Marilyn
Monroe Collectibles in New Guidebook
By Barry Krause
Often imitated
but never duplicated as the archetype pretty "dumb blonde"
superstar, Marilyn Monroe fascinates us as much today as she did
when she was alive 40 years ago.
Since her premature
and controversial death from an overdose of sleeping pills in her
Brentwood, Calif., home at age 36 in 1962, Monroe has become one
of the most studied and written-about movie stars in history, ironically
achieving in death the immortality and wide acclaim as a talented
actress that she sought in life and doubted that she had earned.
It's a lot easier to get famous than to stay famous.
 Some
people say she never grew up, but remained an insecure and love-starved
child throughout her life. When she was a little girl, she would
go to Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, Calif., and put her
hands and feet in the celebrities' prints in concrete there, determined
to become a star herself someday.
Her childhood was unpleasant. Born June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles
to Gladys Baker and an unknown father, her real name was Norma Jean
Baker. She was pushed around to an assortment of foster homes and
orphanages, married her first husband, James Dougherty, when she
was 16, and worked assembling parachutes at a factory during World
War II. One day an Army photographer visited her factory to take
pictures to help troop morale, and was so impressed with Norma Jean's
natural photogenic qualities that he encouraged her to become a
model.
Norma was soon modeling for any photographer who would pay her,
and she divorced Dougherty. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she
was given small parts in movies, and by 1951 changed her hair color
to blonde. She called herself Marilyn Monroe in the late 1940s,
her "stage name" for the rest of her life.
 She
was paid $50 for a nude photograph by Tom Kelley in 1949 because
she needed the money. That "Golden Dreams" photo made
fortunes for others, including a calendar company that grossed more
than a million dollars for it.
Monroe starred in the motion picture comedies of "Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes" and "How to Marry a Millionaire,"
both released in 1953. She married former baseball star Joe DiMaggio
in 1954 and they divorced later that same year. Friends said that
Monroe and DiMaggio "loved each other, but they just couldn't
live together." I guess because two living legends have trouble
stopping their public acting routine when they're in private.
In "There's No Business Like Show Business" (1954), Monroe
insisted in being sewn into a skintight gown, and "The Seven
Year Itch" (1955) was the movie in which Monroe is photographed
in a billowing white skirt, exposing her legs and underpants. George
Cukor commented that although Monroe "was rather modest, in
a curious way, she could also have that total exhibitionist thing."
That perhaps was her downfall.
 "She
wanted, it seems, to deny her physicalness, that very attribute
which had brought her the celebrity she had craved, and which, after
fame was won, was the sole identity left her," observed Marjorie
Rosen in her book, "Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies & the
American Dream" (1973).
Monroe "was a brilliant comedienne, impossible to work with
and irresistible to watch; her body was voluptuous and ridiculous,
her face a blank negative...She was projected as an icon, but only
dimly comprehended the meaning, possibilities and dangers that lurked
within the cinematic ray of light. Her roles cast her in search
of the ideal man but she invariably ended up with the 'fuzzy end
of the lollipop' or the 'squeezed-out tube of toothpaste,' as the
script of 'Some Like It Hot' (1959) put it," said Adrian Turner
in his book, "Hollywood 1950s" (1986).
Monroe was married to playwright Arthur Miller from 1956 to 1961,
maybe in an attempt to "intellectualize" her career by
living with a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. She co-starred with
Clark Gable in her last movie, "The Misfits," in 1961,
filmed in the summer in Nevada with temperatures in the hundreds
where the violent scenes and physical exertion "undoubtedly
contributed to Clark Gable's death," said Ray Stuart in "Immortals
of the Screen" (1965).
 In
1962, Monroe was depressed from failed marriages, inability to have
a baby herself, trouble with the money-hungry studios, worry about
aging in her mid-30s, and, if we believe rumors, possibly being
"dumped" by John and Robert Kennedy as boyfriends when
FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover told them to break off communications
with Monroe because she "hung around with Communists"
and because her secret affairs with them would ruin their reputations
and threaten the stability of the U.S. government. It's easy to
think up conspiracy theories involving people who are all dead and
can't defend themselves from accusations.
The strain from everything was apparently too much for Monroe. Alone
in her bedroom at her Brentwood home on the evening of Aug. 5, 1962,
she took an overdose of sleeping pills either by choice, accident
or, as some conspiracy buffs suggest, by force from an assailant.
The official investigation concluded her death was due to "probable
suicide," but on the TV History Channel in April 2002, Los
Angeles autopsy expert Thomas Nguchi remarked that the death of
Marilyn Monroe "is like a jigsaw puzzle of a hundred pieces
with 16 pieces missing."
The most well-known actress in the world, the woman who symbolized
uninhibited fantasies of love, ironically died from the lack of
it.
The cat's out of the bag now. A wonderful new book on Marilyn Monroe
collectibles has just been published, reducing the risk that we
collectors might be ripped off whether buying or selling Monroe
memorabilia, a permanently popular field of collectibles with much
"crossover appeal" to diverse interests such as movie
fans, magazine and photo collectors, autographs hounds, ceramics
enthusiasts postcard collectors, etc.
"Marilyn Memorabilia" by Clark Kidder is a 224-page, 8-by-11-inch
guidebook to the prices and identification of Marilyn Monroe collectibles,
most of them illustrated in full color in excellent condition. Kidder
is a specialist in appraising Monroe items, and authored three other
books on Monroe memorabilia in the 1990s. You could save more than
the $24.95 retail cost of this book in knowledge learned from it
in just one transaction in Monroe collectibles.
This book will astonish you with the wide variety and numbers of
Monroe items available for every collector's budget. MM calendars
are priced from $5 to $600, along with helpful advice such as: "Telltale
signs that a calendar is old include rusty staples where the calendar
pad is affixed, yellowed paper on the front and back of the calendar,
and...the originals nearly always featured metal strips along both
the top and bottom borders of the calendar, with a loop built into
the middle of the top metal strip for hanging purposes." I've
seen many fake calendars with metal strips.
Kidder warns that many forged Monroe autographs are being offered
for sale on the Internet. Genuine MM signatures "have a look
of rapidity to them... 'Monroe' is always the more legible half
of her name. Marilyn tended to bring the dot in her first name back
over the top of the 'a.' In nearly every example of her signature
her first name is broken into two parts: 'Mar' and 'ilyn."'
Hundreds of books have been written on Monroe, nearly all of them
listed in this guidebook, and priced from $5 to $800 each in clean
examples without author inscriptions added. I've found many Monroe
books overpriced at antique shops, especially if they are in bad
condition, but how would we know about the scarce ones without a
guide such as this?
"Marilyn Memorabilia" is conveniently divided into chapters,
such as Dolls (Chapter 5), Plates and Plaques (Chapter 11) and Records
and Related Collectibles (Chapter 13). Each chapter has an introduction
with useful information. The "Dolls" chapter introduction
begins with, "Amazingly, there were only paper dolls produced
of Marilyn during her lifetime...It was not until 1982 that the
first Marilyn Monroe dolls were produced," two decades after
her death! This book prices Monroe dolls from $5 to $1,900.
Movie memorabilia obviously are prime Monroe collectibles. Press
books, publicity stills, movie posters and other items were used
to publicize the more than two dozen films that Marilyn played a
role in, and we find these things for sale today from a few dollars
up to thousands.
When Monroe died in 1962, she willed most of her personal possessions
to her acting coach, Lee Strassburg, and his wife, Paula. Strassburg's
second wife, Anna, decided to sell these Monroe artifacts at public
auction on Oct. 27 and 28, 1999, at a Christie's special sale entitled,
"The Personal Property of Marilyn Monroe," attracting
total bids of $13.5 million. This guidebook lists the top 100 items
from that auction, including the silk soufflé gauze dress
Monroe wore when she sang "Happy Birthday" to President
Kennedy in 1962 ( $1,267,500), the platinum eternity band from Monroe's
1954 wedding to DiMaggio ($772,500), and a five-drawer black traveling
case with makeup, matchbooks, pocket mirrors, a box of tissue and
other items used by Monroe ($266,500). Kidder attended that auction
and inspected all of the lots, some of which he illustrates and
describes in this book.
Lot number 479 from the auction was Marilyn's personal copy of the
promptbook for "Some Like It Hot," with her lines circled
by her in red crayon, and her notes written in, such as "freeze
like a bunny" and "all I have to do is to play that moment"
and "trust it, enjoy it, be brave" ($51,750).
"As a fan and collector of Marilyn Monroe, I could not help
but be saddened by the fact that this time capsule of Marilyn's
life could not have been kept together and perhaps displayed at
a museum in her honor," Kidder laments about the auction.
For the devoted Marilyn Monroe admirer, there's Marilyn Monroe,
and then there's all the other entertainers. I recommend that you
give "Marilyn Memorabilia" as a gift to a MM fan, or donate
a copy to your local library if you don't keep it yourself. Your
bookstore will order it for you if they don't stock it already.
The more I read about Marilyn Monroe, the more distant I feel from
her. Each of her photos has a slightly different expression to her
face, as though she won't let her real self be revealed to anyone.
I guess that's what happens when a mortal person is transformed
into a myth.
Where will Britney Spears and N'Sync be 50 years from now?
CAPTIONS:
Figure 1. "Marilyn Memorabilia" by Clark
Kidder is a new guidebook to the identification and pricing of Marilyn
Monroe collectibles. This helpful book is $24.95 retail, published
by Krause Publications, Iola, Wis. (No relation to this article's
author.)
Figure 2. A page from the "Figural Collectibles"
chapter of this book, showing the earliest produced piece in this
category, a head vase by Relpo (in upper left corner), priced at
retail at $1,000 to $1,500, and made circa 1960. The 1997 ENESCO
cookie jar at upper right is listed at $250 to $300.
Figure 3. Monroe autographs are often forged. This
page from "Marilyn Memorabilia" illustrates authentic
Monroe signatures, priced from $1,500 to $4,000. The book points
out a popular misconception that Monroe signed only in red ink.
Actually, she rarely signed in red ink, but her studio secretaries
did at times when imitating her signature for the endless requests
from her fans.
Figure 4. Many magazines pictured Monroe on their
covers. Her first appearance on a magazine cover was for the January
1946 issue of Douglas Airview, shown here pointed by the author's
finger at the top of this book page, and priced at $1,200 to $1,500.
©
2003 Mountain States Collector
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