The auction of Orson Welles’ personal belongings drew large bids this weekend.
Sixty-seven lots fetched $180,000 at Heritage Auctions on Saturday, according to the Associated Press. Many items sold for far more than the pre-auction estimates.
Two dozen pages of scripts for the 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane went for $15,000; Welles’ 16mm Bell & Howell movie camera sold for $37,500; and a silver-plated cigar ashtray author Ernest Hemingway gave Welles fetched $5,000.
Welles’ youngest daughter, Beatrice, told Wellesnet she found the items in boxes and trunks last year and decided to put them up for auction. Other items discovered and not included in the auction included detailed correspondence between Welles and his legal guardian, Maurice “Dadda” Bernstein. Beatrice Welles plans to compile and publish the correspondence
as an early autobiography of her father.
She said her father would have preferred making the memorabilia available to film buffs and fans as opposed to sending them to a museum.
[br]
_________
Post your comments on the Wellesnet Message Board.