Norma Jeane Baker worked at the Radio Plane munitions factory. At the end of 1944, she met photographer David Conover, who was sent by the Air Force to the factory to photograph the workers and raise their morale. Although none of her photos were used, she stopped working there in January 1945 and started modeling for Conover and his friends. Defying her husband, Norma moved out on her own and signed a contract with the Blue Book modeling agency in August of the same year. According to the agency’s owner, Norma was one of its most ambitious and hard-working models, having appeared on 33 magazine covers by early 1946. Her stage name would come in the early days of her acting career, when she and Ben Lyon, an executive from 20th Century Fox, decided that she would be Marilyn in honor of Broadway star Marilyn Miller, and Monroe, after Norma’s mother’s maiden name.