Lost for nearly 50 years - intimate images of Marilyn Monroe in New York captured by love-struck 15-year-old fan go on ...

Footage discovered by accident after fan, Peter Mangone, thought he'd thrown it away
Shows newly-divorced Monroe relaxed and natural walking around Fifth Avenue - hours before she sang to JFK in Madison Square Garden
Photographer sadly dies month before exhibition he put together opens but it will go on as a 'fitting tribute'

PUBLISHED: 10:02 EST, 13 January 2013 | UPDATED: 10:59 EST, 13 January 2013

Lost photographs that a 15-year-old boy took of a natural and relaxed Marilyn Monroe on an afternoon in New York are being exhibited for the first time.

Peter Mangone donned a suit and tie and used to cut class from Bronx's James Monroe High School in 1955 to go and look for his idol outside her home at the Gladstone Hotel.

Armed with just an eight millimeter movie camera, luckily for him, in Monroe's charismatic laid-back way, she invited him to film her one afternoon as she made her way around Fifth Avenue.

Caught on film: Marilyn Monroe was filmed by Peter Mangone in 1955 as she walked down Fifth Avenue. He thought he had lost the footage for almost fifty years

'The whole day she played with me,' he said in an interview with theToday show in 2006. 'People that have filmed her said no one captured her like the [15-year-old] kid, because she wasnt threatened, she wasnt afraid. It wasnt going to be in the paper s! o I got the real girl.

'She noticed and cared - she was absolutely magical'

However, the footage wasn't found until some 47 years later after Mangone was convinced he had thrown it away.

The filmmaker died last month just weeks before his work would be exhibited. It was found in 2002 by Mangone's brother, Louis, who was clearing out their family home.

The 'real girl': 15-year-old Mangone waited outside Monroe's hotel before she invited him to film her for the afternoon. His intimate photographs are being exhibited in New York

Playful: Monroe entertained her young fan Peter Mangone as he filmed her for the afternoon on New York's Fifth Avenue

'I was always aware of his fascination with Marilyn Monroe and the film,' his partner of 33 years Dan Pye told southfloridagaynews.com. 'Every time we visited New York City and walked past the hotel hed say 'if I only hadnt thrown that film away.'

Three years later and slightly embarrassed by his movie star crush, Mangone had intended to bin the film alongside his old movie magazines.

But somehow the five and a half minutes of footage survived.

He went on to have a celebrity lifestyle of his own as a roller derby star and well-known hairdresser and was delighted on receiving the call that told him his film was intact.

mONROE

Special bond: Peter Mangone, left, then 15, was invited film Marilyn Monroe for the afternoon. The 8mm footage was taken just hours before Monroe sang Happy Birthday to JFK at Madison Square Garden, right

New Yorker: The owner of the Danziger Gallery exhibiting the photographs said Monroe felt at home in Manhattan, where the shots were taken

'To me it was gone. Never to be seen again so it was like wow!,' he told the show.

'Within this ordinary context Monroe has never looked more extraordinary, natural, or beautiful. It takes an unusual generosity of spirit to enable an encounter like this and that warmth glows throughout the film,' a statement from the Danziger gallery says.

The day was a special one for Marilyn too.

Later that evening she would famously sing Happy Birthday to President John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden.

She and Mangone were joined on the walk by the fashion designer George Nardiello, who would later sew her into a sequined dress, and her friend and business partner Milton Greene.

The star was recently divorced from Jo DiMaggio and had just moved to the city.

Unnoticed: The star was not troubled on the streets of New York as she walked around in 1955.

Natural beauty: Monroe wasn't made-up for her aftern! oon captu! red by 15-year-old photographer Peter Mangone but hours later would star at Madison Square Garden

James Danziger, the Gallery Owner said: 'Marilyn loved Manhattan, when she died, she was actually a New York City resident and she seems very comfortable in Manhattan. And I think that the way that she is dressed in these pictures, in a very chic kind of black suit with a fur collar makes her look much more like a New Yorker than we normally think of Marilyn as being.'

The gallery's promotional material adds: 'So much of our fascination with Monroe is tied up with her face it comes as something of a surprise to see her hourglass figure and how chic and New Yorker-y she looks in her fur trimmed black cashmere suit.

'But it is the way that she drifts in and out of interaction with her 15 year old film-maker fan that is most intriguing. She blows him a kiss with a smile that could light up the Empire State Building. She looks up at the skyscrapers with a look that is both nave and perturbed.'

'The exhibition will continue as planned a fitting tribute to Pete'.