Marilyn Monroe's Dresses, Notes, Checkbook Seen Before Sale

Handwritten notes and letters expressing the Hollywood icon's inner thoughts and, at times, despair. The 1950s actress who achieved fame as a sex symbol led a troubled life and died aged just 36. The hundreds of items include dresses and outfits, the negligee she wore in the movie "Niagara" and the green and black-sequined leotard she picked out herself from a studio wardrobe to wear in "Bus Stop." There is a tube of her "non-smear" Revlon lipstick in "Bachelor's Carnation" shade, the shoes she wore to marry playwright Arthur Miller, and the pair of costume earrings that she wore to the premiere of "The Seven Year Itch." Lee Strasberg's son, David, said that he, his mother and brother found many of the items in suitcases and closets about six years ago during a clean-out, including one trunk he'd been throwing his football cleats on for years that turned out to contain some of Monroe's personal writings. Monroe, who would have turned 90 this year, spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage and became one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, trading off her sex appeal and an image as a vacuous blonde. Among the quirkier items are a receipt for a bottle of champagne, her 1947 contract with Twentieth Century Fox and a recipe for stuffing jotted down on a slip of paper with an insurance company's letterhead. In recent years, wealthy Chinese citizens and private businesses have become big spenders in the art and pop culture worlds, often as a way to display their wealth or find a place to park their money.