TCM Auctions Items from Hollywood’s Golden Age

Fashion and film’s longtime love affair has provided the fodder for that which dreams are made of—romantic moments, exotic travel adventures, wealthy lifestyles, and even heroic deeds.  Film-fed dreams are always replete with beautiful images of clothes, cars, and life’s finer things.  Now film fans are making financial investments in movie memorabilia, buying tangible memories of their voyeuristic experiences.  Once scorned by high-end auction houses, movie memorabilia has become hot property with high price tags.  And for every item sold, the auction house attaches a 25% fee, making for a hefty profit.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM), the cable network archivist of classic films, recently entrusted faithful film fans with cinematic treasures spanning 100 years of movie-making history.   “What Dreams Are Made Of: A Century Of Movie Magic At Auction,” curated by TCM, brought to the auction block, props, scripts, movie posters, clothing and costumes.

Bonhams New York conducted the auction, where sales totaled a little less than six million bucks, including Bonhams 25% fee.  A Givenchy hat worn by style icon Audrey Hepburn in “Funny Face”—the 1957 Paramount film—sold for $87,500. A negligee worn by Vivien Leigh in “Gone With The Wind” sold for $56,250. And a coat Leigh wore in Waterloo Bridge, sold for $27,500, which was more than nine times its estimate. A tiara and earrings worn by silent film star Theda Bara in the lavish 1917 film Cleopatra sold for $35,000.

“There’s something exhilarating about watching pretty people, in pretty clothes in a pretty setting,” says Will McKinley, a writer and producer, based in New York City. “That’s so much of what classic film is about. Style is a huge component about why [fans] love classic film.”

Dennis Adamovich, a TCM senior vice president, said the curation of the auction was “a perfect example of TCM’s nearly 20-year commitment to telling the stories behind the movies we love and celebrating the people who made them.”

McKinley, a self-proclaimed film obsessive, says “If you’re a classic movie fan, TCM is the best thing that ever happened to you.”  And the auction demonstrated the power of the TCM brand. “Things sold more because of TCM,” said McKinley.  “TCM is aware of their brand equity and are protective and respectful of it.  They have a lot of equity with classic film fans.”

McKinley was one of the 100 fans at the auction, witnessing the auction of the 309 items on November 25^th.  The attendees, he observed, were “fans with money, who wanted something that meant something to them,” said McKinley.  But clearly for some, McKinley said, bidding was about more than emotion – it was about money, too.  “People want [memorabilia] for investment potential also,” he said.  Proof of that truth came when “The Maltese Falcon”—the iconic prop from the 1941 film noir classic—sold for $3.5 million, which with the 25% fee for Bonham’s totaled a whopping $4,085,000 million.

The 1942 classic romance Casablanca, cleaned up with the 1940 Buick Phaeton model 81C convertible with 8-cylinder engine, featured in the film’s dramatic final scene, selling for $461,000. And a working copy of producer Hal Willis’ shooting script for the film, complete with fascinating marginalia, sold for $68,750, more than six times its pre-sale estimate.

But for less financially feathered fans, there was an array of attainable items.   “There were a handful of movie posters,” said McKinley.  “They sold for thousand of dollars.  That’s a significant fact.”  One fan, that didn’t have Audrey Hepburn hat money, was able to bid and win an Audrey Hepburn sketch by Edith Head—eight-time Academy Award-winning costumer—for the 1953 film Roman Holiday.

The auction attracted some of the world’s top collectors, and set world records, according to Dr. Catherine Williamson, Bonhams Director of Entertainment Memorabilia. “At the same time, through our partnership with TCM, we were able to reach true cinema fans that never realized they could own these pieces of Hollywood history,” she said.

—Francesca Simon