STAN: Two hundred and seventy!
OLLIE: Two hundred and ... What are you bidding against me for!?
STAN: Well, you're bidding against me! Two hundred and seventy-five!
--- Laurel and Hardy buy a clock in Thicker Than Water
THE STAN LAUREL ESTATE AUCTION,
CHRISTIE'S, NYC
May 26th, 2007
- by John V. BrennanToday, I visited the Film and Entertainment Gallery at Christie's in New York City, which will be auctioning off movie and television memorabilia on May 30th. The centerpiece of the auction is a collection from the Stan Laurel Estate. Working in New York a block away from Christie's, I often pass by the auction house at night and pause to look at the artwork and artifacts displayed in their vast showcase windows along 49th street. "Gee," I sometimes say to myself, "I would love to buy that painting, if only I were Donald Trump." (Or, if you prefer a Laurel and Hardy allusion, "I only I were Colonel Buckshot!")
I had strange, mixed feelings about the artifacts, costumes and papers displayed in the gallery. On the one hand, they were all just things. For instance, a wicker chair looked rather cheap and almost ugly, something I could buy in any thrift shop for a few dollars. However, when a Christie's employee named Gail directed me to look at the photo displayed with the chair, I actually got chills. It was from the set of Casablanca. Suddenly, it meant something. This was a chair from Rick's Place - this was Bogey's chair!
Naturally, I spent most of my time inspecting the
Stan Laurel collection. Although I have been to the American
Museum of the Moving Image in my home town of Astoria, New York on
several occasions, they never had any Laurel and Hardy stuff on any of
my visits, so this was the first time I ever
had the chance to see anything that once belonged to either of The Boys
up close. Gail became my de
facto guide and was kind enough to actually remove some items
from their glass showcases so I could inspect them even closer.
Thus I got an up close look at one of Stan's bowler hats as well as a
polka-dotted bow tie, one that Stan is wearing in a famous publicity shot I own that can be
seen in our own virtual Laurel and Hardy
Central Museum. To my eyes, the hat was flatter and less
dignified than the ones we normally associate with Stan in the movies,
and my educated guess would be that it may have been one he wore in
later live appearances. While I was formulating this theory,
another part of my brain was thinking "This is Stan's hat. What
are the chances of me slapping this on my head, running out of Christie's as fast as I can and hitting the train station before
security can catch up to me and tackle me to the ground?". Of
course, that plan hinged upon a train just pulling into the station,
and as every New Yorker knows, when you arrive at a subway station,
trains are never just pulling in, they are always just pulling
out. So, instead, I gave up any thoughts about beginning a life
of crime and snapped the picture above instead. It shows Stan's
bowler hat resting on top of a metal wardrobe trunk used by Laurel and
Hardy on their various European tours.One of the more fascinating pieces of "Stan Stuff" was a page from a notebook in which he had jotted down several gag ideas and jokes. Surprisingly, it seemed that Stan enjoyed the kind of off-color humor that rarely if ever showed up in Laurel and Hardy films. One handwritten gag line which I loved was "Don't wait for the shrimp boat, dear, I'll be coming home with crabs." Another was a proposed exchange between two elderly characters on their honeymoon:
"Do I have time to remove my stockings?"
"Hell, you have time to knit a pair!"
Stan had even jotted down a joke, about a woman going to a dentist, that David Letterman recently told on Late Night: "[I'd] rather be pregnant than have [my] tooth pulled" / "Make up your mind, lady, so I know which way to tilt the chair." I wonder if this was an old joke that Stan remembered, or if it was a Laurel original which somebody on the Letterman writing staff got a sneak preview of at Christie's? Hmmm...
Also on display were various letters and photographs from famous
friends and admirers (President Kennedy, Jerry Lewis, Lucille Ball),
personal papers, certificates and identification cards including a
"Motion Picture Employee" ID card from 1942 with Stan's photo, social
security number and two signatures, one of each side. The wicker
hampers and trunk pictured on the left brought a flood of images in my
mind of Stan and Ollie traveling here and there for one of their live
shows. The line that stuck in my head while looking at these
comes from their short Beau Hunks:
"Traveled all over the world - loved
by everyone."
I did spend some time looking at non-Laurel and Hardy artifacts. Seeing Captain James T. Kirk's chair up close from the set of the original Star Trek series, I had an urge to park myself in it and say "Not chess, Mr. Spock - poker!". (Trekkers, name that episode!). I assumed Christie's security would frown upon such an action so I refrained. Instead, I walked over to a glass case and viewed a straw hat that once belonged to Buster Keaton, along with a letter signed by Keaton and Donald O'Connor, who played Keaton in the well-meaning but ill-advised The Buster Keaton Story. Of course, it was simply a straw hat, somewhat yellowed with age, but again, there was that thought - "This is Buster Keaton's hat!". There were costumes galore, once worn by such luminaries as Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Al Pacino and Marilyn Monroe. Vintage film posters decorated the walls, including a beautiful one-sheet poster from 1964 for The Beatles A Hard Day's Night which, somehow fittingly, hung directly above Stan Laurel's wicker hampers and trunk.
After a half hour, I had pretty much viewed
all I wanted to view and thanked my guide for the day Gail and another
woman (whose name I forgot to ask - forgive me) for all their kindness
and patience with my questions and requests. On my way out, I
touched Bogey's chair. Just because. - JBB.S. (June 5th) - The auction was a success, with most if not all of Stan's stuff being bought by private collectors. Stan's bowler hat went for an astounding $26,400! As Chubby Chaney said in the Our Gang short Bargain Day, "Now that's what I call a hat!"
Laurel and Hardy Central
Copyright © John Larrabee, John V. Brennan, 2007. All Rights Reserved.