Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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16-B Maine Antique Digest, March 2015
- AUCTION -
Bonhams, New York City
Hollywood at Auction
by Julie Schlenger Adell
Photos courtesy Bonhams
Bonhams called its November
24, 2014, auction “There’s
No Place like Hollywood,”
and it played to a full house on a 69°
day in New York City, three days
before Thanksgiving. The salesroom
was filled with movie buffs—most
of whom were in their 50s, 60s,
70s, and 80s—bidding on posters,
costumes, props, and scripts from
American movies made from 1917
to 2003. The sale, with 378 lots,
lasted eight hours. The first four
hours were standing room only.
The auction, a team effort by
Bonhams and TCM (Turner Classic
Movies), reaped about $9.1 mil-
lion. The highlight of the sale—the
upright piano from Casablanca
on which Sam plays “As Time
Goes By”—sold on the phone for
$3,413,000. The estimate was in the
low to mid-seven figures; that was
all a Bonhams spokesperson would
reveal. The Cowardly Lion’s cos-
tume from The Wizard of Oz went for
$3,077,000 (estimate similar to the
piano). Smiles and applause filled
the room as the hammer fell on each
of the well-known, well-loved lots.
Attending the sale felt like sitting
through a double feature. Bonhams
provided sandwiches, cookies, and
coffee to keep auction-goers fueled
for hours and to keep them in the
salesroom. It was a crowd unlike any
other auction’s crowd. A “magician
to the rich and famous” gave out his
calling card to anyone who smiled
at him, and an officer of the Interna-
tional Wizard of Oz Club took copi-
ous notes throughout the afternoon.
The majority of sales were made
via the Internet and the phones, but
movie posters had a strong follow-
ing in the salesroom, and several lots
were bought by collectors.
Other items from Casablanca
included the production-made “tran-
sit papers” that allowed the bearer,
(Victor Laszlo and his wife) to travel
out of Morocco unmolested by either
the French or German armies. The
papers, a plot device invented by
the original playwrights, were hid-
den under the lid of Sam’s piano for
much of the film. The one-page doc-
ument, 11" x 14", sold for $118,750
(est. $100,000/150,000). Also, the
main entrance doors to Rick’s Café
Américain, through which every
character in the movie enters, sold
for $115,000 (est. $75,000/100,000).
A 103-page mimeographed manu-
script of Everybody Comes to Rick’s ,
an unproduced play by Murray Bur-
nett and Joan Alison, 1941, which
inspired the film, sold for $106,250
(est. $40,000/60,000).
In addition to the costume worn
by Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz,
a test dress and pinafore for Doro-
thy, worn by Judy Garland, sold for
$245,000 (est. $200,000/300,000).
A Rita Hayworth costume from
Gilda (1946) sold for $161,000 (est.
$40,000/60,000).
Vintage Hollywood posters from
the collection of Robert Osborne,
host of Turner Classic Movies, were
included in the sale. “What hooked
me and totally fascinated me were
the movie posters advertising those
films, along with the full-page movie
ads they used to run in magazines....
I became hopelessly addicted to
movies because of the way they
were advertised,” Osborne wrote in
the auction catalog. He parted with
50 posters from his collection, each
one accompanied by a signed letter
of provenance.
Also part of the sale was property
from the estates of movie critic Gene
Siskel and of Moe Howard of the
Three Stooges, and of actors George
O’Brien (1899-1985) and Margue-
rite Churchill (1910-2000).
Lots were organized by catego-
ries: Make ’Em Laugh: Comedies;
Live and Let Love: Dramas and
Romances; A Song and a Dance:
Musicals; Intermission: Let’s All
Go to the Lobby; Sirens and Sweet-
hearts; Dead Ends and Dark Alleys:
Film Noir, Crime, and Suspense;
The Wild West; and Outer Space and
Inner Demons: Science Fiction and
Horror Films.
The partnership between Bon-
hams and TCM involves “a pooling
of resources and sharing of returns,”
said Catherine Williamson, direc-
tor of fine books, manuscripts, and
entertainment memorabilia for Bon-
hams Los Angeles. “It’s been in
place since 2012, when Bonhams
first became a sponsor of the TCM
Film Festival in Hollywood,” she
added.
Turner Classic Movies, part of
Turner Broadcasting System, a Time
Warner company, will hold another
movie memorabilia sale with Bon-
hams in the second half of 2015 in
New York City. Bonhams will hold
an entertainment memorabilia sale in
Los Angeles in March 2015.
For further information, go to
).
The price achieved by Bert
Lahr’s Cowardly Lion costume
elicited a loud “OK!” from a
member of the International
Wizard of Oz Club who was in
the salesroom. Estimated in the
low to mid-seven figures, the
real lion skin and fur costume
sold for $3,077,000 to a buyer on
the phone.
This studio 58-key piano on wheels with wood and plastic keys
was likely manufactured by Kohler & Campbell (1927) and
was pulled from the Warner Bros. prop room for Casablanca.
It realized the highest price of the “There’s No Place like Hol-
lywood” auction. It sold on the phone for $3,413,000. Bonhams
had estimated it in the low to mid-seven figures. The 39" x 41"
x 22" piano was decorated with elaborate Moroccan designs,
created by set decorator George James Hopkins. The famous
piano had never been at auction. As the star attraction at Rick’s
place, Sam plays the piano to entertain the European refugees
who fill the café. The piano’s lid had been detached from the
upper case and secured with a hook and eye, enabling Rick to
open the piano lid from the rear and hide the transit papers.
The lot included the original stool and a signed photograph of
Dooley Wilson as Sam at the piano as well as a copy of the film.
A banner announced the auction. It fea-
tured Sam (Dooley Wilson) playing the
piano at Rick’s Café Américain in the
1942 movie Casablanca.
The boombox from
SpikeLee’s 1989movie
Do the Right Thing,
carried by charac-
ter Radio Raheem,
brought $9375 (est.
$3000/5000). It was
bought by a woman
in the salesroom
who battled for
it with an on-line
bidder from Chicago.
She also purchased the
“Mookie” shirt worn by
Spike Lee in that film
as well as the baseball
bat used by Sal (Danny
Aiello). The shirt (est. $1000/1500) sold for $6250, and
the bat (est. $1000/1500) went for $5000. All three items
were part of Gene Siskel’s estate. Siskel and Roger Ebert
both had rated Do the Right Thing as the best film of
1989 and among the top ten of the decade.
This test dress and
pinafore for Dorothy
from The Wizard of
Oz (1939) sold in the
room for $245,000 (est.
$200 , 000 / 300 , 000 ) .
“It should have gone
higher,” remarked
David Moyer, a mem-
ber of the Interna-
tional Wizard of Oz
Club, a 2000-member
organization devoted
to all things Oz, who
attended the sale. The
dress was accompa-
nied by two ward-
robe test photos dated
October 31, 1938, of
Judy Garland wear-
ing this dress. The
costume was designed
during the brief stint
of George Cukor on
the film.
A white marble bust by Robert
Johnson McKnight of Katharine
Hepburn, 8¾" x 6½" x 14", with
a tree branch arcing above her
head, sold on line for $9375 (est.
$8000/12,000). The bust had been
owned by the actress and used as
a prop in her film Woman of the
Year (1942). Hepburn owned sev-
eral McKnight sculptures, having
met him at a dance when she was
at Bryn Mawr and McKnight was
at Yale.
A Rita Hayworth two-piece cos-
tume from Gilda (1946) generated
lots of heat as two phone bidders
competed for the long-sleeved
cream-colored silk crepe top and
matching long wrap skirt. Esti-
mated at $40,000/$60,000, it sold
for $161,000. Hayworth wore the
costume while performing in a
nightclub in Montevideo. It was
her signature role and one which
caused her to say later in life,
“Every man I’ve known has fallen
in love with Gilda and awakened
with me.”