By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer
The FBI does not have a pornographic home movie of actress Marilyn Monroe in its files and never did, FBI officials tell NBC News. Document analysts at the FBI have completed a manual search of FBI records and found no evidence of the film.
“The records show no indication we ever had such a film,” said David Hardy, who organized the search and is chief of the FBI Record/Information Dissemination Section. Hardy said six or seven FBI analysts spent a total of “32 man hours” reading through paper documents at the FBI’s records center in Alexandria, Va., and did not find anything indicating that the FBI has or ever had a Marilyn Monroe sex film.
The FBI’s fruitless search casts doubt on claims by New York memorabilia dealer Keya Morgan, who told countless media organizations on April 14 that the FBI had obtained a copy of the sex film in the 1960s. Morgan told NBC News and other networks and newspapers that nine FBI agents and the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover himself had spent weeks poring over the film, trying to establish the identity of the man who supposedly engaged in a sex act with Monroe in the 15-minute black-and-white movie.
The film “was analyzed by the FBI labs in Washington and New York City. It is absolutely her, 100 percent. It is Marilyn,” Morgan said on the MSNBC program “Verdict with Dan Abrams.” “I don’t know who the man is. J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with trying to determine if that was JFK [President Kennedy] or not.”
Morgan generated international headlines after he told reporters that he had personally discovered the film, from the son of a former FBI informant, while researching a documentary on the death of Marilyn Monroe. Morgan said he then brokered the sale of the tape, for $1.5 million, to a wealthy New York businessman who chooses to remain anonymous and will not show any portion of the film out of respect for Monroe’s memory.
As part of his purported evidence, Morgan pointed reporters to three pages of old FBI documents that discuss an alleged sex film involving Monroe. Morgan said the documents, publicly available through the FBI’s Freedom of Information Act Web site, prove that the FBI had a copy of the sex film.
On MSNBC, Morgan waved the FOIA documents and said, “Well, FBI.com, that’s all I could say. Go to the last three pages of the Marilyn Monroe files…they are verified documents. And on the sheet they have the fact that Marilyn Monroe -- that it was analyzed by the FBI, labs in Washington and New York City.”
The FBI documents:
But a careful reading of the four-decade-old documents calls Morgan’s analysis into question. The three pages, dated 1965, state that an FBI informant told his FBI handler that he had been in a New York gangster’s office and had seen a “French-type movie which depicted Marilyn Monroe, deceased actress, in unnatural acts with an unknown male.” The documents state that the informant did not get a copy because the gangster “would not part with it.” And there’s no indication in the three pages that the FBI Laboratory or anyone at the Bureau ever got a copy. In fact, the documents include a brief memorandum stating that the FBI Lab “has no information concerning Marilyn Monroe’s participation in a film as described in the attached communication.” (The popular Web site, Smoking Gun, has raised similar questions about Morgan’s FBI claims.)
David Hardy, the current FBI official who oversees the FOIA Section, confirmed that the FBI Lab never had a copy of the tape back in 1965. He said the three FOIA pages make it clear that the FBI had an informant’s description of the film but not the film itself. He added that J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI’s legendary director, ordered scrupulous note keeping of nearly everything - even embarrassing and incriminating activities such as the FBI’s wiretapping of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - and yet there’s no mention anywhere of the film being in the FBI’s possession. Hardy said he even quizzed the FBI historian and veteran employees about any such film.
“The old timers who have worked with records for a long time say they have never seen any record of the film,” Hardy added.
So, who is Keya Morgan?
As interviews with more than a dozen business associates, friends and enemies make clear, Keya Morgan is a controversial figure in the historical memorabilia field with a penchant for self-publicity.
On his current Web site, Morgan says he has “actively been in the pursuit of buying and selling authentic historical items” since 1989. An older version of the same website says he has been in the business since 1986.
In extensive interviews with NBC News, Morgan refused to provide a birth date because, he said, he has received numerous death threats and is reluctant to share personal information. But public records indicate he was born in 1975, which would mean that Morgan is boasting online of business experience that began when he was 11 years old, or 14 years old at best. (Morgan explains that, as a boy, he began hawking goods at flea markets.)
Morgan’s Web site also states that his gallery “is located in the heart of New York City with affiliations worldwide: London, Paris, Rome, and Bonn.” When questioned about the international locales, Morgan told NBC News that “I have cousins there who own businesses,” including a rug store and an electronics shop.
The gallery address Morgan provides on his website is “14 Wall Street” in New York. In documents submitted last year in a pending copyright lawsuit filed against Morgan in federal court, a plaintiff’s lawyer complains of “great difficulty” in finding Morgan to serve him with legal papers. “We have a good number of potential addresses for the defendant, but none of them ultimately lead to any connection with the defendant,” the lawyer writes. Morgan acknowledges in his own legal document that the 14 Wall Street address is “merely a post office address” in a service center. (Morgan said the lawsuit has no merit and said the lawyers must be incompetent if they had trouble finding him to serve him with legal papers.)
Morgan would not provide NBC News with the actual address for his gallery, again citing death threats against him. Later, he said the gallery was attached to his home.
Lincoln, Grant and the other Monroe:
Morgan is convinced that Marilyn Monroe was murdered, and he’s working on a documentary that he said would prove it. “It was a conspiracy. I will prove there was a serious, massive conspiracy that led to her murder that involved different branches of the government,” he told NBC News.
And yet he’s quick to point out that Marilyn and the raunchy home movie are but a sideshow in his life: “I’m not a sex dealer. I’ve devoted my life to Lincoln,” he said.
Morgan describes himself as serious scholar of presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. “I’ve spent my life trying to preserve the history of this nation,” he said. Indeed, interviews with several friends and clients indicate that Morgan has bought and sold Lincoln and Grant photographs and other historical memorabilia for years. Ulysses S. Grant VI, a descendant of the president, now runs a construction business in Missouri. He said Morgan has helped sell “over a million dollars worth of stuff” for the Grant family. Will Stapp, a former curator at the National Portrait Gallery, called Morgan an “ardent historian” with deep knowledge about “historical American portraiture of the 19th Century.”
Many collectors and business associates admire and trust him. Singer Antonia Bennett is a friend and admirer who told NBC News that Morgan provides her with valuable business advice. Morgan also is in talks with Peacock Productions, a division of NBC News, regarding a production deal, executives there said.
Morgan is fond of celebrities, and his imdb (Internet Movie Database) page features photographs of Morgan posing at charity events with Tom Hanks, Paris Hilton, Bill Clinton and many other stars. His clients, he says, are A-listers, too. “I have a few other very high-profile people, who are the most high-profile people in the world right now, who are my clients,” Morgan said.
But several historical-artifacts dealers who have done business with Morgan over the years tell NBC News that many of Morgan’s claims deserve close scrutiny. They say Morgan has a reputation in their business as a self-promoter who is prone to exaggeration. They would only speak to NBC on condition of anonymity.
Morgan sharply disputed the critiques. He said he enjoys a sterling reputation in his business and said that any detractors are envious. “When somebody is young and they accomplish a lot of things, there’s a lot of jealousy.” He added: “You’ve gone to a bunch of old ladies who absolutely hate me, who are extremely jealous of me, they are feeding you these lies…”
Court records indicate Morgan has a clean record.
Some Marilyn Monroe experts question Keya Morgan’s reliability, too. As Morgan is fond of mentioning, he interviewed former Los Angeles Police Chief Darryl Gates as part of the ongoing Marilyn Monroe documentary he is producing. Gates told NBC News he recalls the on-camera interview but said he found Morgan’s murder conspiracy theory to be absurd. “I was very unimpressed with him,” Gates said. “I did not find him to be credible whatsoever. And you can put that on the record,” Gates said.
Morgan is not swayed. “Had you seen my documentary, you would have the most respect on the planet for me,” he said.
Proof of life?
So does the Marilyn Monroe sex film actually exist? Keya Morgan said he swears that it does. And he provided NBC News with what he said is a bill of sale for the film, dated March 7, 2008. The names of the buyer and seller are blacked out and the $1.5 million film is described as a “16mm ‘French-type’ motion picture/home movie of Marilyn Monroe performing oral sex on an unknown male...No copy has been made other than the one that was provided to the FBI in the 1960s.” Morgan would not allow NBC News to publish the document and provided no other information to authenticate the document.
He also would not provide any other corroborating evidence. Examples:
- Morgan refused to provide a still photo of the film and would not identify the buyer or seller.
- He would not name the lawyer who handled the sale.
- He would not identify the former FBI Agent who supposedly told Morgan about the existence of the Monroe film (even though Morgan says that FBI Agent will appear on camera in Morgan’s documentary.)
- Morgan’s own lawyer would not corroborate if his client had ever discovered a Marilyn Monroe film. “Attorney-client privilege,” the lawyer said.
Why can’t Morgan help authenticate the existence of the film or identify the mysterious anonymous buyer? “I signed a confidentiality agreement,” he pleaded.
Yet another document Keya Morgan says he can’t provide.
