Tragic Marilyn Monroe Portrait Fetches $457k
It's not sexy. Not nude. Not glamorous, flirtatious, outrageous, audacious, or playful.
It's just sad. Lovely and sad.
Richard Avedon's indelible portrait of an actress whose public persona has slipped in a weary moment provides a glimpse of what it cost Marilyn Monroe to be Marilyn Monroe. The pretty shoulders are slumped, yet still tense. The light and the energy have gone out of her. She stares at something invisible and inevitable in the middle distance. She seems both resigned and apprehensive, as if she sees her own future.
The heartbreaking photo, "Marilyn Monroe, May 6, 1957" sold in a Sotheby's auction in New York this week for $457,000, far above the pre-auction estimate of $70,000. It was taken at the end of a long shoot in which the actress smiled, flirted and posed in her usual sex-kitten persona (although the shots, some of which are seen in this montage, have a whiff of desperation about them.)
Then Avedon pointed the camera at her one last time. Maybe she was just tired. But because we know the tragedy to come, the portrait takes on power. It remains one of the most famous Hollywood portraits of all time.
copyright Richard Avedon Foundation, via Bint Photobooks
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Judge Margaret M. Morrow of United States District Court, Central District of California, ruled on March 17, 2008 that Marilyn Monroe, LLC (MMLLC) and CMG Worldwide, Inc. (CMG) do not own rights of publicity of the famous actress Marilyn Monroe.
CMG filed lawsuits in Indiana against 4 photographers on March 2005 and the cases were transferred to the United States District Court, Central District of California.
The core issue the Court was asked to decide was “Does MMLLC own the exclusive right to control the use of Marilyn Monroe’s image and likeness for commercial uses and can the photographers license their copyrighted photographs?
The courts say NO. And there could be some liability for MMLLC for all the fees they have demanded over the years.
This ruling clears the way for any of the Marilyn photographers to license their images of Marilyn without having to pay royalties to Marilyn LLC.