Famed photographer’s widow says Marilyn Monroe’s last-ever pics were ‘stolen by Mafia,’ wants auction halted

A batch of negatives from Marilyn Monroe’s final photo shoot with late lensman Bert Stern, seen here in 2011, are now at the center of a contentious court battle - (Getty)

An enormous tranche of negatives from the last photo shoot Marilyn Monroe ever sat for before she died is set to be auctioned off next week, but the widow of the renowned lensman who took the snaps is now trying to stop the sale, claiming the iconic images were stolen by organized crime and later used in an attempt to extort $3m from her.

In court filings obtained by The Independent, actress/director/writer/producer/model Shannah Laumeister Stern, who in 2009 secretly married Bert Stern, a leading fashion photographer of the 1950s and 1960s, says the roughly 2,500 negatives long ago went missing “in the middle of the night” from Stern’s apartment.