An Emilio Pucci dress in pink silk jersey owned by Marilyn topped bids in the Icons: Playboy, Hugh Hefner and Marilyn Monroe event at Julien’s Auctions this weekend, reaching $325,000 – and exceeding the estimate by eight times.
Marilyn owned several Pucci dresses in the same style, but the photos of her wearing them are generally in black and white. However, we do know that the dress she wore when leaving hospital in 1961 was orange, and the dress she wore during her 1962 trip to Mexico was mint green. So it’s hard to tell if or when she was photographed in the pink dress, but nonetheless the Pucci dresses epitomise Marilyn’s early Sixties style.
Meanwhile, a crypt space neighbouring Marilyn and Hugh Hefner at Westwood Memorial Park was purchased by tech investor Anthony Jabin, the BBC reports. He also bought a swimsuit designed for Marilyn by Travilla, supposedly for There’s No Business Like Show Business. Her name is sewn on the label, but there are no bathing scenes in that movie. It may instead have been a rejected costume for the fashion-show scene in How to Marry a Millionaire, in which Marilyn ultimately wore a bejewelled red bathing suit (see here.)
Here’s a countdown of the top 10 Marilyn-related items sold yesterday – and you can read all my posts on the event (with updated totals) here.
- Marilyn’s pink Pucci dress – $325,000
- Westwood Memorial Park burial crypt – $195,000
- ‘Mae West’ costume from The Seven Year Itch – $127,000
- Marilyn’s grave marker – $88,900
- Marilyn’s dress from The Misfits press conference – $65,000
- Marilyn’s Elizabeth Arden lipstick – $65,000
- Marilyn’s annotated Something’s Got to Give script – $57,150
- Marilyn’s letter from Jean Kennedy Smith – $28,575
- ‘Lillian Russell’ costume from LIFE magazine shoot – $29,250
- Swimsuit costume by Travilla – $29,250
The Marilyn Report 