Marilyn Monroe’s breakup dress heads to auction
LOS ANGELES — The black dress that a distraught Marilyn Monroe wore to a 1954 press conference announcing her separation from baseball legend Joe DiMaggio less than a year after she married him is going up for auction.
The simple wool dress with a zippered turtleneck front will be up for bidding starting on March 30, KruseGWS Auctions announced Wednesday.
The auction house expects the dress will fetch between $100,000 and $150,000.
Monroe was wearing it on Oct. 6, 1954, when she stepped out into the Beverly Hills sunlight to meet a mob of cameras and shouting reporters and announced the split in her marriage with the New York Yankees star that united sports and Hollywood and brought frenzied press coverage.
Monroe and DiMaggio married in January 1954. She cited mental cruelty as the reason for the divorce, which became final the following year.