In my last post on American Greats, an auction featuring Dr. G.B. Espy’s collection of sports and entertainment artefacts held at Christie’s last week, I’m looking at items relating to Marilyn’s final years – and you can read the four-part series in full here.
A set of snapshots shot at Ebbets Field, home of baseball giants the Brooklyn Dodgers, on May 12, 1957 – when Marilyn kicked off a friendly soccer game between a crew of American All-Stars and Israel’s visiting team, Hapoel Tel Aviv – sold for $4,032.
A medical insurance form signed by Marilyn and her third husband, Arthur Miller, from the Associated Hospital Service of New York, has sold for $5,040. Although undated, it appears to have been filled in August 1957, when Marilyn was rushed to Doctors Hospital in Manhattan from the Millers’ country home in Roxbury, Connecticut – enduring a long ambulance ride while in agonising pain.
She was in the early stages of pregnancy, which was then discovered to be ectopic. After an emergency termination which probably saved her life, an emotionally shattered Marilyn spent eight days recovering in hospital.
Both Marilyn and Arthur were required to give details of their general health, and this makes for an interesting read. Marilyn’s given height was 5 ft. 6 inches, and her weight 120 pounds. Her 1952 appendectomy is noted, alongside a 5% hearing impairment, and ‘kidney or gall stones, gall bladder trouble.’ She would undergo surgery to remove her gallbladder in 1961.
Although Marilyn is thought to have suffered from endometriosis, she has stated here that she didn’t experience ‘irregular and excessive menstrual bleeding, “female trouble.”‘ It’s not clear if she or Arthur answered these questions, as the handwriting is similar for both sections, and doesn’t look like Marilyn’s.
Her 1954 surgery to relieve severe menstrual symptoms – and improve her chances of carrying a pregnancy to full-term – is omitted, but she would have further operations in 1959, and a few weeks before her death in 1962.
Marilyn’s personal screenplay for The Misfits sold for $56,700. A revised version from March 1960, it has ‘Paula’s Script’ handwritten in red ballpoint on the front page, referring to Marilyn’s dramatic coach, Paula Strasberg. However, this has been crossed out, with the initials ‘MM‘ added and underlined.
Christie’s describes the script as ‘heavily marked … Roslyn’s lines and stage directions underlined and circled throughout,’ indicating Marilyn’s character in the film, which was written for her by Arthur Miller. The front page includes a pencilled comment from Marilyn: ‘the effort is made by ones will‘ [sic]
A set of three contact sheets – featuring images of Marilyn during wardrobe tests for The Misfits, shot in July 1960, prior to the turbulent production – failed to meet the $3,000 – $5,000 reserve.
Marilyn’s last formal photo shoot was a weekend-long session for Vogue with Bert Stern at the Hotel Bel-Air in June 1962. A set of three contact sheets from the ‘veil sitting‘ has sold for $6,300.
Two contact sheets from the ‘camera sitting‘ fetched $4,032.
Three contact sheets from Stern’s famous ‘black dress sitting‘ sold for $3,528.
And finally, two very different photographs of Marilyn in later life. An elegant 1959 photo by Carl Perutz, as part of a sitting used for a portrait by illustrator Jon Whitcomb. The painting was later acquired by Marilyn’s second husband, Joe DiMaggio, and sold for $30,000 at Hunt’s Auctions in 2006. The Perutz photo fetched $4,788 at Christie’s.
A large photo of Marilyn by George Barris was sold for $2,520. In what is believed to have been her last professional shoot – and a return to the cheesecake poses of her youth – a bikini-clad Marilyn stood on a windswept Santa Monica Beach, where she had played as a child. She had draped herself in seaweed, but the scar from her gallbladder surgery was still visible.
The Marilyn Report 