What One Extraordinary Marilyn Monroe Collection Reveals About Her Life

“We Marilyn Monroe collectors have a saying: You don’t choose Marilyn, Marilyn chooses you,” says Scott Fortner, one of the premier collectors of Monroe’s personal items. Fortner says that behind the most glamorous star of the 1950s was a real person whose everyday life was just as luminous.

Fortner was “just a 12-year-old small-town Nebraska kid who didn’t know anything” about the ’50s when he watched The Jayne Mansfield Story on TV. Loni Anderson‘s portrayal of the busty bombshell ignited the young man’s curiosity about the 1950s, and it wasn’t long before he found his true icon: Marilyn Monroe.

Eager to learn more, Fortner started collecting books about Monroe. New ones were coming out all the time. One in particular eventually caught his attention: the massive catalog of Monroe’s personal items that went up for auction at Christie’s in 1999. “We call it the Bible of Marilyn Monroe books because it offers such an up close and personal look at the everyday Marilyn,” he says; her shoes and books, receipts and makeup.

Still, there was no way he could afford what items went for at the two-day auction. It caught everyone by surprise, even Christie’s, which had valued lots at one-tenth of what bidders eagerly paid.

Courtesy of Scott Fortner

A few years later, Fortner began noticing items broken out from those lots turning up on eBay. Sold individually, they were more in his league. His first purchase was a script for Maiden Voyage, a play by Paul Osborn (who also did South Pacific) that had been pitched to Monroe. Ultimately, she turned it down; she was wrapping up filming The Prince and the Showgirl and needed a break. The script has her annotations, revealing an actress thinking through her part.

As Fortner began purchasing other items, his interest in creating a collection of Monroe’s personal items began to grow. He learned of other buying opportunities through auction house entertainment memorabilia offerings that included Monroe items from the Christie’s sale.

With his collection filling out, Fortner began to wonder how he might share it. “Many people were starting Marilyn fan pages back then, so I thought, ‘Why not show off my stuff?’” He started with the website themarilynmonroecollection.com, organizing his collection by different types of personal items. Where possible, Fortner looked for photos of Monroe with the item in view. Since then, Fortner has added pages on Facebook and Instagram, both of which have become popular.

Courtesy of Scott Fortner

Now one of the premier collectors of Monroe’s personal items, Fortner is often consulted on authenticity issues. Due to their ballooning value, there’s a lot of fraud. “People will take a vintage dress, spray Chanel No. 5 on it [Monroe’s preferred perfume] and try to sell it as one of her own,” he says. He recently saw one falsely attributed to Monroe on sale at eBay for $30,000.

Though there’s a much larger universe of collectibles featuring Marilyn’s image, Fortner has stayed solely in the more select realm of personal items. “For me, that’s what makes Marilyn Monroe so popular with people today,” he says. “Beneath the glamorous image she had perfected, there was a complex person. She had a difficult upbringing, she was divorced three times, had weight problems, wanted to be a mother but couldn’t, was insecure, and suffered stage fright. Those are all things we can relate to.”

And yet she also had those “Marilyn moments” no other star of the ’50s would dare — the posing nude for a photoshoot because she needed the rent money (a photo that ended up becoming the first Playboy centerfold), the subway grate scene in The Seven Year Itch, her singing “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy. “I like to call her our modern-day Cleopatra,” he says. “She will always be a pop culture icon.”

Courtesy of Scott Fortner

Asked about favorites in his collection, Fortner points out a lime green Pucci blouse that Monroe wore the day before President Kennedy’s birthday event. The jar of Erno Laszlo makeup cream, in which you can see trails from her fingers in the remaining product. Two of her personal phone books from 1962 listing “all the folks in her inner circle — people in the press (including Ann Landers), film directors, celebrities, as well as people who did her yard, makeup artists, even former husbands.”

And his long-term vision for the collection? “Well, it’s growing as I continue to collect. I never sell anything.” Sometimes a collector like him will put their collection up for sale, “but now is not the time [for me].”

In 2020, Fortner bought a Tiffany-style lamp owned by Monroe, sold in the 1999 Christie’s auction, and which he bought from a later sale at Julien’s Auctions. He has a photo of Monroe in her office at Marilyn Monroe Productions, and the lamp is behind her. Fortner says he now uses the lamp to write by.

“We will never know the real Marilyn,” he says. “But from these items, you get some sort of a sense of who she was.” And in a sense, she is still close by.

This article is from the August 2022 Collecting the 1950s Issue of ReMIND Magazine. You can purchase the full issue at the link below.

Want to learn more about Scott’s Marilyn Collection?

Courtesy of MeTV

Lifelong fan Scott Fortner has assembled a dazzling collection that illuminates both aspects of Marilyn’s persona and shares it all with Lisa. From the onscreen side, he shares the gown she wore (and the fan she wielded) in The Prince and the Showgirl, and her personal script for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. From the private side, he showcases her phone book from 1962, a letter to her former father-in-law on her personal stationery, her custom-made black wool and mink collar suit, and her iconic green Pucci top. Entertainment archivist and screen-worn costume authority Rob Klein appraises Scott’s entire collection before offering a tempting trade for one of its treasures.

Scott’s collection will be featured on Collector’s Call on Sunday, May 31, 2026.

Whatever Happened to Marilyn Monroe's Famous White Dress From 'The Seven Year Itch'?

There's always a hot market for Marilyn memorabilia.

Remind

Want More?

Collecting the 1950s

Aug. 2022

For fans of the Nifty Fifties enjoy this treasure trove of ’50s memorabilia.

Buy This Issue