DALLAS, TX.- Fantasy For the Price of a Burger, read The New York Times headline on Oct. 23, 1991, the morning after Planet Hollywood made its star-studded splash on West 57th Street.
Every A-lister in Hollywoods alphabet was there for the restaurants opening night, where Capn Crunch-encrusted chicken tenders were served alongside one of Judy Garlands test costumes from The Wizard of Ozand a life-sized Terminator and countless more props and costumes. Among their illustrious ranks were Planet Hollywoods initial shareholders: Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Years later, a gossip columnist told Esquire the scene that night was a madhouse.
More than 30 years after that first grand opening, and with more locations planned in coming months,
Heritage Auctions announced a five-day event celebrating film history, 1980s and 90s nostalgia and, most of all, that star power Planet Hollywood spread worldwide.
From March 20-24, Heritage will present Treasures from Planet Hollywood, featuring more than 1,600 props and costumes displayed in locations around the globe. Every offering is a blockbuster from a blockbuster, a movie memory that needs no introduction.
This auction is an extremely exciting, pivotal moment for Planet Hollywood, says Robert Earl, chairman and co-founder of Planet Hollywood. We are honored to collaborate with Heritage on this unique collection that features a selection of memorabilia from our vaults. As the Planet Hollywood brand expands beyond restaurants and embraces innovative and interactive memorabilia experiences, we are excited to present a taste of our collection and look forward to sharing it with film lovers everywhere who will delight in bringing home a piece of Hollywood history.
Among those historic offerings, film fans will find the Titanic wood panel upon which Kate Winslet stayed afloat. The Harley-Davidson chopper Bruce Willis rode in Pulp Fictionafter Zed was dead, baby. The blaster Princess Leia carried across the forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi. The stone tablets Charlton Heston carried down from Mount Sinai in The Ten Commandments. The spaceship that sent baby Kal-El from Krypton to Earth in Superman: The Movie. The whip Indiana Jones carried into the Temple of Doom. The white coat Nurse Ratched wore in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Buffalo Bills moth kimono from The Silence of the Lambs.
Planet Hollywoods curators spent decades assembling this abundance of big-screen riches, the likes of which will never again be seen in the same place. Some of the lots are enormous: the 6-foot model of the cinematic USS Enterprise built by Oscar- and Emmy-award winning model-maker Greg Jein for Planet Hollywood, the bus stop bench from Forrest Gump, the time-machine phone booth from Bill& Teds Excellent Adventure, a sprawling section of Blade Runners Los Angeles hellscape designed by Syd Mead. Some are relatively small: the miniature Dantes Inferno nightclub from Beetlejuice, the subway train model used for Speed, the Titanic model from 1958s A Night to Remember. All are instantly recognizable.
Name a favorite movie, and its likely something somethings momentous from that film appears in this auction: the Star Warsand Indiana Jones and Aliens franchises, Ben-Hur, several James Bond entries, the Back to the Futureseries, Home Alone, Gremlins, big- and small-screen Star Treks,Deliverance, The Princess Bride, Grease, Blade Runner, Young Frankenstein, The Shawshank Redemption, Rebel Without a Cause, The Graduate, Jumanji.
Its offerings span A-Z, literally: A Few Good Mento Zoolander. The list is seemingly endless, running the gamut from the papier-mâché Brontosaurus skull that rears its head in the 1938 screwball classic Bringing Up Babyto the Barbasol can Wayne Knight uses to smuggle dinosaur embryos out of 1993s Jurassic Park.
Ive never done an auction like this, filled with so many touchstone moments from cinema history, says Heritage Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena. Planet Hollywood is synonymous worldwide with Hollywoods magic, glamour and glow. Ive had the pleasure of working with Planet Hollywood since its inception, and Robert Earl is a true visionary. This auction is a testament to his passion for the movies, and I am honored to bring these to our client-collectors around the world.
Throughout the 1990s, the restaurants red carpet seemed to stretch toward forever. At one point, Planet Hollywood counted more than 100 locations in its orbit, from Manhattan to Beverly Hills, Riyadh to Dallas, Indianapolis to Disneyland Paris. They were dreamland destinations, the hottest tickets in town, the 1990s writ in spotlights, neon signs, logoed leather jackets, hamburgers and smash-hit movie props and costumes.
Its like the Oscars, Oprah Winfrey said when Planet Hollywood opened in Los Angeles in 1995, only better.
Unless you were in L.A. or possibly New York, you only saw your idols on the screen, Earl says. You never touched the memorabilia; you never saw the real celebrity. Not until Planet Hollywood.
Treasures From Planet Hollywood is so bountiful in riches it had to be spread over five days. Almost any offering could serve as its centerpiece because, as Maddalena says, Something from everything you like is in here.
There are more than two dozen Star Wars items alone, spanning George Lucas first space opera in 1977, including pieces of the first Death Star, to the Disney+ spinoff The Mandalorian, from which comes this complete Imperial Stormtrooper uniform. Theres an armorys worth of weaponry from the first trilogy alone: an original Stormtrooper blaster from Star Wars, which century-old prop-maker Bapty& Co. forged from a British Sterling submachine gun; one of the Rebel Alliances stunt DH-17 blasters used in the first film; Leias hero and stunt blasters used in Jedi; and an Imperial Scout Trooper blaster from the third installment in the franchise.
From James Camerons 1997 Titanic, theres a titanic assortment of nearly 70 props and costumes, each equally coveted by fans of the film that spent more than a decade as the highest-grossing film of all time.
One year ago, Cameron conducted his 25th-anniversary forensic investigation to settle the argument about whether Leonardo DiCaprios Jack could have survived the sinking alongside his beloved Rose (Kate Winslet). This historic event features the wood paneling at the center of the debate. As Cameron noted last year, fans long insisted the ill-fated lovers were clinging to a door as it bobbed in the icy waters. He set the record straight: It was a wood panel from a first-class cabin, and its among the Treasures from Planet Hollywood, along with a prototype of filmdoms most famous fragment.
Remnants from that doomed voyage surface throughout this event: the Titanics helm wheel, its brass engine order telegraph, the doors to the dining room, White Star Line dinnerware and, yes, even deck chairs. Here, too, are some of the most famous costumes in modern cinema history: two versions of Jacks three-piece ensemble (which came from 20th Century Fox) and Roses chiffon dress soaked by the rising waters.
Also from the Fox archives comes the Dorothy Jeakins-designed pink ombré halter dress Marilyn Monroe wore while being serenaded by Frankie Vaughan in 1960s highest-grossing musical, George Cukors Lets Make Love. This was the film in which Monroe was advertised as the girl who put the M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m! Into Movies! During production, rumors abounded that she and co-star Yves Montand had become romantically involved, underscored by an August 1960 Life magazine featuring the twosome in an eyes-closed romantic embrace, a scene from the film.
There are pieces throughout this auction that are especially meaningful to the story of Planet Hollywood, too, such as the Bapty& Co.-made ax Jack Nicholson used to heres-Johnny his way through the bathroom door in Stanley Kubricks The Shining, which was among the first props secured before opening. This auction also features the locomotive used to film the memorable train wreck in The Fugitive, which was produced by Keith Barish who co-founded Planet Hollywood with Robert Earl. Barish, in fact, was instrumental in Planet Hollywoods creation: Barish produced, among others, the 1987 film The Running Man, which led to Schwarzeneggers early involvement with Planet Hollywood.
Schwarzenegger towers over this auction as six life-sized T-800 display figures from Terminator 2: Judgement Daystand tall among the Treasures from Planet Hollywood. Also, here are props and costumes from throughout Arnolds celebrated career: His screen-used knife from 1982s Conan the Barbarian, his jumpsuit and Adidas worn as The Running Man, his Turbo Man costume from 1996s Jingle All the Way, even a quartet of life-sized Mr. Freeze busts from Batman& Robin.
Stallones also well represented by dozens of items spanning his career, among them a trio of display figures featuring the cryogenically frozen John Spartan who emerged from an ice bath to take on 1993s Demolition Man. Props and costumes from his turns as Rocky Balboa, John Rambo and Judge Dredd can also be found among the Treasures from Planet Hollywood, including the heavy-duty Lawmaster motorcycle from Judge Dreddemblazoned with the Justice Eagle perched upon its front fender. Perhaps the most iconic item to emerge from the Rocky ring is the star-spangled coat and top hat the late Carl Weathers wore in Rocky IV his final appearance as Apollo Creed which once hung in Stallones private collection.
There is also no shortage of pieces celebrating Bruce Willis filmography among the treasures: In addition to the Harley-Davidson from Pulp Fiction, here, too, are his costumes from 12 Monkeys, The Fifth Element and the second and third Die Hard installments. Likely to be among the auctions most coveted costumes is the Jean-Paul Gaultier-designed costume Willis wore as Korben Dallas still a favorite outfit among comic-con attendees for whom The Fifth Element remains a cultural touchstone. As Gaultier told Vogue in 2017, It touches me still that the audience all over the world still loves that movie. I suppose that it is the combination of the directing, acting, sets, and costumes that worked so well.
Signed yearbooks, autographs, handprints, props and costumes likewise orbit this auction, alongside photo-matched sneakers and uniforms worn by real-life sports greats and actors who just played them on the big screen. This means one can choose between Shaquille ONeals complete Los Angeles Lakers uniform worn during several games in 1996 including Kobe Bryants NBA debut on Nov. 3 or Robert Redfords signed New York Knights jersey and jacket worn when he took a swing as The Natural. And among the Nikes offered here, one can run off in Forrest Gumps pair of dusty, red-swooshed Cortez sneakers or a pair of the Golden Nikes sprinter Michael Johnson wore while running toward Olympics gold in 1996.
Says Earl, We hope these treasures give collectors as much pleasure as they gave us.