Wayne photographer seeks clues about pre-fame shots of Marilyn Monroe

WAYNE — Photographer Anton Fury is getting a lot of attention but none of the answers he’s wanted since going public with pictures of Marilyn Monroe taken before she became a star and a cultural icon.
Since 1980, Fury has held onto negatives of pictures of Monroe that he picked up at a garage sale for $2 in the pre-eBay era when he was searching for classic toys to resell. The negatives have spent most of the last three decades tucked away in a drawer because Fury didn’t have the means to find out what they were worth.
“I didn’t know what to do with them,’’ Fury said Tuesday when contacted at his studio in Wayne. “I didn’t know what they are worth and I didn’t want to do the wrong thing with them.’’
Fury said the pictures don’t show the “Hollywood Marilyn” everyone knows, but instead captured “Marilyn, a 24-year-old girl just having fun.’’
“She had it all,’’ he said adding that, 60-years later, her charisma pops from the photographs. “She was beautiful.’’ Monroe would have turned 85 on Wednesday.
About two months ago while watching the reality television show “Pawn Stars,” about a family that tries to assess the value of items that come into their shop, Fury said he thought about the pictures and decided he wanted to find where they came from and what they were worth.