Allegations of fraud, such as those lodged against a Long Beach
exhibit of Monroe memorabilia, rarely get the attention of law
enforcement. More often than not, it’s buyer beware in the Wild, Wild
West of Marilyn memorabilia.
*
The allure of Monroe, more than four decades after her death from sleeping pills, is still powerful.
Forbes.com
recently published a survey titled “Highest-Earning Dead Celebrities,”
which compared the money the celebrities’ estates earn annually from
sales of licensed books, recordings, coffee cups, posters and
advertisements, among other things. Monroe ranked seventh -- the only
woman in the top 13 -- with earnings of more than $8 million a year.
Elvis Presley ranks No. 1, at $45 million a year.
The official Monroe website,
marilynmonroe.com, has received more than 2 billion hits since its
inception about seven years ago, according to those who run the site on
behalf of her estate. A signed 9-by-14-inch photo of the actress can
command as much as $40,000. And in the last three months of 2005, EBay
auctioneers sold more than 35,000 items identified as authentic Monroe
memorabilia. By comparison, just over 40,000 Xbox video games -- the
Christmas season’s hot toy -- were sold on the site during the same
period.
The value of Monroe collectibles skyrocketed in October
1999, sparked by the headline-grabbing sale of the sequined,
flesh-colored dress she wore to serenade President Kennedy on his
birthday in May 1962, just three months before her death.
The
dress came from a trove of authenticated items that had been collecting
dust in a Manhattan warehouse for years. They had belonged to her
estate, which was inherited by Anna Strasberg from her husband, the late
Lee Strasberg, who was Monroe’s acting coach and confidant. Christie’s
auction house had placed an estimated value on the items of $2.5 million
to $3 million.
Instead, the cache brought in $13 million.
“The market hadn’t seen memorabilia like this,” said Kathleen Guzman,
a Christie’s senior vice president at the time. “These were Marilyn’s. These were things she chose to keep and she kept them close to her heart. You can’t put a price tag on some of that stuff.”
New
York collector Pete Siegel and a partner bought the sequined dress for
$1.26 million. He said it continues to be one of their best investments.
“I can tell you we’ve been offered, numerous times, a heck of a lot
more than double what we’ve paid for it.” He noted that the dress, which
is not for sale, is being kept for now by a private collector in “a
beautiful apartment” in Manhattan.
In contrast to the dress, whose
authenticity is proved in part by the grainy black-and-white news
footage of Monroe wearing it at Kennedy’s birthday bash, much of the
memorabilia being bought and sold today requires a leap of faith.
The
Internet has been flooded in recent years with items Monroe purportedly
left behind while visiting friends and co-workers, including studio
hairdresser Sydney Guilaroff; Monroe’s personal makeup man, Allan
“Whitey” Snyder; her personal secretary, May Reis; and Elaine Barrymore,
the former wife of actor John Barrymore. All are now dead, making it
nearly impossible to verify the “certificates of authenticity” that
accompany items sold outside the oversight of her estate.
“About seven or eight years ago, items suddenly started appearing
from ‘Elaine Barrymore,’ ” recalled Greg Schreiner, an avid collector
and a longtime member of the Los Angeles-based Marilyn Remembered fan
club. “Clothing, jewelry, shoes, hats. All items that she said Marilyn
accidentally left at her home when she was visiting. At first you think,
‘OK, maybe.’ But when it started getting into the 200 and 300 items,
you have to go, ‘Wait a minute.... ‘ “
Roslyn Herman, a New York
dealer in antique toys, dolls and movie star memorabilia who knew Elaine
Barrymore for 17 years, said she was convinced that the items
personally auctioned off by Barrymore were authentic but agreed that
fakes were now making their way into the market under Barrymore’s
signature. “Someone is forging her name,” she said.
There are also
questions about the authenticity of hundreds of items said to come from
the actress’ foster sister, Eleanor “Bebe” Goddard. Schreiner, who was a
close friend of Goddard’s, said he was going through her papers after
her death in February 2000 when he discovered letters suggesting that
Goddard and a New York collectibles dealer were scheming to sell fake
Monroe memorabilia.
In a letter dated April 23, 1996, Goddard
advised the dealer to place tissue paper between the folds of a garment
and then use a piece of cotton to “very lightly” dab Chanel No. 5
perfume -- reportedly Monroe’s favorite -- on the tissue.
Schreiner said he never told police about his suspicions but said he later confronted the dealer and warned him to stop.
Controversy
also surrounds a birthday card Monroe is said to have made for Kennedy.
The card, which sold at auction recently for $78,000, includes a
9-by-12-inch watercolor of a long-stemmed red rose. “Happy Birthday
Pres. Kennedy from Marilyn Monroe” is scrawled at the bottom of the card
in blue ink. But skeptics ask: Why does the card carry two more
puzzling inscriptions? In black ink are the words “Happy Birthday,
Marilyn,” followed by “June 1, 1962" -- the actress’ birth date -- and
“My best wishes, Marilyn.” Could it be the card was actually given to
Monroe and the Kennedy inscription was added later, to boost its value?
Darren
Julien, whose West Hollywood auction house sold the card, harbors “no
doubts whatsoever” about its authenticity. Guzman, the former Christie’s
executive, said the card is “an enigmatic piece,” but she confirmed
that it came directly from Monroe’s estate and said the signatures were
“exactly the same style and signed almost exactly the same way” as other
items in the estate.
One of the more unusual items to come on the
auction block is a gold Rolex the actress purportedly presented to
Kennedy at the 1962 Madison Square Garden gala at which she sang “Happy
Birthday, Mr. President.” Stamped in gilt letters on a burgundy red
leather cushion at the bottom of the watch case are the words “Happy
Birthday Mr. President.” At the bottom of the case was a paper disk with
a red, hand-colored border and the following verse:
A Heartfelt Plea
on Your Birthday
Let lovers breathe their sighs
And roses bloom and music
sound
Let passion burn on lips
and eyes
And pleasures merry world
go round
Let golden sunshine flood
the sky
AND LET ME LOVE
OR LET ME DIE!
Before the watch was auctioned for $120,000, Bill Panagopulos,
founder of Alexander Autographs in Cos Cob, Conn., wrote a detailed
account for would-be bidders about the watch’s origin. The watch
apparently ended up with Kennedy’s White House aide Kenneth O’Donnell,
who is now dead, and later found its way to an English pawnbroker who
caters to the rich, according to Panagopulos. The auctioneer disclosed
that he had hired a private investigator in an effort to determine if it
was a forgery.
“Everything about the watch was right -- the
serial number, the engraving, the $5,000 antique gold box it came in,”
Panagopulos recalled. “Had the watch had rock-solid provenance, it could
easily have sold in excess of $1 million. But with the provenance that
was available at the time the watch sold, it still fetched a final price
of $120,000 plus premium.” He noted that “nobody has come forward since
then to say anything negative about it.”
There are plenty of
theories about how to spot an authentic Monroe signature -- and each new
one has the potential to spur fraud.
Adams, of
forevermarilyn.com, said she was watching the TV show “Antiques
Roadshow” a while back when an expert appraiser on the show insisted the
actress almost always signed her name in red ink.
“That is absolute rubbish,” Adams said. “The next day on EBay, there
were over 50 autographs in red ink of Marilyn Monroe. They cited the
‘Antiques Roadshow.’ It drove us mad.”
Clark Kidder, author of the
book “Marilyn Monroe: Cover to Cover,” whose expertise on Monroe’s
handwriting is often sought by collectors, said the actress almost
always signed her name in black ink. “Occasionally one can be found in
red or green or pencil,” he said.
Her signature “evolved as she
aged,” Kidder added. “When she was younger, it was real legible and
should always have a distinct right slant to it and loopy Ms. The ‘l-y’
in Marilyn almost appears as a figure 8. As she aged, she signed her
name in a flurry and a rush.”
*
There are few ironclad ways to prove that an item belonged to Monroe.
Dealers often rely on photos of Monroe wearing a particular piece of
clothing or jewelry to help determine whether a piece is authentic.
After all, she was one of the world’s most photographed women.
A
lack of such photographic evidence became an issue last spring when the
Hollywood Entertainment Museum was preparing to showcase an exhibit of
Monroe memorabilia owned by Chicago collector Robert W. Otto.
After
unpacking the crates, museum president and founder Donelle Dadigan
became concerned that the collection did not come with photos.
“I
couldn’t put any of the pieces together -- how she would have worn it,
where she would have worn it,” Dadigan recalled. The museum also was
baffled to find that Monroe’s shoes came in varying sizes, from size 5
1/2 to 8 1/2 .
“That really got us jumping up and down, feeling someone was trying
to pull a fast one on us,” said museum attorney George G. Braunstein.
The
museum canceled its exhibition, but Otto’s collection moved on to the
Queen Mary in Long Beach, where tickets to the Marilyn exhibit go for
$22.95 each. The exhibit is open through April 15.
Otto told The
Times in November that he doesn’t have many photos to go along with the
clothing, jewelry and other accessories that make up the displayed
collection because these were not the kinds of items that the actress
wore to photo shoots, premieres and parties.
“This is really a
private, up-close tour of Marilyn, and it’s kind of devoid of those big,
splashy gowns and big movie pieces,” Otto said at the time. “If you
look at the stuff, it’s a private collection, a personal collection.”
Otto’s attorney, Richard Harris of Chicago, insisted the collection
is authentic and added that he has the documentation to prove it.
Not
so, says Mark Bellinghaus, a Los Angeles-based collector with his own
Marilyn Monroe memorabilia. He and Cunningham, the author, are equally
convinced that some items in the collection are fraudulent. The bulk of
it is said to have come from a relative of Monroe’s onetime husband, Joe
DiMaggio. But DiMaggio’s longtime attorney, citing the baseball great’s
well-known penchant for privacy, said he would have never given away
Monroe’s belongings.
Cunningham and Bellinghaus’ suspicions
weren’t enough to convince the Long Beach city attorney’s office, which
declined to open an investigation of the Queen Mary exhibit. The Long
Beach Police Department also turned down a request to look into the
matter. (Law enforcement is loath to wade into such controversies. But
some experts estimate that as much as 50% to 90% of the $1
billion-a-year memorabilia market involves fraudulent goods.)
Bellinghaus,
whose own Monroe collection includes furniture she had purchased for
her Brentwood home, said he’s not giving up and calls his investigation
into Otto’s collection “the most important mission in my life to date.”
Mark Roesler, chairman and chief executive of CMG Worldwide Inc., the
Indianapolis-based company that licenses the names and likenesses of
250 celebrities, including Monroe, said he remains absolutely convinced
that Otto’s collection is authentic and has appraised it as being worth
$8.75 million. He said he’s not at all surprised by the allegations of
fraud.
“You always have jealous fan club members and collectors who question such things,” Roesler said. “It goes with the territory.”
For the record:
12:00 AM, Mar. 26, 2006:
For The Record
Los Angeles Times
Sunday March 26, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk
0 inches; 30 words Type of Material: Correction
Marilyn Monroe: A
Column One in Thursday’s Section A said the museum that canceled an
exhibit of Marilyn Monroe collectibles was the Hollywood Entertainment
Museum. It was the Hollywood Museum.
Link zu interessantem Pressebericht, welchen ich in meiner Not selber veröffentlichen musste, unter meinem Geburtsnamen, da keine der Zeitungen, und andern Medien, mir Glauben schenken wollte, dass die so von allen Medien, im Vorfeld der Ausstellung, "MARILYN MONROE - THE EXHIBIT," ein kompletter und wirklich schandwürdiger Betrug war, da er vom "Estate of Marilyn Monroe, selber, unterstützt wurde! Anna Strasberg selber hatte ihre Finger in diesem Vorhaben. Ein Fakt der eigentlich unglaublich erscheint. Da sie von mir und anderen Sammlern viel Geld bekommen, und auch eingesteckt hatte.
Robert W. Otto, der "Collector," der an seiner eigenen Dummheit und dem Kitsch, den er hinter Glas, als Marilyn Monroe's "persönliche Kleidung," und Gegenstände präsentierte, krachend scheiterte. Durch meine Beweis-unterstützte und bis ins Detail dokumentierte Veranschaulichung eines Mega-Betrugs, verschwand dieser Mann für immer von der Bildfläche, so wie er erschien. Denn keiner der weltweit bekannten Sammler, hatten jemals vorher, von diesem Betrüger gehört.
Ein weiterer Scharlatan, der wie ein Vampier, vom Ruhm einer tragisch gestorbenen Ikone, profitieren wollte. Bis er von mir gestoppt wurde. Robert W. Otto hat das Image und den Ruf von Marilyn Monroe missbraucht, und ist nun nichts weiteres als ein "Witz," etwas, was Marilyn Monroe während ihres kurzen Lebens, von nur 36 Jahren, niemals sein wollte.
