Movie Star News’ Hollywood Photography Collection Up For Auction
As Movie Star News said goodbye to its humongous collection of Hollywood memorabilia, some lucky buyer said hello to an incredible trove of more than 3 million photos, 10,000 movies and 250,000 negatives, reported NY Daily News and New York Magazine.
The Movie Star News Collection is likely the most extensive archive of Hollywood photography around the globe. Spanning vintage pictures from the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor and Bettie Page, the collection was sold to Las Vegas’ Entertainment Collectibles as the iconic store closed and will be up for auction by Guernsey’s this weekend.
The assortment of memorabilia, amassed by photographer Irving Klaw starting in 1939, includes never-before-seen images such as photos of celebrity gatherings and behind-the-scenes shots of historical movie sets. Imagine erotic snaps of pinup girl Bettie Page, a portrait of rebel James Dean, a “Cleopatra” movie still of Elizabeth Taylor, a sexy candid of Marilyn Monroe in a bathing suit and a shot of movie star Fay Wray on the set of “King Kong.”
“It's one of the most important photo archives in Hollywood history,” Stuart Scheinman, co-owner of Entertainment Collectibles, said to NY Daily News.
For 73 years, Movie Star News was known as a New York entertainment mecca, buying images from studios and selling them off for peanuts. As the Internet has hit, the business has lost its profit and made the move to sell its entire inventory, which amounted to 100 full file cabinets and 300 large cartons of goods.
“There's over 750 original negatives and photos of Marilyn Monroe, from the early, early years of her career,” Scheinman said. “There are 680 Betty Grable originals. These are tens of thousands of original negatives that nobody's ever seen before.”
The auction, which will be open to the public, will categorize the 5,000 or so Hollywood stars into their own group of lots so that bidders may be able to target materials from their favorite celebrity.
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