In just over five minutes, the price soared with a winning in-person bid of $575,000. With a fee to the auction house known as a bidder’s premium, the final price was $718,750. The winning bidder, who attended the auction in person, wishes to remain anonymous, a Heritage spokesman said. The prop had been in storage for the better part of two decades, and before that had been displayed at a Planet Hollywood in Orlando, Fla.
The prop was one of several “Titanic” items on the auction block; others included the ship’s helm and costumes worn by DiCaprio and Winslet. All but a few sold and some are still available, including high school yearbooks featuring Steven Seagal, Sharon Stone and Michelle Pfeiffer, and a red thong from “The Full Monty.”
In February, Robert Earl, the chairman and co-founder of Planet Hollywood, said in a statement that the sale was “an extremely exciting, pivotal moment” for the resort and casino group. The items were a selection of memorabilia from the Planet Hollywood vaults, he said.
When the first Planet Hollywood opened in New York City in 1991, it was a star-studded affair, with appearances from Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, who were among the restaurant’s financial backers. Planet Hollywood would go on to open more than 100 locations around the world. But the luster quickly faded, and the company filed for bankruptcy twice after opening a marquee location in Las Vegas in 1998. Earl lost $1 billion along the way.
Earl and Planet Hollywood did not respond to a request for comment.
In an interview with Heritage Auctions before the event, Earl said that Planet Hollywood was meant to be “an extension of the red carpet experience to you where you were.”
“Unless you were in L.A. or possibly New York, you never touched anything except seeing your idols onscreen,” he said. “You didn’t have any involvement in any extensions of the movie or their lives and we afforded that.”
