#685 • Marilyn Monroe's Gown & Shawl (Estate of May Mann)

Part of Artifacts of Hollywood & Music (timed auction by GWS Auctions)

Starting at $1.00

Status: No sale

Est. $50,000-$75,000 Marilyn Monroe's 1950s Personally Owned Gown & Shawl From the Estate of May Mann (Exhibited at Magic Castle Museum) - This 1950s gown and shawl were personally owned by Marilyn Monroe. The gown was later given to Hollywood reporter and socialite May Mann, who began her journalism career in Utah in 1934 and quickly gained her way up the social ladder, branching into Hollywood news by waiting at the Union Station to meet the stars passing through. She began frequently traveling to Hollywood becoming friends with the likes of Jayne Mansfield, Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe and writing articles and interviews which were syndicated to over 400 newspapers and publications. Mann was known to ask for mementos from her celebrity friends, and acquired this dress and shawl from Marilyn Monroe. Mann owned the gown until the April, 1992 (around the same time that she bequeathed a lifetime of newspaper and magazine clippings about herself and her career to the Brigham Young University archives in Ogden, Utah), when she gave it to Arlene and Milt Larsen, founders of the historic Magic Castle, along with gowns owned by Mary Pickford and Jayne Mansfield to exhibit at their museums. The gown will come with an inventory sheet on Mann's personal letterhead listing the items loaned to the Larsens, along with correspondence from Arlene Larsen regarding a previous sale of the gown dated 2016 (22 years after they received the gown the Magic Castle attempted to sell it at auction). This inventory sheet lists descriptions of the items along with notes from Mann telling how she wanted the items to be handled in the future, as she was 84 years old at the time. This correspondence suggests that Mann had the gown alter to fit her so she could wear it to different events, as she did with many of the dresses that she was gifted from her girlfriends, and that the Larsens had it restored to its original size. The gown will also come with extensive research and documentation about the life and career of May Mann, and this gown. The gown bears an interior Emeson's, Studio City clothing label, a wardrobe company in the 1950s which provided clothing to various film and television projects and dressed Jayne Mansfield and others. For more information regarding the authenticity of this piece, please email brigitte@gwsauctions.com