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Marilyn Monroe's Right of Publicity Not Descendible
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the heirs to Marilyn Monroe's estate did not inherit the rights to her publicity because she was a resident of New York, where such rights are not recognized posthumously. Calling the dispute a “textbook case for applying judicial estoppel,” the Ninth Circuit found that the estate's heirs could not claim that Monroe was a resident of California when she died in 1962, because they had maintained for decades in other court proceedings that she had lived in New York, where the right of publicity is not descendible. Milton H. Green Archives Inc. v. Marilyn Monroe LLC, 08-56471.
“Monroe's representatives took one position on Monroe's domicile at death for 40 years, and then changed their position when it was to their great financial advantage; an advantage they secured years after Monroe's death by convincing the California Legislature to create rights that did not exist when Monroe died,” Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote. “Marilyn Monroe is often quoted as saying, 'If you're going to be two-faced, at least make one of them pretty.' There is nothing pretty in Monroe LLC's about face on the issue of domicile.”
The case was brought by Marilyn Monroe LLC, an entity managed by Anna Strasberg, widow of the actress's acting coach Lee Strasberg, against the holders of the archives of Monroe photographers. Lee Strasberg, who died in 1982, inherited 75% of Monroe's estate. In 2001, a New York probate court transferred all of the estate's assets to the newly formed Marilyn Monroe LLC.
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