How the LA library bid $144,000 for a hidden trove of celebrity photos
LOS ANGELES — Christina Rice's obsession with a 1930s movie star led the Los Angeles Public Library last year into an auction for 12,500 celebrity photographs — the vast majority never published — taken by a post office worker who spent nights and weekends at the parties, haunts and ballrooms of the famous.
The idea of attending the sale came to Rice, head of were part of an immense portfolio left by deceased photographer John Verzi set to be auctioned at Bonhams. Rice had published a biography on Dvorak, who starred with Paul Muni in the original "Scarface" and in "Three on a Match" before moving to Hawaii, where she died in 1979.
