The Titanic debate simmered for more than 25 years. Couldn’t Rose and Jack have simply squeezed onto the slab of wood turned makeshift raft, saving him from hypothermia and death?
Someone will soon be able to investigate for themselves. (Director James Cameron said last year he performed a scientific study that proved the two lovers could not fit.)
The wood panel is among hundreds of movie props and costumes for sale this week in Dallas. Auction house Heritage Auctions is selling some 1,600 items owned by Planet Hollywood and once displayed at the company’s movie-themed chain of restaurants.
Much of the memorabilia comes from hits from the 1980s, 90s and 2000s.
Among items for sale: the Harley-Davidson chopper Bruce Willis rode in Pulp Fiction. The blaster Princess Leia used to battle Imperial forces in Return of the Jedi. The stone tablets Charlton Heston lugged in The Ten Commandments. The time-traveling phone booth from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The axe Jack Nicholson wielded in The Shining. The whip Indiana Jones carried into the Temple of Doom. The white coat worn by Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And Buffalo Bill’s moth kimono from The Silence of the Lambs.
“Name a favorite movie, and it’s likely something — somethings — momentous from that film appears in this auction,” the auction house said in a release.
The auction includes nearly 70 props and costumes from Titanic alone, including the wood panel, which is often mistakenly called a door. Based on a piece of debris salvaged from the ship, the hunk is made from balsa wood, according to the item’s description. It has a starting bid of $40,000.
Other movies featured in the sale include A Few Good Men, the Back to the Future series, the Aliens franchise, Home Alone, Deliverance, Ghost Busters, The Princess Bride, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption, The Graduate, Jumanji, Young Frankenstein and Zoolander.
Planet Hollywood opened in 1991 with the backing of actors Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. Throughout the 1990s, the chain operated more than 100 locations worldwide, including Dallas, which closed in 2001.
“Unless you were in L.A. or possibly New York, you only saw your idols on the screen,” Robert Earl, chairman and co-founder of Planet Hollywood, said in the release. “You never touched the memorabilia; you never saw the real celebrity. Not until Planet Hollywood.”
The company now operates three restaurants in Orlando, Los Angeles and Qatar, as well as a handful of resorts.
Bidding runs Wednesday through Sunday live at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, online and by phone.
