The 1920s-style bathing suit designed by Orry Kelly for Marilyn’s role in Some Like It Hot will go under the hammer on Wednesday, December 11, as part of the regular Hollywood Legends showcase at Julien’s Auctions.
– SOLD for $3,575
Among the other Marilyn-related highlights is this plywood standee made as an in-store display promoting mounts for colour film slides and transparencies made by the noŵ-defunct Emde Products of Culver City, and featuring an image of the young Norma Jeane Dougherty photographed by William ‘Bill’ Carroll circa 1946. And sold separately, a set of five identical pamphlets promoting Emde Mounts.
– Standee SOLD for $10,400; pamphlets SOLD for $3,900
This J.R. Eyerman publicity shot for Love Happy (1949), with Marilyn’s autograph in blue ballpoint pen, is described as “very neat and legible from her early starlet days … her later ‘movie star’ signature became loopier and less concise.”
– SOLD for $6,500
A $60 Bank of America cheque signed by Marilyn to Harriet Beale, her dresser at Twentieth Century-Fox, on Christmas Eve, 1952. Marilyn often asked Harriet to autograph her fan pictures, and once sent her shopping for a white fox scarf. “I loved her,” she recalled in 1974.
– SOLD for $6,500
This rare sepia outtake from a 1953 colour photo shoot with Frank Powolny shows Marilyn hugging a French bulldog.
– SOLD for $1,625
“A 1954 letter from Marilyn’s mother Gladys Eley [uusing her third husband’s last name], addressed to ‘Dear Ones’ [Marilyn and Eleanor ‘Bebe’ Goddard, Gladys’ best friend’s step-daughter]; a sad letter where Gladys outlines her unhappiness at the Rockhaven Sanitarium in Verdugo City, CA (now La Crescenta-Montrose, CA); she writes in part ‘I am always mentaly [sic] bumping up against their manipulation of my mind / which I know is not Christian Science / and we are taught to use and know our own mind;’ she ends with ‘Would you please remove me…You don’t want anything injurious to happen to me do you?! Please dear see to this at once. Anxiously waiting for an answer. Love Mother;’ included is the original transmittal envelope postmarked in part ‘Feb 2 1954’ and penciled to ‘Miss Norma Dougherty / 6707 Odessa / Van Nuys / Calif.’ — even though the 27 year-old star had not lived at that address for years and she was no longer using that name; Gladys’ return address (showing it was sent from Rockhaven) is penciled on the verso.”
– SOLD for $5,850
“A small six-ring binder containing lined notebook pages in a black and red vinyl case by National that belonged to Marilyn Monroe. The small notebook contains 10 pages of notes in Monroe’s hand, in pencil, on eight leaves of paper. The notes were taken during a class with Lee Strasberg and record bits and pieces of things that ‘Lee said,’ as is repeated on many pages, which include ‘For yourself not for us – or one doesn’t use own sensitivity/ girl crying continuously /Lee said – There should be a certain pleasure in This, in acting – we don’t stop these things – she stoped [sic] crying only at those times’; ‘problems-all the more to be solved got to keep swimming/ criticism can be taken – to incite the will not self criticism’; ‘the actor has to do what the character has to do – let the author worry about his words’; ‘Life of – reality of champagne (you don’t open every bottle the same) actor in scene took for granted (girl is going to be good (New). Boy – said lines no effort – like crossing street – Lee said he wants – Behavior – When someone is trying to make someone (love etc.) how does one go about it/ Lee said – girl simplicity good honesty, to begin (New) with – but…’ The last notes are taken on two sides of one leaf of paper and read ‘My heart Belongs To Daddy Number/ Remember always left -‘ and ‘While tearing off/ caddy-move head a little/ Daddy R. shoulder up/ call dog in closer’; clearly, these notes are for Monroe’s musical number in Let’s Make Love (1960). The notes correlate with the lyrics of the song, and indeed Monroe does move her head a little during the first verse that mentions the caddy, and she does raise her right shoulder up the first time she says ‘Daddy’ in the chorus.”
SOLD for $26,000
“Screenplay for Something’s Got to Give, dated November 22, 1961, by Arnold Schulman; Monroe pencilled notes to herself throughout the script on approximately 35 pages; most relate to her character’s dialogue, but a few are about the infamously troubled production; her ‘notes to self’ on the title page read in part: ‘New producer how come? / not a story for MM / it’s for a man and just any two girls / why was the writer who wrote it let go;’ on page 69, Monroe outlines what she wants to do in the scene: ‘newly learned / playing a record player and she does a twist and at certain beats in time with the music she bumps her hip against the wall;’ on page 87, her short note reads in part ‘her bed is not a hotel room;’ on page 126 she writes ‘not funny’ next to a line of double entendre; on page 131 she writes ‘Not a good speech / sick’ about another risque part; she finishes her annotations on page 138, the last page, with ‘NO NO NO’ — evidently an ending she did not like; this is just a small sampling of Monroe’s notes seen throughout the script.”
– SOLD for $13,000
Two Spanish-style wooden armchairs purchased by Marilyn in Mexico for her final home at Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, Los Angeles in February 1962. The consignor acquired these chairs at an estate sale where he was told that the recently deceased owner had purchased it directly from the Nunez family sometime in the 1970s – the Nunez family having bought Marilyn’s Brentwood house and many of its contents after she died.
– SOLD separately for $19,500 and $16,250
And finally, this four-day event also includes a day-long sale of over 400 items from the collection of Sir Laurence Olivier and his widow, Dame Joan Plowright, on Tuesday, December 10. Among his personal effects were two signed photos featuring Marilyn. The first shows her with husband Arthur Miller, being welcomed by Olivier and wife Vivien Leigh at Parkside House in Surrey, where the Millers stayed for four months in 1956; and the second shows Monroe and Olivier in a love scene from The Prince and the Showgirl.
– SOLD for $910 (above, at top) and $1,300
Papers related to The Sleeping Prince, the film’s original title, including a list of alternate titles sent by Olivier to Marilyn’s business partner, Milton Greene; and a silver chalice with an engraved lid that reads ‘The Sleeping Prince 1956.’
– Letters SOLD for $1,625; chalice SOLD for $3,250
UPDATE:
Marilyn’s notebook (shown above) was the top seller among the Monroe-related items, fetching $26,000, while a first edition Playboy signed by Hugh Hefner going unsold.
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