Monroe's Last Nude Pics Up for Grabs

A unique print showing nine pictures of a topless Marilyn Monroe is set to go under the hammer. The photos from her final ever shoot, just six weeks before she died, shows the star playing with a see-through scarf and pouts and poses like the model professional that she was. Photographer Ber t Stern's three-day session with the famous blonde was a return to form for the glamour queen after a few difficult years.

She clearly had some artistic control because after the shoot she crossed out one of the photos on the "contact sheet" because she didn't like it.

Stern published the photographs - titled 'The Last Sitting' - nearly 20 years after her death.

He later blew these images up for an exhibition because they beautifully summed up the movie star.

Monroe died aged 36 in 1962 and the photos from this session have helped define the image of her retained in the public conscience.

They are expected to sell for 15,000 pounds when they are auctioned at the Swann Gallery in New York on March 24.

"The photos were taken over a three day session just six weeks before she died. It was her final ever shoot," the Daily Mail quoted Daile Kaplan, from the auction house, as saying.

"Stern took 2,500 photos in all and these are especially nice because she is playing with a scarf.

"It was nearly two decades after her death that he published them and this contact sheet was blown up for an exhibition.

"It is unique and includes a red cross over one of the pictures that Marilyn did herself because she didn't like it - it is not as erotic as the rest.

"The photos discreetly reveal her nudity and showed how Stern engaged her as an actress, model and woman.

"Marilyn had had problems prior to this, she'd gone through two divorces and apparently was hospitalised the year before.

"This was a return to form and she looks healthy and the nudity is subtle - it is pre-sexual revolution.

"There is a delicacy about the images and Marilyn Monroe is often referred to as vulnerable.

"The scarf is similar because it is beautiful but also has a vulnerable quality. And the cross she put on one of the photos has a quasi-religious quality.

"She remains a cult figure and young collectors always come back to Marilyn Monroe," Kaplan added.

Marilyn Monroe tops Playboy's best bunnies list

Hollywood screen legend Marilyn Monroe has landed the top spot in a list of Playboy bunnies, compiled by celebrity website StarPulse.com.

Monroe, the magazine's first ever model, was followed by Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson, with reality TV star Kim Kardashian landing the third spot, reports the NZPA.

Fourth on the list was Carmen Electra, who posed nude for Playboy in May 1996. Rounding off the top five was Cindy Crawford, was ranked number 5 on Playboy's list of the 100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th century. StarPulse's top 10 Playboy bunnies are:

1. Marilyn Monroe
2. Pamela Anderson
3. Kim Kardashian
4. Carmen Electra
5. Cindy Crawford
6. Jenny McCarthy
7. Denise Richards
8. Stephanie Seymour
9. Farrah Fawcett
10. Rachel Hunter

Marilyn Monroe sex film tape to be kept private

A 15-minute film of Marilyn Monroe engaging in oral sex with an unidentified man will be kept from public view by a New York businessman who has bought it for $1.5 million, the broker of the deal said on Monday.

Memorabilia collector Keya Morgan said he recently arranged the sale of the silent, black-and-white film from the son of a dead FBI informant who possessed it to a wealthy Manhattan businessman who wants to protect Monroe's privacy.

"The gentleman who bought it said out respect for Marilyn he's not going to make a joke of it and put it on the Internet and try to exploit her," said memorabilia collector Keya Morgan.

"That's not his intention and I would never get my name involved if that were to happen."

Monroe is clothed and the man's head remains out of the frame for the entire 15 minutes of the film, said Morgan, who watched it.

Monroe was rumored to have had an affair with U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and Morgan said then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a Kennedy rival, went to great lengths to try to prove it was Kennedy in the film.

One of Monroe's ex-husbands, the late baseball great Joe DiMaggio, once tried to buy it from the collector for $25,000 but "he would not part with it," according to FBI files on Monroe that are available on the FBI Web site.

Morgan is a well-known collector who owns memorabilia from the estates of Monroe and DiMaggio and said he was friends with Monroe's other two husbands, Jim Dougherty and Arthur Miller.

He said he learned of the existence of the film while working on a documentary about Monroe, who died in August 1962 at age 36. A former FBI agent told him about it, and Morgan said he confirmed it by tracking down the son of the FBI informant, who had provided a copy to the FBI.

"I thought the FBI agent was embellishing it for my documentary. I never believed it once until I pulled up the FBI document (referring to the film)," Morgan said.

The late informant's son had the original while the copy remains classified in the FBI files, said Morgan, whose deal was first reported by the New York Post on Monday.

"The FBI agent that I interviewed said J. Edgar Hoover was completely obsessed. A team of nine individuals were analyzing the tape inside a lab. J. Edgar Hoover brought in a few prostitutes who allegedly had been with President Kennedy and they tried to ... see if that was really President Kennedy."

An FBI spokesmen declined to comment except to point out the Monroe files available online, which refer to the film but make no mention of Hoover's purported interest.