Goodbye, Norma Jean
Marilyn Monroe is going to an Oscar party.
A life-size Monroe statue, which had a few months of celebrity living as window dressing at a downtown Spokane casino, was bought Tuesday by a Californian. She went for $30,000, drawing the most money at the Reinland Equipment Auction in Post Falls.
The statue was one of about 500 items that once filled Marilyn’s on Monroe, a casino and restaurant that was open on the street of the same name from March 2005 to June 2005. It was displayed in a window facing Monroe Street, greeting motorists who were making their way up the South Hill.
Celebrities Casinos LLC, 21 S. Monroe Street, filed for bankruptcy in November 2005, leaving homeless the Marilyn statue, eight flat-panel TVs, four Texas Hold ‘Em tables and more poker chips than Chris Moneymaker ever cashed out.
“I really like this artist,” said the statue buyer, a Santa Monica art dealer who did not give her name. “She’ll have a big showing at an Oscar party.”
J. Seward Johnson Jr. is the super-realist artist from the East Coast who made the statue, depicting Marilyn in the famous scene from “The Seven Year Itch” of her standing on the subway grate with her dress blowing up in the breeze.
“After the party, she’ll stay some place in California and live out her years longer than ours,” the youthful-looking blond buyer said.
A second bidder for the statue was a New York man who wasn’t present. An employee of the auction house said the New Yorker wants to use the statue in a movie and the bidders may be trying to work it out.
The statue is believed to have cost the casino owners more than $100,000. Mike Kuhn, CEO and president of Digideal, a Spokane Valley digital gaming table company that opened the casino with California partners, would not comment on the original price Tuesday afternoon.
The 248 registered bidders at the 2½ hour auction started in one stall, mostly filled with restaurant equipment, before moving into another space that featured casino and electronic items. Flat-screen TVs sold from $750 to $2,000. Digital poker and other automated machines were not for sale.
Vickye Green of Suncrest was a proud bargain shopper, picking up a Suzuki mini baby grand digital piano for $1,000.
“I got it for my granddaughter,” Green said, who was the only bidder. “I’m going to learn how to play, too”
Although Green’s purchase needed to be hauled off in a truck, many purchases would have fit on the front seat of a Ford Festiva. One woman, who requested anonymity, bought nine Marilyn Monroe compact mirrors for $35. The same women also got her hands on a box of Marilyn Monroe tote bags.
A box filled with blond wigs, worn by the waitresses, fetched $17.50. Toilet paper, cash register tape and money wraps all flew out the door.
The Marilyn statue wasn’t the only artwork auctioned. A framed picture listed as “Marilyn Playboy picture” sold for $650. A small Marilyn picture went for $55.
There was bargain art, too. A framed picture of Frank Sinatra, which the auctioneer misidentified at first, sold for $25.