E n g L i s h jenni Currie Santamaria

Read the text. Mark the words you don’t know, but don’t stop reading to look 
them up.
Norma Jeane might well have remained a housewife in the San Fernando Valley 
for the rest of her life if World War II had not intervened. The young husband 
left his job at the Lockheed aircraft factory to join the Merchant Marine. In 
spring 1944, he shipped out. Like many wartime wives, Norma Jeane went to 
live with her husband’s parents and found a job in a defense factory.
In 1945 Army photographers from the First Motion Picture Unit came to 
Radio Plane to ilm women in war work. A young corporal named David 
Conover spotted Norma Jeane and took her picture. When the results came 
back from the lab, Conover returned to the factory and told her she was pretty 
enough to model. That was all Norma Jeane needed to hear; in an instant, her 
old dream of escape had been reactivated.
Conover asked Norma Jeane to pose again. Her husband was due on 
shore leave just then, so Norma Jeane put the photographer off until Jimmy 
had gone back to sea. Dougherty left again in June 1945, just as Norma Jeane 
celebrated her nineteenth birthday. The moment he was gone, she moved out 
of her in-laws’ house, quit her job, and never looked back.

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Better Reading English
III. COMPREHENSION CHECK
Write answers to the questions.
1.
When did Norma Jeane’s husband leave for the war?
2.
Where did Norma Jeane go to work?
3.
Who took Norma’s picture?
4.
How old was she when she quit her job?
5.
What agency helped her ind a ilm agent?
6.
Which movie company did she screen-test for?
7.
Did she get the job at the movie company?
IV. VOCABULARY BUILDING
A.
Phrasal verbs
Reread the story. Read the definitions on the right, and complete the phrasal verbs.
1.
put ______ 
—postpone
2.
look ______ 
—think about the past
3.
____ turn 
—in order; next in a sequence
4.
put _____ touch ______ 
—bring into contact with
5.
pass _____ 
— give something that was received from 
someone else
By the end of the month, Conover had taken a set of pictures of Norma 
Jeane for 
Yank
magazine. He showed the photographs to a friend, who in turn 
put her in touch with the Blue Book Modeling Agency in Los Angeles. The 
agency passed her on to a ilm agent, who landed her a screen test at Twentieth 
Century-Fox. A little over a year after Conover irst photographed Norma 
Jeane, she had divorced her husband, signed a contract at Twentieth, and 
changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.
Source: 
Marilyn Monroe
, by Barbara Leaming, New York: Crown Publishers, 1998

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Entertainment
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B.
Use the new words
Complete the sentences with phrasal verbs from Exercise A. Remember to use 
correct verb form.
1.
When he _____________ ______________ ______________ on his 
childhood, he feels sad.
2.
Her mother gave her a ring, which she ___________ __________ to her own 
daughter.
3.
The students _________ ___________ their homework until the last minute.
4.
His professor __________ him _________ ___________ ____________ a 
possible job contact.
5.
She gave the photos to an agent, who _________ __________ gave them to 
a ilm company.
C.
Verbs
Read the deinitions.
spot
to see something that you’ve been looking for or that is 
difficult to find
join