Entertainment Memorabilia - Thursday 19 July 2001 (Sale No. 8525) [cover: Bette Davis]

London: Christie's International Media Division. Near Fine. 2001. First Edition. Softcover. [minor handling wear only]. (B&W and color photographs, facsimiles) Auction catalogue, featuring the properties of (among others) Bette Davis and Mercedes de Acosta. The Davis items, which were consigned from the personal collection of her longtime "girl Friday," Kathryn Sermak, comprise Lots 37 through 97. They include the kinds of mundane "personal possessions" that often clutter up such auctions (ashtrays, cigarette holders, bar items, old credit cards, etc.) and a number of costumes, but (fortunately) relatively few items of serious archival and/or (truncated) historical significance -- unless you count Bette's Best Actress Oscar for JEZEBEL (which sold for $578,000 to an anonymous telephone bidder, who was almost immediately revealed to have been Steven Spielberg, who reportedly bought it with the intention of donating it to the Academy). There was only a single lot on offer from the collection of Mercedes de Acosta, but it was a doozy: a "Greta Garbo Archive" containing, among other things, a lock of Garbo's hair, a selection of topless photos of the actress (from when the two had "a tryst in Silverlake, Nevada"), a "deteriorated leather sandal," etc. Later in the catalogue there is also a selection of Marilyn Monroe-related items (nos. 119-136), because what would any celebrity memorabilia auction be without representation of MM? And speaking of historical/archival significance, the best stuff in the catalogue (in my opinion) was the material (Lots 152-171) from the collection of Jack Greenwood, an MGM assistant director who worked often with director George Cukor from the late 1930s until his death (Greenwood's) in 1950. Included are several scrapbooks and Greenwood's heavily annotated working scripts from such classics as THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, THE WOMEN, and GASLIGHT. Perhaps some of these items will find their way into a proper archive one of these days. . (Inventory #: 29039)