Marilyn. Pic: Bert Stern
One of the most-famous celebrity/model photo shoots is the one Marilyn Monroe did with Bert Stern just six weeks before her untimely demise in 1962. Known as “The Last Sitting,” the set included approximately 2,500 pictures, many of which made it into a 1982 book of the same name.
Robert Bryan was an enterprising photographer who was apparently better at dumpster diving than actually taking pictures. In the early 70s, he was picking through Stern’s trash and found, among other things, seven prints from The Last Sitting. He had a fair understanding of the copyright laws, so he squirreled the pictures away for thirty odd years. Recently, he showed the pictures to two friends, and the three decided to contact Stern to see if he was interested in publishing the pictures.
Lindsey as Marilyn. Pic: Bert Stern
Stern sued them for $1.7 million instead.
The BigLaw angle and, of course, more pics after the jump.
Ersatz
In his September 2008 lawsuit, Stern claimed that the slides were stolen and demanded their return. Last week, the parties reached a settlement, the terms of which were not disclosed, but pursuant to which they will share in the proceeds from a limited run of prints (nine sets of seven prints each).
Pryor Cashman represented the three garbage pickers. Jamie Brickell (Princeton AB ’80, Fordham JD ’83) said that “his clients said that they only discussed returning the transparencies in exchange for a set of prints that they could keep.”
This is great timing for New York Magazine. Lindsay Lohan recreated the sitting with Stern for New York Magazine in a piece that was published in February, 2008.
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