Certain movie memorabilia can bring in a ton of money, including cars, props, and costumes. While I highly doubt in five years anyone will care about Emma Watson’s Perks of Being a Wallflower costume that was on display at the Hollywood ArcLight a few weeks ago, certain iconic costumes are recognizable—and beloved—decades after a movie has been created. Recently, one important costume from the 1939 flick The Wizard of Oz went up for auction, and proved how important a piece of movie history can be when sold to the right buyer.
Over the weekend, Dorothy’s blue gingham dress--the dress that was famously worn throughout The Wizard of Oz by actress Judy Garland--was among the movie related items that went up for sale at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles. Earlier this week, initial auction speculation guessed the frilly dress would bring in somewhere between $400,000 and $600,000. Whoever is responsible for that sort of guestimation must be really good at his or her job, because the dress ended up bringing in an impressive $480,000.
The blue dress was clearly the star of the auction, but other movie memorabilia brought in a tidy sum. According to Deadline, John Belushi’s Blues Brothers sunglasses fetched the odd sum of $16,640. Additionally, a costume worn by Julie Andrew’s in The Sound of Music cost $38,400 and a racing jacket of Steve McQueen’s went for $50,000 (I’m sure Rick from Pawn Stars would be jealous about that latter one). It’s nice to know there are fans of movies willing to spend their cash to remember movie history.
