Ciro's Nightclub Photographs
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GUEST:
These were from my mom. In 1949, she came to LA to be a movie star, and she was walking down Sunset Boulevard and two men stopped her and said, "Do you need a job?" And she said yes and she went into Ciro's, where they recommended she go, and she got a job immediately and she was a cigarette girl there. This is a picture of her right here. And then her best friend was the main photographer there, so when her best friend passed away about 30 years ago, my mom inherited these.
APPRAISER:
Wow, well, so we were talking about Ciro's and we have a picture of it here. It's kind of one of those Hollywood institutions that is no longer. It's kind of like the Brown Derby. Ciro's, the club that everyone went to, and we have the photos to prove it because everybody who was anybody in Hollywood, you have a photo of in your book. These are some of... I think you said nearly 300 photos that you have in total. So in a book somewhere else, you've got a lot more photos, but here's some highlights. We have Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor having dinner with Richard Nixon, which is fascinating. Ronald Reagan, we have Desi and Lucy over here. All told, I mean, they're really beautifully taken photos and it's a time when people used to do that-- you go to a restaurant, you have your photo taken. They don't really do that anymore. The images that we have here in front of us, the most expensive one would be Marilyn Monroe, and it's a really wonderful picture of her. At auction, I would expect an unseen photo of Marilyn to sell for about $100 or $150. And for the rest of them, say Elizabeth Taylor-- it's interesting that it's with Nixon-- probably $50 to $75. For these photos, probably $30 to $50 apiece.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
It adds up quickly when you have a big collection.
GUEST:
Yes, it does. Okay, great, thank you.
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