London, June 2 (IANS) The only photograph of Hollywood’s glamour girl Marilyn Monroe with former US President John F. Kennedy, clicked 48 years ago, will be auctioned in the US next week.
The image, which will go under the hammer Tuesday at the Art and Artifact Gallery in West Hollywood, California, is expected to fetch 16,000 pounds.
The picture was clicked May 19, 1962 at a Democratic fund raising event soon after the actress sang the famous ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President’ for him.
It was Monroe’s last public appearance before her mysterious death in August 1962, since when reports of her affair with the former president have been widely documented.
The black and white photograph, taken by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton, shows her in the revealing, rhinestone studded dress she wore while singing at Madison Square Garden in New York. The dress sold at an auction in 1999 for 860,000 pounds, The Telegraph reported.
‘There is no other known photo of Bobby (Kennedy) with Marilyn or JFK with Marilyn, and it’s not because they were never photographed together,’ said filmmaker Keya Morgan, who is selling the print.
‘In fact, they were photographed together many times, but the Secret Service and the FBI confiscated every single photograph.’
Morgan claimed that the White House photographer told him that the picture only survived because when agents came to confiscate it, the negatives were in the photographic dryer.
It has remained out of the public eye because Stoughton was on good terms with Jackie Kennedy, the president’s wife, and did not want to offend her, Morgan added.
He bought the photograph for a documentary he is making about Miss Monroe. It is one of only 10 prints from the negative and is expected to reach 16,000 pounds at auction.
In the picture, then president Kennedy appears to be turning away from the camera while his brother Robert looks on. American historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was an aide to Kennedy, and singer Harry Belafonte are also seen in the image.
