An illicit copy of the steamy, still-FBI-classified reel - 15 minutes of 16mm film footage in which the original blond bombshell performs oral sex on an unidentified man - was just sold to a New York businessman for $1.5 million, said Keya Morgan, the well-known memorabilia collector who discovered the film and brokered its purchase.

The footage appears to have been shot in the 1950s. When it came to light in the mid-'60s, then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had his agents spend two weeks futilely trying to prove that Monroe's sex partner was either John F. Kennedy or Robert F. Kennedy, according to declassified agency documents and interviews, Morgan said.

The silent black-and-white flick shows Monroe on her knees in front of a man whose face is just out of the shot.

He never moves into the shot, indicating that he knew the camera was there, but Monroe never looks at the lens, said Morgan, who saw the footage.

Morgan said he discovered the film while doing research for a documentary on Monroe, after talking with a former FBI agent who told him about a confidential informant who tipped G-men to the existence of the film in the mid-'60s.

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There are heavily redacted, declassified FBI documents talking about a "French-type" film.

They state the informant "exhibited [to agents] a motion picture which depicted deceased actress Marilyn Monroe committing a perverted act upon a unknown male," Morgan said.

The informant was with at least one mobster at the time, the documents state.

According to the documents, "Former baseball star Joseph DiMaggio in the past had offered [the informant] $25,000 for this film, it being the only one in existence, but he refused the offer.

[He was] floored after he found the mole's son in Washington, DC, and the man retrieved a film canister from a safe-deposit box and spooled it up.

"You see instantly that it's Marilyn Monroe - she has the famous mole," Morgan said.

"She's smiling, she's very charming, she's very radiant, but she's known for being radiant," he said. "She moves away, and then it [the footage] stops."

"He said he's just going to lock it up," Morgan said.

"He said, 'I'm not going to make a Paris Hilton out of her. I'm not going to sell it, out of respect.' "