Modeling with Monroe

A black-and-white, 8-by-10 photograph Sherrie Marks keeps tucked away in her Newport Beach home shows a group of young actors and models, standing with arms linked in Malibu.

Wearing a long, satiny evening gown, her dark hair set in waves like Rita Hayworth, Marks tosses back her head and laughs in the photograph.

A young Marilyn Monroe is in the photograph too, smiling broadly in a light-colored bikini, her not-yet-platinum blond hair is glamorously tousled.

“She was still Norma Jeane back then,” Marks said.

Today, Marks lives with her two poodles, Belle and Beau, and a cat, Mac, in a quiet home in Big Canyon, but she remembers the days she and Monroe were both young models and aspiring actresses in Hollywood. The two modeled together, and Marks has the photographs to prove it.

Marks won’t reveal her age, but she was only 15 when she moved to Hollywood from Cleveland with dreams of becoming an actress.

“A woman who tells her age will tell anything,” she said.

She decided to move to California after she won a dancing contest in Cleveland. The trophy was a silver cup.

“They said to me ‘We’ll have your name engraved on it,’ and I never saw it again — I didn’t know anything,” she said with a chuckle.

As a young girl, Marks loved to dance. She would set up chairs in front of her parent’s garage and put on impromptu shows for the neighborhood and took acting classes.

“I didn’t so much want to be famous as I wanted be an actress — it was all about the acting for me.”

Marks stayed with relatives in Los Angeles at first, taking modeling jobs for magazines to earn money.

“I was only 15, but I was developed — very developed,” she said. “Marilyn was not.”

Marks met Monroe while the two were working together as models on a photo shoot.

“I remember she was very sweet and quiet, very quiet,” Marks said. “I don’t know, she seemed a little sad as well, but I always think people who are quiet must be sad.”

Marks admired Monroe’s flawless completion.

“All the guys went for her,” she said.

Monroe always seemed a little lonely, Marks said.

“I wished I would have reached out to her more — I think she really needed a friend,” Marks said. “I think people used her quite a bit, for fame, publicity, but I genuinely liked her, and she liked me.”

The two had to change clothes together in Mark’s mother’s Dodge convertible on a modeling job once.

“There we were, nude in there, we both giggled about it a little,” Marks said.

The last time Marks saw Monroe, she was walking down Hollywood Boulevard and Marks was standing on the other side. The two exchanged friendly greetings.

“That was the last time she was Norma Jeane, after that, she was Marilyn,” Marks said.

Marks still has a large, black-and-white picture of Monroe in her living room. She gave up modeling and acting when she married in her 20s, but she still loves to dance.

“She dances almost every night at the Balboa Bay Club or Villa Nova,” said Yolanda Moore, Marks’ personal assistant. “I have a hard time keeping up with her.”

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.