The Anna Freud Centre in Maresfield Gardens has been supported by money from Marilyn’s will since 1980, when her psychiatrist, Dr Marianna Kris, passed on what was left of her own portion.

Marilyn Monroe died 50 years ago last week but her legacy still lives on in Hollywood – and in Hampstead.

The Anna Freud Centre in Maresfield Gardens has been supported by money from Marilyn’s will since 1980, when her psychiatrist, Dr Marianna Kris, passed on what was left of her own portion. The centre helps children who suffer from mental illness.

Relationship

Marilyn had a famously close relationship with Dr Kris and her acting coach, Lee Strasberg, who, between them, received more than half of her estate when she died of an overdose in August 1962.

The rest Marilyn left to her mother and half-sister.

Marilyn wrote in her will that Dr Kris’ quarter share should be “used for the furtherance of the work of such psychiatric institutions of groups as she shall elect”.

Anna Freud and Dr Kris were close family friends and the two worked together through their careers in psychoanalysis.

As the world marked the 50th anniversary of Marilyn’s death this month, one biographer, Sarah Churchwell, said the star would have been pleased to see her money going to help young people in need of therapy.

Marilyn herself was an orphan. Her father died before she was born and her mother was in and out of mental institutions for most of her life.

The Anna Freud Centre still benefits from money generated by the rights they hold to images of the blonde bombshell.

Sadly in recent years the charity has spent much of the money fighting legal cases in the States over copyright issues