse and with ribbons in her hair.
It seemed that the seventeen year old Norma Jeane was (like women everywhere) enjoying her new found sexuality and power to attract attention and compliments.
For a child who it seemed had at times received too little attention, this must have seemed like a wonderful new world to her.
Jim was to say that when white-clad, ribbon-bedecked Norma Jeane was out walking Mugsy it was "like a dream walking down the street".
The following year in 1944, Jim was posted to the South Pacific. Norma Jeane moved in with her mother-in-law, Ethel who got her a job at the RadioPlane munitions factory.
**Later Arthur Miller was to paraphrase Winston Churchill's characterisation of the Germans when he said:
"The press with Marilyn Monroe was either at her feet or her throat".
A perfect example of this malicious need for sensationalism occurred after Marilyn described her first job at RadioPlane to them:
"I first had a job instpecting parachutes - not the kind a life depends on, the little parachutes they use to float down the targets after the gunners are through with them."
The following day the newspapers printed that Marilyn Monroe was so dumb that:
"...her first job was packing parachutes but she was fired because she kept making mistakes and two men died..."
In fact after inspecting the tiny parachutes, Norma Jeane asked for a transfer as she found it too boring. She was transfered to the: '...'dope' room, the hardest work I've ever done. The fuselage and various parts of the ship were made of cloth at that time, they use metal now - and we used to paint the cloth with a stiffening preparation. It wasn't sprayed on; it was worked in with brushes, and it was very tiring and difficult. We used a quick-drying preparation, a lacquer I guess, but heavier - the smell was overpowering.
In the Spring of 1945, photographer David Conover 
had been seconded from the Hal Roach Studio's to the Armys 1st Motion Picture Unit (commanded at that time by Ronald Reagan). The outfit was unique in its makeup of personnel in that many were movie stars in uniform (Alan Ladd and Clark Cable). His Commanding Officer was Ronald Reagan. The unit was inevitably known as the "Celluloid Commandos".
He (Conover) had been instructed to shoot some moving pictures for an Army-training film but as a sideline he was to get some morale-boosting stills, to show that the lovliest of girls back home were supporting the mens efforts. Conover noticed Norma Jeane and asked if he could get some colour-shots of her. Norma Jeane kept asking him doubtfully
"Am I really photogenic?" She was thrilled and wrote to her guardian Grace:
'David Conover told me he would be interested in getting some colour shots of me. He used to have a studio on the strip at Sunset. He said he would make arrangements with the plant supervisor."
Norma Jeane wrote that Conover was "awfully nice, and married" and that he had suggested she go into modelling.
Conover showed the pictures to his friend Potter Heuth (another photographer) who took some pictures of his own and showed them to Emeline Snively of the Blue Book Model Agency.
David Conover. was transferred to the Philippines a short while after. On August 2nd 1945, Norma Jeane put on a white dress and an orange yoke and signed up with the Blue Book Model Agency.
She attended modelling classes with Mrs.Gavin Beardsley, make-up and grooming with Maria Smith and posing with Miss Snively. The cost of these combined courses was $100 but it was deferred against her first modelling jobs.
For the first six months, Norma Jeane was exceptionally popular and appeared on the cover of dozens of magazines. Her first National cover was published on April 2nd 1946 for Family Circle when Andre De Diene photographed her holding a newborn lamb
At that time, Helen Ainsworth was running the East Coast branch of the National Artists Corporation. Modelling work was slowing down for Norma Jeane possibly from fears that she had been 'seen to often'. She started to think about movies and on March 11 1946, recommended by Miss Snively she signed with the NAC.
Helen Ainsworth and her colleague Harry Lipton managed to get Norma Jeane and introduction to John Caroll who was an executive and head of new talent at the 20th Century Fox Studios on Pico Boulevard.
Describing her as "absolutely gorgeous," Lyon arranged a screen test in which she dazzled him while doing nothing more than lighting a cigarette and crossing a room. He hired her at the going rate of seventy-five dollars per week. Norma Jeane was very excited at the way things were going and wrote an enthusiastic letter to her friend Jean telling her of the new events.
It seemed her movie career had began...
Norma Jeane Gallery