If anybody is earning big money on items connected with art in any shape or form these days it is art memorabilia auctions, particularly those organized by LA’s Julien’s Auctions. Their most recent, under the title of “Hollywood: Legends & Explorers” offered up to 900 items of movie memorabilia.
As Hollywood Reporter wrote, the two highlights were a spacesuit from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and a cape worn by Christopher Reeve while playing the Man of Steel in the Superman franchise films.
The suit was accompanied by a helmet and was believed to have been worn by Keir Dullea (who played mission pilot and scientist Dr. David Bowman), and the combo sold for $370,000. The cape, worn by Christopher Reeve, sold for $110,000.
Other highlights from the auction included an original tobacco pipe used by Ian Holm as the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which went for $28,200, and a David Hasselhoff-signed KITT Knight Rider 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am used in tours and appearances promoting the Knight Rider television series, which sold for $192,000.
The other part of the auction actually offered items connected with some real-life explorers. It featured historic pieces used on the Apollo 11 and 17 missions such as two pilot control sticks from the NASA Apollo 11 flight to the moon, one used by Neil Armstrong, which sold for a stunning $370,000, and the other used by Buzz Aldrin, which sold for $256,000. An Apollo-era spacesuit glove designed for Armstrong also sold for $76,800.
