MUMBAI: The Motoion Picture and Television Fund (MPTF) in the US has announced that Twentieth Century Fox has culled its archives and donated more than 200 rare documents including signed contracts and internal memos to be sold at an auction to benefit the Fund.

Items in the auction represent dealings with over 50 Hollywood legends including: Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn and Elvis Presley. Films involvef include Seven Year Itch, Miracle on 34th Street, The King and I, All About Eve and Love Me Tender.

The auction called From the Twentieth Century Fox Archives: Documents from the Golden Age of Hollywood, will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue available at www.swanngalleries.com.

The auction, scheduled for 25 January, 2007, will be conducted by Swann Auction Galleries in New York City. Proceeds from the sale will directly benefit the MPTF insurance fund that provides health insurance for actors.

Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman and CEO Tom Rothman says, "Fox's heritage reflects Hollywood itself and our well maintained document archives are a Tut's Tomb of movie history. These papers are so cool that, as a fan of that history, I will have to restrain myself from bidding on each item. This donation is intended to get the past out of file cabinets into the hands of film lovers and let it serve the present through the MPTF. We also hope this auction might inspire other studios to follow suit."