PREVIEW : Photos of a Legend, Only $10,000 a Set

It was Marilyn’s witchy gift to become whatever a particular camera wanted her to become. --novelist Michael Ventura on Marilyn Monroe Perhaps it was the witchy gift, perhaps it was the ‘50s-era publicity machine that demanded thousands of photos of its stars, but the supply of “never-before-released” pictures of Marilyn Monroe never seems to end.

“Marilyn got around--and I don’t mean that facetiously,” said photographer Bill Kobrin from a telephone booth near his home in Camarillo. “I don’t think a photographer ever walked away from Marilyn empty-handed.”

Certainly, Kobrin hasn’t gone empty-handed. On Wednesday, the Eye of the Pelican Gallery (2148 Winifred, Simi Valley; (805) 584-8394) opened a display of 10 still photos taken by Kobrin when he was hired by Twentieth Century Fox to document the shooting of the infamous skirt-blowing scene in the “The Seven Year Itch.”

The photos, many never used by the studio because they were too revealing (“It looks like the wind machine got carried away,” said gallery owner Nancy Shapiro), were returned to Kobrin shortly after the film’s 1955 release.

But it took more than 30 years for Kobrin to try selling the shots.

“I thought the longer she grows as a cult figure, the more they’d be worth,” Kobrin said. “Really, Nancy Shapiro was the heat conduit. I wasn’t looking for a slick high-priced gallery. What could a Joe Blow hot gallery do different? The pictures still have to stand on their own merits.”

Shapiro grouped Kobrin’s stills into sets of 10 and says that before she could get the show mounted, six sets sold for $10,000 apiece. A limited edition of 100 sets of 10 photos has been printed.

Kobrin began his career as a messenger for Associated Press and made his first marks in the photo world with shots of the Harlem riots--his first professional assignment--and his coverage of the Korean War.

These days he keeps busy with his company Kobrin, Inc., a photographic consultancy for television production companies . . . and he spends a lot of time talking to curious Marilyn fans about the “The Seven Year Itch.”

The scene was shot in the middle of the night, from just after midnight until five in the morning when the sun started to rise.

“There were other photographers there--bystanders who’d come out to watch,” Kobrin said. “They weren’t allowed to shoot during filming but during rehearsals I saw plenty of flashes go off.”

Those flashes could signify still more Marilyn shots that have yet to be seen. This doesn’t bother Kobrin in the least: “The more the merrier.”