Alleged Marilyn Monroe sex film gets no buyers (AP)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – There were no buyers Sunday at the auction of a 1940s stag film that an events promoter claims shows a young Marilyn Monroe having sex before she became a movie star.

The auction was a flop. Nobody came forward willing to pay Mikel Barsa's starting price of 2 million Argentine pesos, about $480,000.

Barsa said it didn't help matters that a spokeswoman for Monroe's estate was quoted in an Associated Press interview calling the whole thing a fraud.

"It doesn't surprise me. The latest statements of Nancy Carlson didn't do anything good for all this," Barsa said, referring to the spokeswoman for a company in charge of protecting Monroe's image and estate.

Barsa said he was still negotiating with an unidentified buyer from Denver whom he said was offering much less than a fair price. But he also said his lawyers were reviewing the matter now that Monroe's protectors warned they would sue him if the sale went through.

Barsa claimed before the auction that the scratchy, black-and-white, six-minute 8-mm film shows the young actress, known then as Norma Jeane Baker, around 1946 or 1947 when she was poor and desperate to break into show business.

Experts on Monroe's life, however, said it's highly unlikely that the smiling young blonde in the film is her.

Comparing the film with known Monroe images leaves ample room for doubt. And several documents Barsa said proved his argument — a letter from the American Film Institute and what looks like a declassified FBI file that mentions a 1965 attempt to sell an alleged Marilyn Monroe sex film — are inconclusive.

Monroe's image and estate is protected by the brand development and licensing company Authentic Brands Group. Its spokeswoman, Carlson, said a sale of the film would invite legal action for "perpetrating a fraud on the public, violating the Monroe estate's exclusive rights to her image and other claims of intellectual property infringement."

"To me personally, it doesn't even resemble her," Carlson said.

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Marilyn Monroe dress is auctioned for $4.6 million (AP)

LOS ANGELES – The Marilyn Monroe dress that flirted revealingly with a gust of New York subway air in "The Seven Year Itch" fetched $4.6 million at an auction of film memorabilia.

A more sedate outfit worn by Audrey Hepburn in the Ascot race scene of "My Fair Lady" drew a $3.7 million bid at the sale of nearly 600 Hollywood costumes and props collected by film star Debbie Reynolds.

The buyers, who were not identified, also paid a sum to the auction house and other fees, according to auction publicity firm Nancy Seltzer & Associates. That brought the total price to more than $5.6 million for the Monroe costume and $4.5 million for the black-and-white gown worn by Hepburn.

The auction house, Profiles in History, was calculating the sale's final tally Monday.

In filmmaker Billy Wilder's "The Seven Year Itch," Monroe's character cooled off by standing over a subway grate to catch the breeze as a train sped underneath — which sent her dress north and exposed a shocking amount of leg and undergarment for a 1955 movie.

Modest but still impressive bids at Saturday's auction in Beverly Hills and online included $140,000 for a guitar used by Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" and $100,000 for a "Cleopatra" headdress that adorned Elizabeth Taylor.

Reynolds, 79, started collecting four decades ago at auctions held by major film studios, including MGM and Fox, and eventually acquired 3,500-plus items.

The auction meant the end of a dream for Reynolds, who starred as a teenager with Gene Kelly in "Singin' in the Rain" and was an Oscar nominee for "The Unsinkable Molly Brown."

Reynolds' combined casino-hotel and memorabilia museum in Las Vegas closed and she had planned to relocate the museum to Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Last year, Reynolds' son, Todd Fisher, said the project had to file for bankruptcy protection and the collection would be sold to satisfy creditors.

Reynolds, who still performs in nightclubs and theaters and remains the petite, pretty blonde who captured Kelly's heart in their 1952 musical, expressed regret in an interview last week. But she looked on the bright side as well.

"I won't have so many children to take care of," she said, "so I won't have quite so much responsibility and I can rest a little more."

More items are to be auctioned in December.

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Iconic Marilyn Monroe dress sells for $4.6 million (AFP)

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – The legendary white dress seen billowing under Marilyn Monroe in an iconic image of 1950s Hollywood has sold at auction for $4.6 million, shattering estimates.

The dress, worn by the star in the 1955 film "The Seven Year Itch," had been expected to fetch between one and two million dollars.

But the sale Saturday, part of a collection of Hollywood memorabilia held by actress Debbie Reynolds, saw Monroe's "subway" dress -- now cream colored from age -- sold for $4.6 million (or $5,520,000, with added fees).

The entire sale, which included other Monroe garbs, was valued at $22.8 million, Nancy Seltzer, a spokeswoman for auction house Profiles in History, told AFP in an email.

Signed by the American designer William Travilla, the pleated ivory dress contributed in part to Monroe's enduring image as a 20th Century sex symbol.

It was the highest value feature of the auction that also some 700 pieces go under the hammer.

Among them were dresses Monroe wore in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953) and "The River of No Return" (1954), as well as costumes from other classic Hollywood staples "Gone With the Wind," "The Sound of Music," "Cleopatra," "Ben-Hur," "The Wizard of Oz," and "My Fair Lady."

Reynolds, a singer, dancer and actress whose greatest role came in "Singin' in the Rain," began collecting Hollywood memorabilia in the 1970s when MGM Studios liquidated its assets. Her immense collection includes over 3,500 costumes, 20,000 photographs and hundreds of props and other decorations.

A second sale from the Reynolds collection is planned for December.

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Moroccan & Monroe: Mariah Carey names her twins (AFP)

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Singer Mariah Carey, who gave birth last week to boy and girl twins, announced on her website Wednesday that she has chosen the names Moroccan and Monroe for the infants.

In a statement, the music star said that she and husband Nick Cannon named their newborn son after the Moroccan Room -- the top floor of the New York apartment where he proposed to her, and which has Moroccan-inspired decor.

Daughter Monroe "was named after Marilyn Monroe, who has been an inspiration to Mariah her whole life," the statement said.

The pop diva has long been fascinated with Monroe: She bought the Hollywood icon's white piano from Christie's auction house, and has written into her will that the piano will one day go to the Smithsonian museum.

Carey announced last October that she was pregnant, ending months of rumors.

She revealed that she had had a miscarriage two years earlier, which explained her reluctance to go public early on in the pregnancy.

"It has been a long, emotional journey for this family, and I couldn't be happier for all of them," said her publicist, Cindi Berger, in the statement.

Carey and Cannon, a rap artist and actor, married in the Bahamas in April 2008. It was the second marriage for Carey, whose five-year union to legendary music producer Tony Mottola ended in divorce in 1998.

The singer, 41, has sold 175 million records since the start of her singing career in 1990. She is the third best-selling female artist of all time, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

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Mariah Carey names new twins Moroccan and Monroe (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Singer Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon said on Wednesday they have named their new twin babies Moroccan and Monroe.

The twins -- a boy and a girl -- were born in a Los Angeles hospital on Saturday, on the couple's third wedding anniversary.

An announcement on Carey's official website on Wednesday said that her daughter is named Monroe Cannon -- after Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe.

Carey said the late actress has been a lifelong inspiration, adding that she bought a white piano that once belonged to Monroe at an auction several years ago.

The announcement said her son is named Moroccan Scott Cannon, explaining that Scott is Cannon's middle name, as well as his grandmother's middle name.

The babies are the first for Carey, 41, and comedic actor Cannon, 30, who married in 2008.

Carey, the Grammy award-winning singer of hits like "We Belong Together" suffered a miscarriage shortly after her marriage.

Carey said in a Twitter message on Tuesday that the babies were "doing great and they are the most incredible gifts we could ever have imagined!", and thanked friends and fans around the world for their well wishes.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, editing by Dan Whitcomb)

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