Marilyn art work sells for €64,000

A PAINTING by Marilyn Monroe has been auctioned off with her personal phone book with numbers for Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny and scores of other celebrities for over $150,000 (€123,000) in Los Angeles.

The 1962 painting by the actress of a red rose was initially inscribed to President John F Kennedy, but she never gave it to him, said Darren Julien, president and chief executive of Julien’s Auctions, which organised Saturday’s auction of Monroe memorabilia.

She later wrote a second inscription over the first: “Happy Birthday Marilyn Monroe.”

The small, brown leather phonebook contains hundreds of typed numbers and addresses for everyone from her dry cleaner and doctor to famous friends such as Peter Lawford, Henry Fonda and Jean Kennedy Smith, as well as ex-husbands Joe Dimaggio and Arthur Miller. Five phone numbers are listed for Sinatra.

Her estate sold the phone book for $90,000 (€74,000) to GoldenPalace.com, Mr Julien said. The painting went for $78,000 (€64,000) to collector David Davis.

An array of sports memorabilia including the contract selling Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees will be auctioned in New York this week.

Sotheby’s auction house and SportsCards Plus, which are running the sale, estimate the 350 lots could bring in over $5 million (€4m). Boston’s 1919 agreement to sell Ruth set in motion a reversal of fortune for the teams, with the Yankees going on to win one baseball championship after another and the Red Sox winning none for more than 80 years.

The contract is a typewritten document consisting of five pages on legal-sized paper and has the Yankees acquiring Ruth for $100,000. It is signed by then-owners Harry Frazee of the Red Sox and Jacob Ruppert of the Yankees.

Auctioneers estimate the contract could fetch more than $500,000.

The document is owned by Alan Shawn Feinstein, a 73-year-old Cranston, Rhode Island, philanthropist. Feinstein bought it at a 1993 auction for $99,000.

“I always said once the Red Sox won a World Series I would sell this contract,” Mr Feinstein said. The Red Sox finally won the World Series last yar, breaking the alleged jinx popularly known as “The Curse of the Bambino,” a reference to Ruth’s nickname and how his sale was believed by Red Sox fans to be a bad omen.

Athletes from other sports represented include boxer Rocky Marciano and tennis great Arthur Ashe.