Images of Marilyn Monroe taken during the last photo shoot before she died are being auctioned online with other memorabilia of the late star.
About 150 photos taken by George Barris for Cosmopolitan magazine in June 1962 are included in the Paddle8 online auction that started Wednesday, and some of the images have never before been publicly released.
At the time of the photo shoot, Monroe had just been fired from “Something's Got to Give,” and she took photographer Barris as something of a confidant, even beginning to write a book about her life with him, Rolling Stone reported.
The images from the last photo shoot are more natural than many others taken of the star. She is wearing just a bikini and a bulky sweater in many of the photos, and appears without makeup. Many of the photos seem to catch her in unguarded moments, not posing, and she was clearly at ease with Barris, Vanity Fair noted.
“You can tell in these photographs, which are so open and honest, that she really trusted George Barris. ... She loved the camera, the camera loved her,” Paddle8 auctioneer Dean Harmeyer said of the collection, Vanity Fair reported.
The images were acquired from Barris by a private collector in the 1980s. Barris died in late 2016. Each 5-by-7 image is signed by Barris, the largest ever collection of photos by Barris.
The auction will run until Aug. 11 and includes Monroe’s eighth grade school picture as well as movie posters from several of her movies in addition to the images from her last photo shoot.
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