Widow of Marilyn Monroe's Mentor Loses Bid to Stop 'Letter of Despair' Sale

by City News Service

The widow of Marilyn Monroe's longtime mentor and acting coach lost her bid today to stop the auction house Profiles in History from selling a letter written by the late actress, but the woman's lawyer said he will renew his effort Thursday.

"You need to have evidence in support of a temporary restraining order," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin told attorney Bradley Mancuso, who represents plaintiff Anna Strasberg. "Am I missing something?"

Lavin said one of the most important omissions in the motion was a sworn statement from Strasberg.

Mancuso said he will return to court with additional evidence on Thursday, just hours before the auction is scheduled to take place. He said his client still does not know how the auction house obtained the letter.

Defense attorney Robert Enders said Lavin made the proper ruling.

Strasberg, who was married to Lee Strasberg, filed suit Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, saying she found out last month 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.

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.

"This article further states that this letter is being sold by an anonymous American collector and is expected to fetch $30,000 to $50,000," the suit states.   

The letter at issue was undated and written by Monroe to Lee Strasberg 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.

A Profiles in History spokesman said he had not yet heard about the suit and had no comment.

The 74-year-old Strasberg, who is also seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, says she became heir to her husband's estate, including the Monroe letters, when he died in 1982. 

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