Updated on November 24: The Mankiewicz sled sold at auction for $149,000, including the premium.
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By RAY KELLY
A “Rosebud” sled owned by Citizen Kane co-writer Herman Mankiewicz will be auctioned off in New York on November 23.
The sled is part of Bonhams‘ “TCM Presents… Treasures From The Dream Factory” auction. The hardwood sled with hand-forged metal runners and rope tie is expected to fetch between $100,000 and $200,000.
The Mankiewicz sled differs dramatically in design, construction and general appearance to the iconic prop used in Orson Welles’ landmark 1941 movie.
Welles once recalled that four sleds were made for Citizen Kane – a pinewood sled seen early in the film, which sold for $233,500 at auction in 1996, and three balsa wood sleds for use at the fiery close of the film. Director Steven Spielberg paid $60,500 for one of the surviving balsa sleds at an auction in 1982.
According to Mankiewicz family lore, the sled in the upcoming auction was given to him by either screenwriter friend Ben Hecht or the Mercury Theatre’s John Houseman at the conclusion of principal photography on the RKO Pictures film. The sled is said to have been a treasured heirloom in the Mankiewicz family ever since. It was exhibited at the Debbie Reynolds Museum in Las Vegas between 1995 and 1998.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this lot will be donated to the Writer’s Guild Foundation.
In the item description for Lot #307, Bonhams repeats the legend of a beloved bicycle once owned by Mankiewicz that was stolen and inspired the use a childhood sled in the Kane narrative. In his upcoming book Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane, biographer Patrick McGilligan tied the plot device to Old Rosebud, a Kentucky Derby winning horse that Mankiewicz wagered on as a teenager.
For his part, Welles gave a detailed the meaning of Rosebud in a statement accompanying the film’s release: “Rosebud is the trade name of a cheap little sled on which Kane was playing on the day he was taken away from his home and his mother. In his subconscious it represented the simplicity, the comfort, above all the lack of responsibility in his home, and also it stood for his mother’s love which Kane never lost.”
“TCM Presents… Treasures From The Dream Factory” has other Welles related items up for sale, most notably an undated three-page typed letter Welles wrote to famed agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar about his proposed memoirs. According to the letter, Welles wanted strict control over the editing of the book down to the punctuation – something he fully realized could be a deal-breaker.
The existence and whereabouts of the autobiography Welles discussed with Lazar in the mid 1970s was not publicly known at the time of his death in 1985. An 80-page draft surfaced six months ago among the eight boxes of items held by Welles’ companion Oja Kodar in Croatia and sold to the University of Michigan for an undisclosed sum.
Publication of the draft has been weighed by the University of Michigan, according to The New York Times.
The letter to Lazar is expected to fetch between $900 to $1,200 at auction, while an inscribed photograph is valued between $750 and $900 and a Citizen Kane souvenir book could go for $800 to $1,000.
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