The Unseen Marilyn Monroe Photos & Documents

Next month at Bonhams & Butterfields auction house in Los Angeles, some random personal items — and some never-before-seen photographs — of Marilyn Monroe will be available for purchase.

This headshot, a black-and-white publicity photograph from the early 1950s, is signed by Marilyn Monroe for “Sammy” — Sam Benson, a member of the wardrobe department at 20th Century Fox. It’s expected to sell for $5,000.

This contract, signed by Marilyn, deals with the “loan out” of the star for the 1956 movie Bus Stop. Also for sale: Two personally-owned scripts from her films Something’s Got To Give and Let’s Make Love. Touch the paper Marilyn touched! If you have about $9,000.

It’s kind of weird that someone would want to buy some of Marilyn’s old, random receipts. But since the star died in August of 1962, some of these items — like the gas company recipt dated June 21, 1962 — are among the last things she ever touched. Personally, I love the TWA ticket and boarding pass!

A mortgage document signed by Marilyn and then-husband, playwright Arthur Miller — for the couple’s Connecticut country house — is also up for sale. Starting price: $3,000. The same amount listed in the “automobile” column.

This is a note Marilyn wrote to herself, reminding her to call the poet Carl Sandberg.

These are the “never-before-seen photographs.” In most of them, it’s hard to see Marilyn — if you look at the one on the upper right, she’s in the middle, showing some leg. The images were taken at an “employee only” show called called Strictly for Kicks at 20th Century Fox in early 1948 — she was about 22 at the time.

It’s funny how much she seems like a young, happy kid instead of the bombshell we’re used to seeing.