Marilyn Monroe: the unseen files
A new book reveals the extraordinary contents of Marilyn Monroe's private filing cabinets, thought lost for over 40 years after her death
Detail of a test print from the
Marilyn Monroe archive Photo: MARK
ANDERSON
7:00AM GMT 27 Feb 2011
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In November 2005 Millington Conroy, a businessman living in Rowland Heights,
40 miles east of Los Angeles, contacted Mark Anderson, a successful magazine
photographer, to discuss an unusual commission.
He had in his possession two metal filing-cabinets, one brown, one grey,
containing private papers and a collection of furs, jewellery and other assorted
memorabilia, all belonging to Marilyn Monroe. Would Anderson be interested in
photographing the collection?
The material – about 10,000 documents – had been thought lost for more than
40 years since the death of Monroe on the night of 4 August 1962. Now, here it
was, a treasure trove, languishing in a Californian suburb.
It was the commission of a lifetime, the largest undocumented Monroe archive
in existence. Yes, of course Anderson was interested, and, with the help of the
biographer and Monroe aficionado Lois Banner, he set about creating a record of
the archive's contents, which is now to be published for the first time as a
book.
There are letters from Monroe glowing with admiration for Robert Kennedy; a
half-finished love letter to her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio found in her room after
she died from a drug overdose; unseen pictures of Monroe as a child and young
woman; touching fan mail; rare insights into her marriage to the playwright
Arthur Miller; and extensive documentation of her squabbles with the Hollywood
studio Twentieth Century-Fox.
