"Marilyn Monroe-the exhibit" on the Queen Mary opened its doors to the public on November 11, but it had already been denounced as a fraud the night before at a press preview.
(Marilyn Monroe "scared and shocked" in 1949 for a Life magazine photo shoot by Philippe Halsman for "Eight Girls Try Out Mixed Emotions" article. Photo courtesy of the Mark Bellinghaus collection.)
Robert W. Welkos, a prominent Los Angeles Times writer, was given a personal tour that night by collector Mark Bellinghaus, who pointed out the blatant and clumsy attempts at deception. Welkos laughed, shook his head, rolled his eyes in wonder - yet did nothing, said nothing, to warn readers and the tens of thousands of visitors who would plunk down an outrageous $22.95 each to be admitted to the exhibit.
Mr. Welkos’s first article, written before the press opening, gave a warm handshake to Robert W. Otto, the owner of the dubious Marilyn collection. In his first article about the exhibit, on 11/11/05, the Los Angeles Times withheld the facts and proof against the exhibit that was delivered first-hand. Welkos had come to Bellinghaus' home days before the opening of the exhibit and seen the real hair rollers of Marilyn Monroe.
And for two hours he was shown photo-documented memorabilia of the legend from some of her Puccis to the amazing cape she wore in The Prince And The Showgirl , even the last piece Marilyn Monroe wore alive (as described by Eunice Murray in her book ) - a white terrycloth bathing robe.
For two hours Bellinghaus shared his collection with this reporter, only to be portrayed as a scoffer, a jealous collector and quoted out of context. That is outrageous and not acceptable.
We were still hopeful when we saw the question mark placed behind the name of Marilyn Monroe in the first article's headline. But Otto made one outrageous claim after another and people seemed to believe him - it's scandalous that the Estate of Marilyn Monroe is backing up his ridiculous tales.
We approached the Times the first day of the exhibit and gave them solid proof of fraud — including the now infamous 1974 hair curlers — but a follow-up, and a warning, were never printed. Welkos failed in his two articles about the exhibit to point out the scam and crime that the public is facing.
There are, however sincere and truth-hungry journalists with guts who do report about real scandal, and who try to warn the public about them. The Los Angeles Independent newspaper ran a cover story by Mary Frances Gurton headlined “Expert: Marilyn Show Memorabilia Fake."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - johAn grimmius
hi mark,
glad your back!!
and also glad to know that your first blog article was such a succes. shows that some people might not care about mm that much ( or not at all), but the most of us do !!
hope you will succeed in your mission, since marilyn monroe really deserves it !! the truth will survive, as you wrote. and hope it will.
well, anyway, your investigation and the truth about the mm fraud is already working, as it should.
when one is a mm fan or collector or if someone really has any respect at all for mm, well they would not do what the people behind this mm show and the stories around it have done.
if i had done that, i would be ashamed of myself as a mm fan. its a betrayal to her .
anyway, good luck and hope this will go the way you, and all of us mm fans, want it to go!!
marilyn monroe really deserves justice !!
she would have loved your action! i am 100% sure of that.
2 - johAn grimmius
well forgot to mention, a lovely colorphoto of mm and jose bolanos you have in your article!!
3 - Ruthie
Your persistence is paying off...stand strong and the truth will prevail. I think Ms. Monroe is watching you with a big smile on her face!
4 - Carolien
Dear Mark,
Impressed with your research, determination, collection, website, and your love for Marilyn. I have always detested the exploitation of Marilyn by Ms. Anna Strasberg and countless other people, but this is really so low and disrespectful.
This scam should be stopped indeed. And these people should be ashamed of their selves. Hope you will succeed.
Carolien (from Belgium)
5 - Anna Markitell
Hi Mark,
Before perusing your blogs, I was unaware of the extent of the scamming, cheating, and outright lies associated with the Marilyn Estate items. As you mentioned, the collector's circle is small and most members know at least a few others that have authentic Marilyn articles and I was wondering where all of these "new" items suddenly popped up from. Its an outrage that the public is being fleeced by the perpetrators of this ongoing scam...what is even worse is the "Good Ol' Boy" network that allows it to continue, either by remaining silent or by climbing onto the scam bandwagon by telling lies and discredits of their own. I paid dearly for the items I bought at the Christie's auction and I'm sickened by the ease that some can seemingly take everyday items, make a false claim (or cloudy explanation of it's origins) about them, and display/sell these as authentic.
The rumbling that is heard in the Hollywood Hills isn't seismic activity, it is simply Marilyn rolling over in her grave over the terrible sideshow that has grown like a weed surrounding her short life and personal items. I commend you in carrying the torch in keeping Marilyn's estate authentic and original...most others would rather roll over and get on the party wagon that lines their pockets with hard earned cash from an adoring public that really does love Marilyn and the things she did.
One can only hope this charade will be stopped, but it seems it is increasingly hard to fight big money and the politically connected. Keep up the fight!!
6 - Mark Bellinghaus
Happy Passover, Happy Easter! And a very special THANK YOU to my co-author Ernest W. Cunningham, without his support and engagement all this would not have been possible. We will both try to answer to comments, but we will not engage in any "catfights", provoced by anonymous posters, like it happened in my first blog.
That first blog did so much, it is almost unbelievable. WE literally stopped the release of the biggest lie in form of a "biography" by a woman who came out of nowhere and is nobody in the MM-history, we had the people behind the shameful exhibit "refresh" their collection, by simply pulling item after item, highlight after highlight.
We made a famous TV SHOW edit out a phony, yet a statement was never made! They will have to do this at some point. CBS, what do you think you are doing?
Please watch Otto and June "up close and personal" by clicking on the very first link ("Marilyn Monroe-the exhibit" on the Queen Mary), as there is a CBS report with the STARS of the show. The "marionettes" are working and deliever their lines. The discribed Hair Curler set is in there as well! The FAKE "pink movie gown", the MD coat, an absolute JOKE!
I have been threatened with a lawsuit, by the lawyer that is discribed in our article above.
If you click under "Mission" on my Website (URL) you can read that these people claim to win every lawsuit.
Well, there are surprises out there, I am sure of that.
We were so surprised to find a ship-load full of junk, declared as MARILYN MONROE'S. And Mrs. Anna Strasberg has been quiet all along. Too quiet.
The BEVERLY HILLS COURIER printed a long article, written by Sherry Dodd, on this toppic yesterday. I will post it soon to my Website.
FRIENDS THROUGH MARILYN!
Mark Bellinghaus
7 - Mark Bellinghaus
To #1johAn:
Greetings to Holland and you. Thank you for supporting us so much in this matter! You bet that your country will be saved of the attempt of being screwed by this hoax exhibit-scam!
You will make sure, johAn, that your country's press will attack them, should they ever set food into the wonderful Holland!
This net of support is already working.
I am so glad that you changed your mind about the bad books that have been written about Marilyn Monroe. This was the hope of June DiMaggio/Popp/Otto, to throw out an aweful product full of nasty lies created on a helpless Marilyn who can not get up and out of her crypt she is trying to rest, and defend herself! We have to do this for her. You, and I and all of us. If she was our daughter, our mom, our wife, our grandmother, our aunt, our girlfriend, our teacher, our loved one, we naturally would do anything possible to succeed with her defense. Just imagine that she really is all of that. And we will be successful.
And then Marilyn will be finally be able to rest in PEACE!
8 - Mark Bellinghaus
To #3Ruthie:
Thank you Ruthie, for checking in. Please forward this matter to your famous contacts that you mentioned in your email. We need more powerful people to close this crime down. Immediately and BEFORE they pack up to scam another City, another country! Thank you so much.
9 - Mark Bellinghaus
To#2 johAn: I will pass your compliment on to the wonderful Kim Goodwin, who is a great artist; we appreciate his great support. Thanks
10 - Mark Bellinghaus
To #4Carolien: Greetings to Belgium and what johAn is doing you may as well do in Belgium! These people behind the exhibit are seriously just hoping that we are simply "going away", give up and stop, but that will never happen!
They have tainted the memory of Miss Monroe for all of us with that disgusting Playboy interview, yet "hef" never apologized for that. How can he possibly believe that he will "rest" some day, when he was just spilling out some trash over the legacy Marilyn Monroe. He discribed himself as a friend of Marilyn Monroe, yet he met her as often as I did: NEVER!
FRIENDS THROUGH MARILYN!
11 - Mark Bellinghaus
To Anna Markitell:
Dear Anna! So good to have you here, and you have all the rights to be upset, after you paid like so many others BIG BUCKS, that went right into the famous pockts of Mark A. Roesler and Anna Strasberg.
Your comment is so true and wonderful. Please join us to go against them all. I know your time is spare. Every little gesture in this matter can make a difference and bring us to success against these evil people.
FRIENDS THORUGH MARILYN!
12 - Matthew T. Sussman
Two things: One, this isn't a blog it's a blog post.
Second, I believe in the power of blogs but this would have been so much better written had it not been so self-serving.
13 - Ernest W. Cunningham
This is a response to a criticism of "self-serving" blogging.
Look at it this way: suppose you had been the fortunate person who was able to pay a million dollars for the "Happy Birthday" dress . . . and you open the newspaper one day and there's an advertisment for an exhibit of Marilyn Monroe items . . . and you go and pay $22.95 to get in to see it (because you're puzzled) . . . and there is a tacky white dress with colored rhinestones glued all over it . . . and you spot a small label that says "Made in Taiwan." So you get pissed. You demand to speak to the manager . . . who hastens to assure you that the dress is indeed the million dollar gown, that Marilyn gave it to her Chinese cook (because it fit her better than it fit Marilyn).
You start to get pissed off, so they throw you out of the exhibit, threatening legal action if you dare suggest that the gown -- you paid a million dollars for it, remember? -- is not the real thing. So you think of hiring a lawyer, of calling the cops, of calling your friend at the New York Times. But then you decide --naw, let it go, that would just be self-serving.
14 - Ernest W. Cunningham
A P.S. to what I just wrote, to the "self-serving" comment.
The lawyer that you call tells you that, sure, he'll take the case, but he'll need at least a $500,00 retainer. You go to the Police, but they say it's not their job. You go to the Mayor's office but it's not his job. City attorney? not his job. Better Business Bureau? Ha! You think this is nonsense? read Mark's blog again.
Read it again, and say Thank God for Blog!
15 - Mark Bellinghaus
To #13Vole Killer: We will pass on your true comment to the likes of Anna Strasberg and Mark A. Roesler. Don't you agree that feeding of the dead, an getting a great life that way, is sort of morbid?
Also: are you only killing voles or also some famous "gerbils"?
FRIENDS THROUGH MARILYN!
16 - Ernest W. Cunningham
If you've followed the nonsense and outrage surrounding MM as long as I have, you start to see stories repeated and changed and amplified and made sillier.
Now that the Marilyn/John Crawford affair has been resusitated and recirculated (thanks to John Miner and Playboy and other leeches) I
predict that it is just a matter of time before the obvious truth surfaces -- that Joan Crawford killed Marilyn after she spurned her advances. I signed over all the rights to you.
I haven't copyrighted this story, so feel free to run with it.
17 - Heather Monroe
Thank you again, Mark and Mr.Cunningham for bringing the truth to light. Marilyn was exploited practically from the womb until her untimely death. I am 100% positive she did not leave the majority of her estate with the Strasburgs' to pad their wallets. Marilyn said in her final days "...Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe. I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one. I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity." and Otto has made a very lucritive joke of Ms.Monroe. Still in death, Marilyn needs a champion to remind the world that she was a real person. Thank you for being that.
"...Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul..."-Marilyn Monroe
18 - Mark Bellinghaus
To #14Ernest W. Cunningham:
Oh, Ernest you hit it right on! lol And you should also mention Otto's famous attempt to declare a $4,50 ebay rug in pink and aweful dimensions, as a "Happy birthday Mr. President back up dress." Since he did not buy the real deal, the dress discribed by you, of course.
What people should know to understand the story behind it is, that the famous $1.26 million dress was made by Jean Louis, and MM paid from her own pocket $12K for it! Tell me one single reason, why she would "back up and out" of that dream in rhinestones, when she had Otto's pink and very ugly choice. She was sewn into this historic gown; I know, she should have listened to Robert W. Otto, the "famous Monroe historian", and people would have looked in disbelieve, like saying "get that clown off the stage". No, Mr. Otto, that is one of the stories you created with June, that stink beyond disgrace and shame!
FRIENDS THROUGH MARILYN!
19 - Mark Bellinghaus
To #20Heather Monroe:
No, Thank YOU, Heather! And Thank you for your sweet email and the photos yo sent. Was it hard to read through a jungle of evidence against a corporation who is about to scam the world with it's fake product?
You should pursue the tracking of your real last name! Maybe you actually are somehow related to MM? Please let us know. I also read that there is some evidence that Marilyn Monroe was somehow related to the decendents of the fifth American President of the United States(the Monroe doctrine). So you never know and today in times of internet research you can even track down June DiMaggio's real age! What a fun that was...!
Correct! Otto definetely made Marilyn Monroe definetely look like a joke with those Halloween costumes and scary underwear on display, dresses as big as tents and fabric made in the Disco celebrating 70's! Please tell your friends all about this, Heather. You said in your email to me that you live in Marilyn's childhood neigborhood, and carrying her last name, that is quite something. Wonderful.
FRIENDS THOUGH MARILYN!
20 - johAn grimmius
to 13. "time for some people to get a life" ,
well why should "some people" get a life when they are passionate for a thing? it may not be your thing, but that goes for every passion people have. its really a comment
from short minded people i think. what you stand for may not be what others stand for. that goes for so many things.
and when one has a passion for mm and care about the way she is treated , well why does it mean that they should get a live? mm is a big part of my life and i am not ashamed of that.
is it wrong to care for something/somebody? luckily some( well many that is) still do for mm.
anyway, besides the comment above, i like to say that anna strasberg ofcourse cannot do anything about the fact that she inherited the mm estate from lee. she was lucky to get it and can make $$ of it that easy. but its another thing how she deals with it. if she would have treated mm with a bit more ( a lot more that is) respect she would not be critised this much i think. its not about the fact that she inherited the mm estate, that is something she got from her husband, but its the way she behaves and how she makes big $$ on mm. she could have treated mm with a lot more dignity.
21 - Mark Bellinghaus
James Monroe was born in Westmoreland, Virginia before the US became a country. He was born on April 28, 1758.
He was one of seven Presidents from Virginia.
James Monroe was an Episcopalian.
Monroe served in the American Revolution.
James Monroe is best remembered for the Monroe Doctrine.
The White House was still being rebuilt when he became president. On January 1, 1818, the president and his wife held a public reception marking the reopening of the White House. The White House was painted white the year Monroe became president.
Monroe was the first President that was inaugurated outdoors.
James Monroe was President during the First Seminole War, 1817-1818
President Monroe was the first President who had been a US Senator.
James Monroe ran unopposed for his second term.(1820)
The U.S. took over Florida from Spain during his term.
Monroe had several pets while in the White House. He had sheep dogs and a black spaniel that belonged to his granddaughter.
In the election of 1820, Monroe received every electoral vote but one. A New Hampshire delegate wanted Washington to be the only president elected unanimously.
He became president after more than 40 years of public service. Long public service made him a poor man, and in 1830, he was forced to move in with his daughter. He died there on July 4, 1831.
He was the third of five presidents to die on the Fourth of July. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died five years before. Monroe died of heart failure.
James Monroe is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. He was 73 years and 67 days old.
22 - Mark Bellinghaus
To # 22johAn: Absolutely. Anna Strasberg could have helped her step daughter Susan, when she was battleing cancer, but she did not. She could have helped her step gand daughter Jennifer or her step son John Strasberg, but again--she did not.
She could have saved the entire load of MM artifacts instead of selling them on auction to the highest bidder. She made a mistake and must have realized that, since Otto is only a "used vehicle" in their plan to re-create whtat was sold 6 1/2 years ago.
That is not possible. Not even for the powerful and fierce Anna Strasberg who seem to call the courts her "recreation area"!
She could have kept the $1,26million dress and traveled around the world with all the itmes she sold, she certainly could have made millions and millions with the real pieces! I would have been the greatest supporter of an exhibit like that.
But that train has left many years ago. And I am just pointing that out to the public. You do know what you know about MM, johAn and people like you have not to defend themself towards negative misers who really have no life themself. They are jumping in anonymous comments on others, like myself, who spent 5 month for this case, so far. No holidays, no vacation. If they were about to pursue something, they would look first, but unsuccessful, to get a life.
FRIENDS THROUGH MARILYN!
23 - Matthew T. Sussman
I just have a problem with this line:
You make it sound like nobody has ever done anything great with blogs before. I think Dan Rather is in agreement with me on this. Hence my sentiment that this piece is more about the author than the cause.24 - Roberto
Great follow up, thank you for the new details and the new insights unveiling this fraud. Great job Ernest and Mark. Congratulations for your success so far defending Marilyn's legacy, I'm sure you will reach further and I'm sure Marilyn is thanking you both from the heavens.
Keep up the great work
25 - Matthew T. Sussman
Ernest: "suppose you had been the fortunate person who was able to pay a million dollars for the "Happy Birthday" dress ..."
That was your first mistake -- shelling out any kind of money for some dead person's stuff.