Bidding is now underway at the Julien’s Auctions event, Icons: Playboy, Hugh Hefner and Marilyn Monroe, with Marilyn’s pink Pucci dress selling for $325,000 last night. The bulk of Monroe-related lots will be sold tomorrow. Continuing my series of posts (which you can read in full here), today I’m exploring items which shed light on Marilyn’s personal life.
Above, at top: Passport photo of Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio taken in 1954 just prior to their departure for their honeymoon trip to Japan and Korea.
SOLD for $16,250
At bottom: “Wire photo of Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio in Boston that shows the couple together for the first time since their separation. A caption is affixed to the back and reads in part, ‘Movie star Marilyn Monroe (second for left) and her ex-husband, baseball’s famed Joe DiMaggio (second from right) are shown together for the first time since their separation after dining in a Boston resturant tonight with Joe’s brother, Dom (third from left) and his wife Emily (left).’ The photograph was taken on January 24, 1955 by Bob Nelson.”
SOLD for $1,950
Limited-edition silver gelatin print featuring two images of Marilyn during the famed Ballerina photo session with Milton Greene on 20th Century Fox’s back lot in 1954, printed June 7, 1978 and inscribed to Sammy Davis Jr. in Greene’s hand: ‘To Sammy / Love.’ (From the Davis estate)
SOLD for $5,850
“Two sheets of paper from a small spiral-bound planner dated April 3 and 4 as well as a sheet dated April 7 and 8 that feature notes handwritten by Marilyn Monroe that relate to her studies at the Actors Studio. The pages contain notes in pencil in Monroe’s hand reading, for April 3, ‘Remember – the actors concentration is the only thing between him and suiside [sic]/ try not to come to the scene too late – (exploration – sensory process Home work – after on stage – carry it on (on stage)’; April 4, ‘Everybody want to be happy (to be good actors) to make money (in my case) and look how miserable we make one another’; April 7, ‘Nothing can get through tension – what ever you might want to do/ the effort is the only thing the human being (the actor) has between himself and God knows what!’; and April 8, ‘Just do tecnical [sic] exercises as fully as I can.’”
SOLD for $6,500
“Four pages torn from an Italian agenda, dating between 1955 and 1956, feature free association notes handwritten in pencil by Marilyn. It is believed that the pages correspond to Monroe’s work with Dr. Margaret Hohenberg, in which she began practicing self-analysis and working on her repressed memories. The notations in pencil jump from one topic to the next, wandering around the physical pages themselves and even passing from one page to the next and then back again. It is difficult to follow, but the topics include examining her childhood need to lie to her teacher, her physical insecurities, self-conscious thoughts of what others think of her drinking … as well as a touching passage about Arthur Miller: ‘I am so concerned about protecting Arthur/ I love him-and he is the only person-human being I have ever known that I could love not only as a man to which I am attracted to practically out of my senses about-but he is the only person-as another human being that I trust as much as myself-because when I do trust my-self (about certain things) I do fully, and I/ do about him also.’”
SOLD for $ 13,000
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“Wire photo showing Marilyn and husband Arthur Miller with his parents, Augusta and Isidore Miller, on July 13, 1956. The newlywed couple is shown leaving her apartment in New York for a combined honeymoon and business trip to London where she would star opposite Laurence Olivier in The Prince and the Showgirl. The original Associated Press caption titled ‘The Millers Are Off For Europe’ is attached on the verso.”
SOLD for $1,300
“Two single-page typed, unsigned file copies of letters sent by Marilyn Monroe to her stepson Bobby Miller. The letters are dated July 16, 1958, and August 9, 1957, and relate a number of amusing stories. The 1958 letter is typed on the back of a piece of stationery from the Hotel Bel-Air, during filming of Some Like It Hot. In the first letter, Monroe tells Bobby Miller about Hugo the dog’s escapades, taking things from the neighbours, and asks him to help her figure out what his sister Janie would like for her birthday. The 1958 letter tells him, ‘I haven’t seen Jack Lemmon yet because he is still working on another picture. He has a very funny part in this picture. Also, he plays a friend of mine. I started to take ukulele lessons because I’m supposed to know how in the picture. I’ve got an idea: Maybe we can learn something together–you on the guitar and me on the ukulele–you know, charge people admission to hear us.’”
SOLD for $1,625
Three telegrams sent to Marilyn at Doctors Hospital in New York where she was recovering from an ectopic pregnancy in 1957. Among those sending condolences were burlesque performer Dixie Evans; John Giordano, a fan from Brooklyn; and Harry Bridges, president of the International Longshoremans Union.
SOLD for $2,275
“A small notecard originally affixed to a floral arrangement with a personal message from actress Eva Marie Saint and husband Jeffrey Hayden. The notecard reads, ‘We are so happy about the beautiful news. Best Wishes.’ The greetings are likely in response to the news that Marilyn and Arthur Miller were expecting a child. Sadly, Marilyn miscarried in December, 1958. Also included, the original carbon copy response letter from Marilyn to the couple reading, ‘Thank you so very much for the beautiful flowers and the good wishes. My best to you both.’”
SOLD for $1,040
“A letter from fashion designer John Moore to Marilyn Monroe’s secretary May Reis (misspelled as ‘Reese’) dated February 3, 1960, saying he will find out what happened to two ‘beige and black broadcloth shirtwaist sheaths’ that were according to Moore ‘made by two of my best girls here in my workroom …’ Moore promised to trace the shipment to find the outcome of where they went. Subsequent documents, including a claim to insurance company, reveal that the garments were in fact destroyed when TWA flight 595, a cargo flight, crashed after takeoff from Chicago Midway Airport on November 24, 1959, killing three people on board and eight people on the ground.
Moore sends his best wishes to Marilyn, then filming Let’s Make Love: ‘I have been very concerned for Marilyn’s health and if I have been a poor friend for not writing before now it is because I have been so completely absorbed in making this damned summer collection which we will show the ninth of this month. It must have been very trying to have to stay out there for this prolonged length of time as I know the plan originally was to return to New York about this time! I am glad that Marilyn feels like working again and that the picture is rolling along. COME HOME!’”
SOLD for $2,925
Rare oversize photo taken by Gene Daniels. Marilyn is seated in the back seat of a limousine on June 11, 1961, on her way to the champagne reception of Clark Gable’s widow Kay for the christening of their son John in Encino, California.
SOLD for $6,500
A 1961 print featuring a very rare candid image of Marilyn and Frank Sinatra at a party for Billy Wilder in the Crown Room at Romanoff’s restaurant in Beverly Hills on September 5, 1961, photographed by William ‘Bill’ Claxton. (Please note many creases and dents are seen in raking light.)
SOLD for $4,550
An invoice in the amount of $407.00 for numerous medical house calls in the months of November and December, dated 12/26/61, and marked paid on 1/18/62. Hyman Engelberg was Marilyn’s internist, who worked closely with Marilyn’s psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson.
SOLD for $2,275
“A single sheet of stationery listing an address in Palm Beach, Florida, with autograph notation in blue ink on recto and version reading in full, ‘Dear Marilyn – Mother asked me to write and thank you for your sweet note to Daddy – He really enjoyed it and you were very cute to send it. Understand that you and Bobby are the new item! We all think you should come with him when he comes back east! Again thanks for the note. / Love, Jean Smith.’”
Jean Kennedy Smith was sister to John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, and five other siblings. She was referring to Marilyn’s first meeting with Bobby Kennedy at a dinner party in Peter Lawford’s Santa Monica home in February 1962. The family patriarch, Joseph Kennedy, had recently suffered a stroke. Marilyn spoke to him on the telephone that evening and, according to Jean, also wrote a note wishing him a speedy recovery. (You can read more about Jean, who died in 2020, here.)
SOLD for $28,575
Clockwise from top left:
An original carbon invoice from Frank’s Nurseries and Flowers that has been handwritten to Miss Marilyn Monroe at 1230 – 5th Helena Dr. 49 and is dated August 1, 1962, just three days before Marilyn’s death. Among the purchases listed on the bill are begonias, petunias, tomatoes, terra-cotta pots, hummingbird feeders, and hummingbird food.
SOLD for $3,810
A typewritten bill on Pilgrim’s Furniture letterhead addressed to Marilyn and dated August 4, 1962, the same day she died. The bill is for ‘1 #C Chest Roman White’ for $228.80 and marked ‘COD.’
SOLD for $19,500
A notice of policy cancellation dated 11/27/62 from Royal Globe Insurance for the property at North Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills rented by Marilyn in 1961, prior to the purchase of her final home in Brentwood in 1962.
SOLD for $8,890
At left: “A photo by Milton Greene from ‘the Balalaika Sitting‘, taken in September 1953. Marilyn is holding a mandolin. The image was published in a Look magazine cover story on November 1953. This was her first sitting with Greene and the beginning of their friendship. The left side of the photograph is stamped ‘Sep 62’ and was probably used due to Marilyn’s death one month earlier.”
SOLD for $4,550
At right: A grave marker from Marilyn Monroe’s crypt at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park & Mortuary in Los Angeles.
SOLD for $88,900
“A one-space mausoleum crypt in close proximity to the final resting places of both Marilyn Monroe and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. The space is located in the Corridor of Memories, Wall B, Space C-3 at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. It is situated one row above and four spaces to the left of Monroe’s.”
SOLD for $195,000
