Today’s New York Post reports on one Marilyn fan’s guilty secret – two rare (and now quite valuable) vintage magazines, swiped by a 15 year-old boy from the Jefferson Market Public Library in Greenwich Village over fifty years ago. These long-lost issues of Life and Look, both published in 1953, are among Marilyn’s most iconic, sought-after magazine covers.
“‘He said it was on his conscience all these years and that basically he wanted to make it right,’ said Frank Collerius, the public-library manager at the Jefferson Market branch in the Village, who told the Post it finally reclaimed the well-ogled Look and Life magazines last fall.
‘He was such a passionate fan, that in his passion, he inadvertently took them home,’ Collerius said of the 65-year-old. ‘Fifty years is a long time to make amends.'”
While reading this, I was reminded of the moral dilemma I faced while living in Derbyshire about ten years ago. I borrowed an original copy of Pete Martin’s 1956 book, Will Acting Spoil Marilyn Monroe? Now considered an essential resource by MM scholars, this book sells for high prices on Ebay.
I was sorely tempted to keep it, but my conscience got the better of me. I finally purchased a copy for myself earlier this year (minus the dustjacket, sadly.)
So, dear reader – do you have any Marilyn-related crimes to share?
