On December 6, 2014 Beverly Hills based Julien’s Auctions will sell a collection of 200 newly found personal items of Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. The auction, entitled ‘The Lost Archives of Marilyn Monroe’ features clothing items including a sheer, underwire bra along with personal documents like photos, messages, receipts and letters.
It is Marilyn’s personal letters that are attracting the most interest. These include correspondence with ex-husbands Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, letters from her doctors and social greetings from friends such as Cary Grant, Marlon Brando and Jane Russell.
If you can’t be in Beverly Hills to bid on the collection in person, online sports betting website, CarbonSports.ag is offering the next best thing. They’ve posted odds on the ‘Lost Archive’ auction allowing bettors to wager on which letter will sell for the most money:
Joe DiMaggio +100 Arthur Miller +175 Marlon Brando +600 Cary Grant +1000
Given the fact that second husband Joe DiMaggio was a very prolific letter writer the numbers work in favor of correspondence from ‘The Yankee Clipper’ getting the highest bid. The DiMaggio/Monroe marriage was short and tempestuous, meaning that the emotional correspondence from the baseball Hall of Famer is likely the most ‘dramatic’ of the letters being sold. Of course, none of this is lost on the linesmakers which is why DiMaggio’s letters are the ‘favorite’ to draw the most money.
The ‘dark horse’ in the betting could very well be correspondence between Monroe and her third husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller. While there are a number of letters written by Miller up for auction along with a seven-page typewritten manuscript, it is a handwritten letter Monroe wrote to him that is of particular interest. Hollywood memorabilia experts are predicting that an undated, handwritten letter from Marilyn to Miller could draw the highest winning bid from her correspondence. In the letter, Marilyn talks about the relationship with Miller and expresses concern for her emotional state.
The two ‘long shot’ choices in the betting odds also have a chance of attracting the highest winning bid as both Grant and Brando are ‘Hollywood royalty’. Yet it’s hard to envision these social niceties attracting the attention–and bidding interest–of a ‘soap opera’ type correspondence between Marilyn and one of her husbands.
