The original mechatronic model for the character ET from Steven Spielberg’s film “ET – The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) has been sold at an auction in Los Angeles. An unknown buyer paid the equivalent of around 2.4 million euros for the construction, which can be controlled electrically like a mechanical marionette over 85 movement points, for example to move the eyes or fingers. A team of twelve animators served her during filming.
Designer Carlo Rambaldi received an Oscar for Best Visual Effects for his work on the model in 1983, in an era before digital film effects. He also received an Academy Award for the models of “King Kong” and “Alien”, which he built for the 1976 and 1979 films of the same name. Spielberg referred to Rambaldi, who died in 2012, as “ET’s Gepetto”.
Drew Barrymore, now 47, who starred on ET at the age of seven, recently revealed on her own show that she thought the alien was a real living being. Once she even asked one of the cloakroom attendants to get him a scarf “so he doesn’t get cold.” The adult colleagues on the set tried not to destroy their illusion. Steven Spielberg even hired two animators to “keep ET alive 24/7” for little Barrymore.
The ET model was the key piece of a two-day run auction, which the auction house Julien’s hosted over the weekend. Also up for sale were a collection of Marilyn Monroe’s clothes and personal belongings; the staff used by Charlton Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments (1965) raised to part the sea; a 35 millimeter camera that was used to record the “King of the World” scene to film Titanic (1997); a pair of Everlast boxing gloves that Robert DeNiro used during filming “Like a Raging Bull” (1980) wore; and an original prop one Nimbus 2000 broom from the movie “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”.