Thousands of negatives of Monroe, which were shot by photographer Milton H. Greene, will go under the hammer later this month and are expected to fetch $300,000.
- Jul 16, 2013
AceShowbiz - Marilyn Monroe's black-and-white and color negatives and transparencies, which come from photographer Milton H. Greene's collection, are going to be auctioned off on July 27 in Los Angeles. The 3,700 negatives will go under the hammer along with the copyright.
The buyer later can reprint, sell the photos and license the materials. "It's a big, big deal. It's like selling the recipe for Coca-Cola," Joseph Maddalena of Profiles in History told Associated Press.
The negatives are just a fraction of Greene's archive. He has 75,000 celebrity negatives which were shot in 1950s and 1960s. Hundreds of production stills of Faye Dunaway when she was working in "Bonnie & Clyde" as well as Doris Day and Cary Grant in "That Touch of Mink" are also included in the archive.
The materials, which were spread into more than 268 lots, are mostly expected to fetch between between $1,000 and $15,000. The price depends on the number of negatives in each slot and the featured celebrity.
Milton Greene photographed Monroe for Look magazine when he was 26. The 1953 photoshoot became the start of his partnership with the iconic actress. He took 5,000 photos of her in more than 55 sittings over the next four years. They later created Marilyn Monroe Productions, which resulted in "Bus Stop" and "The Prince and the Showgirl."
