Monroe sex film sells for $1.5 million

A film showing Marilyn Monroe engaging in a sex act with an unidentified man has been sold for $1.5 million, Reuters reports.

The 15-minute black and white film was sold by the son of a dead FBI informant to a Manhattan businessman.

Keya Morgan, who brokered the deal, said: "The gentleman who bought it said out of respect for Marilyn he's not going to make a joke of it and put it on the internet and try to exploit her."

Morgan said that Monroe was clothed and the man's head was out of frame throughout.

Monroe was rumoured to have had an affair with US President John F. Kennedy. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a rival of Kennedy, was desperate to prove it was him in the film.

"J. Edgar Hoover was completely obsessed," Morgan added. "A team of nine individuals were analyzing the tape inside a lab. J. Edgar Hoover brought in a few prostitutes who allegedly had been with President Kennedy and they tried to... see if that was really President Kennedy."

Joe DiMaggio, one of Monroe's former husbands, once tried to purchase the tape for $25,000 but the owner "would no part with it" according to files available on the FBI website.