Marilyn Monroe 1926-1962
Surprisingly, Marilyn’s 1961 letter to Lee Strasberg failed to reach the $20,000 estimate at the RR Auctions Hollywood sale on Thursday, May 23. A Marilyn-owned black velvet belt, possibly worn in As Young As You Feel, sold for $7,837.50; while her copy of Something To Live By, a self-help book by Dorothea S. Kopplin, fetched $7,730. You can find out more about the winning Marilyn-related lots here; and the full list is over here.
Following reports that the bathrobe worn by Marilyn in How to Marry a Millionaire will be auctioned at the annual Legends sale at Julien’s on June 13-14 (see here), the full listings are now available online here. I will review Marilyn’s personal and business correspondence in a future post, but today I’m looking through the archives of German photographer Manfred ‘Kreiner’ Linus.
UPDATE: I have now added the final bids for each item.
Actor Burt Reynolds, who died last year, once told of meeting Marilyn at the Actors Studio (see here.) And it seems she made a lasting impression, as his personal property – up for auction at Julien’s on June 15-16 – includes several Monroe posters and biographies, including the 2010 book, Fragments – as Scott Fortner reports on his MM Collection Blog.
UPDATE: A limited edition art print depicting Marilyn at the time of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which previously adorned Burt’s billiards room, sold for $1.875; but his Monroe book collection appears to have gone unsold. You can view the results here.
All About Eve will be screened at 7 pm next Wednesday, May 29, at the Capitol Theatre on West 65th Street in Cleveland, Ohio. Part of the Happy Hour Classic Series, admission costs $10 and includes a free cocktail or soft drink plus light appetizers from 6 pm onwards.
Thanks to A Passion For Marilyn
One of the world’s greatest fashion designers, Yohji Yamamoto, has teamed up with Marilyn’s estate, creating a special tribute for his capsule collection, Project Y, based on two of Monroe’s most memorable photo shoots – her 1949 nude calendar, and the 1956 ‘Black Sitting’, as Jake Silbert reports for Hypebeast.
“The opportunity to work with the estates of Tom Kelley and Milton Greene, two photographers famous for their intimate imagery of Monroe, reads like a match made in heaven.
Drawing from Kelley’s ‘Red Velvet Series’ and Greene’s photographic archive, the collection emblazons a blouson jacket, cloak, gown, shirt and cut-and-sew with lush prints of ‘the world’s most photographed woman.’ Nude snapshots of Monroe take center stage, printed at the chest of the shirt and jacket and rear of the gown and mantle cloak. With Yamamoto’s preferred all-black palette at the core of the designs, the imagery is granted extra emphasis, ensuring that each image is unforgettably bold.The Marilyn Monroe capsule hits Ground Y’s web store on June 7.”
It’s a fine Parisian tradition to make Marilyn a poster girl for the annual Champs-Élysées Film Festival (see previous entries here) and this year is no exception. The festival, showcasing independent French and American movies, runs from June 18-25, with guest stars including actors Kyle MacLachlan, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, and filmmaker Debra Granik.
When Argentine actress Camila Morrone turned out for the Cannes premiere of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood this week, she wore a Bvlgari Cinemagia necklace – inspired by Marilyn’s performance of ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, as Nafeesa Saini reports for Prestige Online. Although rising star Camila, there to support boyfriend Leonardo DiCaprio, has been compared to screen goddess Sophia Loren, she eschews glamour in her latest film, Mickey And The Bear. But as a recent AFP interview reveals, her Monroe homage is no accident…
“Morrone looks up to Charlize Theron — another former catwalk beauty, who won an Oscar for Monster — though she has a soft spot for Marilyn Monroe who ‘never stopped trying to be a good actor… All she wanted was for someone to say she had talent.'”
It may not be the most prestigious honour Marilyn ever attained, but for what it’s worth (pun intended), she comes second only to fictional character Lara Croft in Invision Community’s list of the 10 Sexiest Slots Game Characters Around (with just one male entry, the Scandinavian Hunks, making the cut.)
The spectacular career of Bob Mackie, designer to the stars, will be explored in a new documentary, as Bronwyn Cosgrave writes in the Hollywood Reporter.
“Slated for a December 2020 release, the as-yet-untitled doc will examine the Burbank-based designer’s 50-year career, commencing from his start in 1961 at Paramount Pictures working as a sketch artist for Edith Head before moving on to assist Columbia’s costume designer Jean Louis. For Louis, Mackie innovated the nude-illusion sartorial concept by creating an illustration that proved to be the blueprint of the form-fitting, rhinestone-studded sheer gown in which Marilyn Monroe generated a sensation performing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in May 1962.”
A bathrobe designed by Travilla and (briefly) worn by Marilyn over a bathing suit in the ‘fashion show’ scene from How to Marry a Millionaire will be auctioned in the annual Legends sale at Julien’s on June 13-14, as Chris Jenkins reports for Arts and Collections International. Among the other items on offer will be an archive for photographer Manfred ‘Linus’ Kreiner, including his images of Marilyn on her publicity tour for Some Like It Hot in 1959 (as seen here gracing the catalogue cover.) More details to follow….
“June 1st marks the 93rd birthday of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. included in the auction are her iconic bathrobe worn in one of her most famous roles as Pola Debevoise in How to Marry a Millionaire (20th Century, 1953) (estimate: $20,000-$40,000); her pair of rhinestone ear clips with three strands of teardrop-shaped rhinestones (estimate: $30,000-$40,000) and her six-stranded iridescent crystal necklace in purple and green (estimate: $10,000-$20,000); the two piece period costume she wore in one of her earliest roles in the film Ticket to Tomahawk (20th Century, 1962) (estimate: $40,000-$60,000); a ‘Rudi Gernreich Design for Walter Bass’ black chiffon overblouse with dolman sleeves and elastic waistband (estimate: $15,000-$20,000); Marilyn Monroe’s personal copy of the script for her film Something’s Got To Give (20th Century, 1962) (estimate: $10,000-$15,000); a cast of Marilyn Monroe’s hand and foot prints from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood when she and her Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (20th Century, 1953) co-star Jane Russell immortalized their hand and foot prints on June 26, 1953 (estimate: $10,000-$20,000); a collection of rare large format photographs taken of Marilyn Monroe dressed in various swimsuits, negligees and dresses by Harold Lloyd (range of estimates: $600-$800); a collection of 33 vintage Marilyn Monroe lobby cards including How to Marry a Millionaire (20th Cent. Fox, 1953), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (20th Cent. Fox, 1953), River of No Return (20th Cent. Fox, 1954), The Seven Year Itch (Warner Bros., 1955) and more (estimate: $800-$1,200); colour slides of Monroe’s visit and 1954 performance for the troops in Korea (estimate: $600-$800) and more.”
UPDATE: Marilyn’s bathrobe from How to Marry a Millionaire has sold for $2,400. More results from the Legends sale here.