Monroe Six Pics Up For Grabs

A remarkable collection of candid photos, including some never seen and taken by James Collins – an original member of the ‘Monroe Six’, the group of teenage fans who befriended Marilyn after she moved to New York – will be on sale via Heritage Auctions on February 20, the Mirror reports.

“Marilyn moved to New York in 1955 and spent about five years in Manhattan. We all met on the street and we just sort of decided we were going to be a group. I just used any box camera I had, nothing fancy because I couldn’t afford an expensive camera.

We knew where she lived and her hairdresser [Peter Leonardi] was a friend of ours so he would tell us when she was going to an event and where she would be. Afterwards we would run to the drugstore to get our snapshots developed in multiples so that all of us could have all the shots we had taken of her.

We wanted nothing from her except the opportunity to take her picture or to get her autograph – and often she would sign on the very photographs we had just taken of her the day before. I kept them in a little satchel, but after she died I put it in my closet and left it for years.

They’re all candid photos, they show the two sides of her. By day she was this sweet, lovely girl and at night she became the movie star. But I never took them thinking they would be worth anything.”

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