Dispute over Ownership of Marilyn Monroe Letter Goes to Court

By BILL HETHERMAN
City New Service

A judge suggested today that a letter written by Marilyn Monroe to her longtime mentor and acting coach be placed with a third party and held in a form of escrow until a dispute concerning its ownership is resolved.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Fruin also said he believes a California court can assert jurisdiction over the case even though the buyer of the letter Monroe penned to Lee Strasberg, the late husband of plaintiff Anna Strasberg, lives in another state.

The letter was purchased over the Internet through a sale conducted in Calabasas by the auction house Profiles in History, and that allows a California court to hear the case, the judge said.

Strasberg filed suit against Profiles in History in May 2013, saying she found out the month before that a single piece of Monroe correspondence, dubbed a “letter of despair” in a New York Post article, was missing from the plaintiff’s personal collection of the star’s letters. Strasberg is the administrator of the famed actress’ estate.

Strasberg’s lawyers tried to stop the auction shortly after the case was filed, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin denied the motion. The plaintiff’s legal team is now trying to get the letter back to Strasberg through a trial to determine ownership.

Fruin had two motions before him today: one by Strasberg’s attorneys asked that the identity of the buyer of the letter be divulged; the second, by the lawyers for Profiles, asked that the plaintiff be ordered to undergo a deposition.

Fruin told Profiles attorney Robert Enders that the buyer would be bound by the outcome of the trial even though the person is not a party in the case. Enders told Fruin that the purchaser acquired the letter at auction for about $130,000 to $140,000 and does not want to be identified.

Enders told Fruin he liked the suggestion of putting the letter with a third party pending an ownership trial and that he would contact the buyer to find out if the person agrees to it.

In his court papers, Enders said he does not know if his client told the buyer before the 2013 auction that Strasberg was making her claim to the letter. However, in an email to Enders -- a copy of which was attached to the lawyer’s court papers -- the buyer claims to have bought the letter “at auction without any knowledge there might be a claim or a claimant.”

Strasberg’s attorney, Bradley Mancuso, told Fruin the letter is one of many pieces of Monroe memorabilia she kept and that she believes it was stolen.

“In her mindset, this is a letter she would never have parted with,” Mancuso said.

Fruin said that given Mancuso’s representation that Strasberg is 75 and in poor health, she may already be at the point of planning her estate. He said that having a copy of the letter might be a possible substitute given that she still possesses many other Monroe-related letters and other items.

Mancuso said she does not know what Strasberg plans to do with the Monroe mementos when she dies.

Fruin scheduled another hearing for Aug. 25. He ordered Enders to update him on the letter buyer’s reaction to placing the letter with a third party and told Mancuso to let him know if Strasberg can travel from her home in New York to Los Angeles so that Enders can depose her.

Enders said he has repeatedly attempted to arrange Strasberg’s deposition. Mancuso said he does not object to having her deposition taken, but wants to make sure she does not have to return a second time.

The letter at issue was undated and was penned by Monroe on Hotel Bel-Air stationery.

“My will is weak but I can’t stand anything. I sound crazy but I think I’m going crazy ... It’s just that I get before a camera and my concentration and everything I’m trying to learn leaves me,” Monroe wrote. “Then I feel like I’m not existing in the human race at all.”

Strasberg’s court papers say she thought the letter was with others written by Monroe that she keeps locked in her filing cabinets at home.

Strasberg, who is also seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, became heir to her husband’s estate, including the Monroe letters, when he died in February 1982 at age 80.

Monroe died in Brentwood in August 1962 at age 36 of acute barbiturate poisoning. The coroner’s office listed the death as a probable suicide.

PHOTO Marilyn Monroe. Patch file photo.