Settlement Reached in Marilyn Monroe Photo Dispute

Fashion and celebrity photographer Bert Stern has reached a settlement with several individuals over photos from his famed “last sitting” with Marilyn Monroe.
On Monday, lawyers for Stern and photographers Donald Penny and Michael Weiss announced that a deal had been reached “amicably.”

The dispute had centred on seven original film transparencies from Stern’s iconic July 1962 Vogue photo shoot with Monroe, an erotic series that had the Hollywood sex symbol posing nude and semi-nude in a variety of settings, including behind translucent scarves and lying among rumpled bedsheets.

Monroe died just two months later and the magazine published the images as part of a tribute to the internationally renowned actress. Photos from Stern’s series, which comprised about 2,500 images in total, have become some of the most iconic images of Monroe to this day.

Penny and Weiss have said that a colleague turned the transparencies over after having discovered them among garbage in Manhattan in the 1970s. They approached Stern last year to strike a deal over returning them.

However, the 78-year-old Stern believed the originals in question had been stolen and filed a lawsuit instead.

In addition to their having reached a settlement, both sides revealed they will jointly produce and sell nine sets of photos from the transparencies in question.