Marilyn Monroe Nude Photo Dispute Settled

NEW YORK — A legal fight over seven nude and seminude photographs taken during Marilyn Monroe's "Last Sitting" has been settled amicably, both sides of the dispute said Monday.

The pictures were among some 2,500 shots Bert Stern took of the movie star at the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles in 1962 for Vogue magazine just before her drug overdose death that year.

The photos show Monroe, star of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and other movies, in various gently erotic poses behind a piece of transparent, white gauzy fabric. Stern recreated the shots in February 2008 with actress Lindsay Lohan.

Stern, 78, sued three photographers for $1.7 million last year after they told him they had found seven film transparencies of the shoot. He said he believed the film had been stolen after he loaned it to now-defunct Eros magazine in the summer of 1962.

Photographers Donald Penny and Michael Weiss said colleague Robert Bryan had found the film in curbside garbage in midtown Manhattan in the 1970s and kept it in a shoe box as memorabilia for the last 35 years.

Their lawyer, Jamie Brickell, said Stern acknowledges in the settlement that his clients did nothing wrong. Brickell said Penny, Weiss and Bryan never asked Stern for any money; he said they only discussed returning the transparencies in exchange for a set of prints that they could keep.

Brickell and Stern's lawyer, Stephen Weingrad, said Stern, Penny and Weiss will develop nine sets of photos from the transparencies and sell them. He said the issue of how the proceeds are to be distributed is confidential.

"Since only nine sets of seven prints each will be produced, we are very excited," Weiss of Mount Kisco, N.Y., and Penny of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., said through Brickell. "These are great shots of Marilyn Monroe. With the original film and the digital tools we now have at hand, we will be able to create wonderful, unique one-of-a-kind prints."

Comments

[trailblazer]

Marilyn Monroe was undoubtedly beautiful and sexy, but photos such as the one above shows her trashed out of her mind on pills, and she looks like hell. I've seen several from the same photo shoot above in books, and it's very sad. In her earlier days, she was stunning.

[hollyo]

Intelligently handled with a minimum of the dough going
to the lawyers...­however... their story does strain credulity.

[AbbieHoffman2]

Marilyn Monroe was the most alluring and beautiful woman that has ever lived.

[LMPE]

I once saw a picture of her lifting weights. I bet that not many actresses back then would have let themselves get photographed doing that.

[merger]

Whew!! Man, am I ever glad that's cleared up.

[Sammy00400]

You tell me.... way back then who in their right mind would throw away original shots Marilyn Monroe? Found in the garbage. Yea right.

[negogato]

Not

[mediamarv]

Amazing how much money MEN have made off her images.

[imajoebob]

A two-fer!  Ignorant and sexist.

[Phoebe917]

she was beautiful, sexy and talented. she was also a poor soul who everyone she ever met took advantage of her. her sex appeal was in her beauty and vulnerabllility. catnip.

[maori]

Dorothy Dandridge was prettier.

[Yovovi]

No way -- Marilyn was THE blonde bombshell. Can't hold a candle to her.

[takingbkourcountry]

Was there EVER this much uproar over Ms. Dandridge at any point in her career ? No
Marilyn has done something very few have ever done-leave a lasting legacy with her vulnerability
humor and warmth. She worked her tail off to do it, even through mental issues.

[MadamRoma]

That's a joke right? Dandridge couldn't stand on the same light with Monroe. Monroe is one of the great beauties of all time, this woman was incredible. Dandridge was pretty, Monroe was everything. There are reasons Monroe has endured the test of time, where others have fallen by the wayside. It wasn't just the tragic mystery of her death, it was the child, it was the girl, it was the woman, she was Venus de milo realized.

[elenanatx]

Right On! Amazing how people can't seem to acknowledge the real reason one was more exposed than the other. Dorothy Dandrige was prettier, more fine, had a high IQ, and far more elegant. Halle Berry looks a lot like Dorothy Dandrige and Marilyn (as beautiful andsexy as she was) can't hold the sun much less a candle to neither. It's interesting how all three had lives full of personal drama behind relationships.

[HASSASSIN]

She was so beautiful, and amazingly s exy!

[marymansour]

Monroe, despite her faults, is a screen legend. This is so much tommy-rot.

[Gasparilla]

Supposedly, she took five years off Gable's life, who died shortly after The Misfits, with her constant lateness and not being ready. One of the great character actors is in that movie, Thelma Ritter.

[badgirlinchicago]

That was not true. Gable had a heart problem which was aggravated by him doing his own stunts in the film. He in turn was egged on by John Huston, the director of the film.

[MadamRoma]

Gable was Marilyn's biggest fan and constant protector, Gable loved Monroe.

[bikerdude]

Ya come into this world nekkid and its fitting to go out nekkid.

[The Patriot]

the poor woman has been dead for decades and still "all the papers had to say that Marilyn was found in the nude"...

[veganphoto]

well said.

[MadamRoma]

Along with Elvis and James Dean, Marilyn pulls million of fans around the world, she is universal . Every year the Monroe estate brings in millions of dollars in Marilyn Memorabilia sales.