‘The Anthony Daniels Collection’ Is Going Up For Auction Next Week
Anthony Daniels is losing his head, and he admits that he is a little hesitant.
The actor, who has portrayed C-3PO in ten of the eleven Star Wars live-action films, is auctioning off his entire collection of memorabilia in Los Angeles next week.
Photo: BBC
Perhaps the crown jewel of the Anthony Daniels Collection is a screen-matched light-up head that Daniels wore in Return of the Jedi. The prop is expected to bring in anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million.
According to Daniels, the C-3PO head is central not only to his career as an actor but also to how he presents himself in public.
Photo: BBC
“It is not only the prop that I wore, but it was also a prop I would use in interviews to identify myself,” Daniels tells The Hollywood Reporter from his home in England. “It’s very much, ‘You don’t know my face, but you know this face.’”
Selling Off His Collection Was Difficult
While Daniels felt the time was right to move on from his collection, the process has been harder than he thought it would.
A few weeks ago, he was doing a final photo shoot with the C-3PO head and “had a slight wobble.”
Photo: BBC
“Am I right to move this on?” he asked himself. “I have lived with these items for 50 years, some of them,” he notes, “and I have very mixed feelings.”
In the end, however, Daniels knows he is making the right choice.
Photo: ELLE COLLINS/LOOPER
“I had all this stuff, almost all of it was in cupboards, drawers and in attics. Nobody was looking at it, nobody was treasuring it, if you will. And it was too good to throw away,” says the actor.
Why Sell Now?
Next week’s auction will be the second batch of items sold by Daniels, who previously held an auction in London last November. So far, Daniels has been the most prominent actor from Star Wars to sell his collection.
Initially, the actor had planned on leaving his collection to his wife to sell after he died. When he told her this plan, she responded, “Why don’t you sell it now?”
Photo: Anthony Daniels Collection
“She doesn’t want to deal with this stuff,” says the actor.
Iconic Pieces of Star Wars History
Among the items included in the auction will be pieces of the Millennium Falcon that Daniels rescued from a bonfire following the end of shooting Return of the Jedi.
Anthony Daniels Collection
“They were burning the Millennium Falcon,” he said, his voice rising in astonishment. “I was horrified. I think everyone is fond of the Falcon. It had a character about it. The wood and the plastic and parts, they were making a disgusting bonfire in the drizzle. I just picked up some pieces.”
Other notable items in the lot include hand-annotated scripts, a C-3PO Igloo cooler, and chairbacks from Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. As he was in costume, Daniels never got to use them.
Anthony Daniels Collection
“I couldn’t sit down,” he says. “And I could never get out of the costume. I always thought that if the world was nuked, I’d be wandering the desert to this day.”
While Daniels is unloading almost his entire collection, he did save two items for himself. One is a statue from Lucasfilm congratulating him on 40 years of service. The other is an 18-inch statue made of Legos.
Photo: Anthony Daniels Collection
The Anthony Daniels Collection will go up for auction at Propstore on March 13.
Thanks for visiting MickeyBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon! Also, thanks for reading!
