NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 15-minute film of Marilyn Monroe engaging in an oral sex act with an unidentified man will be kept from public view by a New York businessman who has bought it for $1.5 million.
Memorabilia collector Keya Morgan said he recently arranged the sale of the silent, black-and-white film from the son of a dead FBI informant who possessed it. It has been purchased by a wealthy Manhattan businessman who wants to protect Monroe's privacy. "The gentleman who bought it said out of respect for Marilyn he's not going to make a joke of it and put it on the Internet and try to exploit her," said memorabilia collector Keya Morgan. "That's not his intention and I would never get my name involved if that were to happen."
Monroe is clothed and the man's head remains out of the frame for the entire 15 minutes of the film, said Morgan, who viewed the film.
Monroe was rumored to have had an affair with former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, a Kennedy rival, went to great lengths to try to prove it was Kennedy in the film.
One of Monroe's ex-husbands, the late baseball great Joe DiMaggio, once tried to buy it from the collector for $25,000 but "he would not part with it," according to declassified FBI files. Morgan said he learned of the existence of the film while working on a documentary about Monroe, who died in 1962 at age 36.
Norma Jeane Baker, photographed by David Conover for Stars & Stripes magazine in 1947
The 20th Century Fox star as we have come to know her before her death in 1962, at age 36.
A former FBI agent told him about it, and Morgan said he confirmed it by tracking down the son of the FBI informant, who had provided a copy to the FBI. The late informant's son had the original while the copy remains classified in the FBI files,
"The FBI agent that I interviewed said J. Edgar Hoover was completely obsessed. A team of nine individuals were analyzing the tape inside a lab. J. Edgar Hoover brought in a few prostitutes who allegedly had been with President Kennedy and they tried to see if that was really President Kennedy." (Editing by Sandra Maler)
Marilyn Monroe's long-rumored sex film has been uncovered and secured, never to be exploited
The well-known collector now owns memorabilia from Monroe, DiMaggio and Monroe's other two husbands, Jim Dougherty and Arthur Miller.
Bert Stern says the photos, taken on assignment for Vogue magazine in July 1962, are worth more than $100,000 each.
He says they were in a series of "unique and irreplaceable images" of the movie star taken at Los Angeles' Bel Air Hotel six weeks before she was found dead from an overdose of drugs. That series was called "The Last Sitting."
The photos show Monroe, the star of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and other movies, in various gently erotic poses behind a piece of transparent white gauzy fabric. The shots were recreated by Stern in a February 2008 photo session with Lindsay Lohan. The New York photographer says in papers filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court that he lent the Monroe pictures to Eros magazine, a defunct 1960s quarterly, but they were not returned within a few months as expected. He says the photos were stolen.
Stern's lawyer, Stephen Weingrad, says his client learned the photos were being held by Michael Weiss of Mount Kisco, N.Y.and Donald Penny of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., when they contacted him a few months ago and offered "to do a deal."
The men gave Stern two of the photos so he could authenticate them, but they said he would have to pay for the others, Weingrad said. He said that after negotiations broke down because the men were too "greedy," Stern requested the return of the other pictures. They refused, so he sued, Weingrad said. Stern's lawsuit accuses Weiss and Penny of unlawful possession of his property and unjust enrichment. Stern says he wants at least $700,000 for the value of the photographs and $1 million in punitive damages and legal fees.
NY man sues for return of nude Marilyn Monroe pics
Two photographers being sued for the return of nude pictures of Marilyn Monroe denied accusations they had stolen the images and said they had been found in a trash can.
The photographers are being sued by Bert Stern, who owns rights to thousands of Monroe images. He shot the seven images in question in 1962 and lent them to Eros Magazine, according to a lawsuit filed last month in New York State Supreme Court. The images were never returned, and Stern said he did not realize they were missing until he was approached by photographers Michael Weiss and Donald Penny, who had the pictures and wanted to license them.
These photos were discarded more than 30 years ago and found in a pile of curbside garbage in the mid-1970s," said Jamie Brickell, an attorney for Weiss and Penny."Stern's claim that anything has been 'taken or stolen' from him is completely false," Brickell said in a statement.The photos were shot in what became known as "the last sitting" because Monroe died six weeks later at age 36.
The lawsuit seeks return of the photographs plus $1 million and unspecified punitive damages for lost income.
Eros, a magazine named for the Greek god of love, was published by Ralph Ginzburg, who died in July, 2006 at 76. It dealt with sexual history, art, politics and literature and published only four issues.
Because of Eros' explicit content, Ginzburg was convicted in Philadelphia on federal obscenity charges in 1963. After the Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 1966, he was sentenced to five years in prison but served eight months.
