Iconic Marilyn Monroe dress snags $5.6 million at auction

19 June 2011

Marilyn Monroe wearing the iconic dress with its skirt billowing over a subway grate in the 1954 film The Seven Year Itch.

Marilyn Monroe's ivory, pleated ‘subway’ dress from "The Seven-Year Itch" swelled high above its presale estimate of $1-2 million to fetch a hammer price of $4.6 million ($5.6 million including commission) at a weekend auction in Beverly Hills.

Auctioneer Profiles in History also sold Monroe's red-sequined dress from "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" for $1.2 million, over its pre-sale estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. Audrey Hepburn's Ascot dress from "My Fair Lady," with the same estimate, sold for $3.7 million.

The two-part Hollywood costumes sale, which will continue in December, comprises the collection of actress Debbie Reynolds. Over the course of 50 years, she built a collection of over 3,500 costumes, 20,000 original photographs, several thousand original movie posters, original costume sketches and hundreds of key props from film history.

Read more at Reuters

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