AP
Previously unseen pictures of the most photographed woman in the world, Marilyn Monroe, surfaced from a man who found them at a garage sale. Anton Fury bought the photos (not pictured) for just $2. A New Jersey photographer is trying to solve a mystery involving Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield that began at a garage sale nearly 30 years ago.
Anton Fury has made public a collection of photographs featuring the two bombshell beauties in hopes of figuring out who took them.
"I have no idea who took these pictures," the 52-year-old told the Daily News. "I have no idea if they're worth anything, where they came from... nothing."
Fury came across a collection of negatives in an envelope in the early 1980s and paid $2 for them. It wasn't until he got into his dark room and developed a few of the images that he realized just what he'd stumbled upon.
"I was like, oh my God," he said. "I thought, 'It's Marilyn,' and then I saw the other pictures were Jayne Mansfield."
Fury was floored by his discovery. But at that time, he had no idea how to figure out who captured the stunning photos.
"When I found them, there was no Internet," he said. "There were limited resources to research them."
Over the last three decades he's done what research he could on his own, but had not found any images matching the 33 Monroe photos or the 71 pictures of Mansfield.
Fury, a fledgling photographer at the time, doesn't quite remember where or from whom he bought the negatives. He was living in Parsippany at the time, but traveled all around New Jersey combing through garage sales looking for toys and collectibles, which he would later sell.
"I've been to quite a few garage sales since," he told the Daily News with a chuckle from his home in Wayne, New Jersey.
One thing that Fury's been able to determine is that the photos were likely taken in the early 1950s, at least that's according to David Streets, an art dealer and appraiser who has seen hundreds of Monroe photos over the years.
"I had never seen these exact photos," he told the Daily News from his gallery in Beverly Hills, California.
Streets was contacted by Fury several months ago. He then saw the pictures last week, and was stunned.
"It's clearly Marilyn Monroe," he said.
The architecture in the background of the photos suggests the images were taken in Los Angeles, Streets believes. Plus, because of Monroe's hairstyle and clothing, he thinks they were likely taken around 1950.
"This is before she became the iconic Marilyn Monroe," he said.
There is also a mysterious man who appears both in the Monroe and Mansfield photos, neither of which are in the same location.
"Both photos show a man working with Jayne and working with Marilyn," Streets said. "It could be a very good lead."
And it's the very mystery of the photos that drew the art dealer in.
"The fun part about it is we're all kind of sharing in the beginning stages," Streets said.
"The adventure is going to be finding out where, who, what, why and when."
By making the photos public, Streets and Fury hope someone will see something they recognize.
"Hopefully someone out there, perhaps another photographer, because there are tons of photographers who did extensive work with her, will be able to shed some light on this," Streets said.
msheridan@nydailynews.com; or follow him at Twitter.com/NYDNSheridan
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