The Shining axe to go under the hammer in first Kubrick archive sale
The axe Jack Nicholson swung in The Shining is going up for sale.
It is the weapon his character, Jack Torrance, uses to hack an opening in a locked door behind which his wife Wendy, played by Shelley Duvall, is hiding. The same axe is used in the killing of Dick Hallorann, played by Scatman Crothers, in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film.
The axe carries a guide price of £30,000 to £50,000, The Guardian reported. It is one of hundreds of lots in the first auction of Kubrick's personal archive. Kubrick, who directed The Shining, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut, died in 1999.
Bonhams will hold the sale in London on 3 February. Public viewings will open at Bonhams in New York before travelling to Los Angeles and Paris, then to London from 18 January.
Other lots from The Shining include the two sky-blue dresses worn by Alexa and Alexie Grady as the twin sisters in the hotel corridor. Danny's trike is not part of the sale.
The auction also includes four clapperboards from Kubrick's sets. Clapperboards are the hinged boards snapped shut in front of the camera to mark each take. One is from The Shining, with the others from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut.
The lot tipped to lead the sale comes from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is the cosmic foetus model, also known as the star child prop, seen in the film's final scene. It is predicted to fetch as much as £800,000.
Paper from Kubrick's working life is a large part of the archive. The sale includes film scripts with his personal annotations, drawings and alternative scenes, including material for The Shining, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lolita. It also includes his personal script from his 1960 film Spartacus.
What makes this stand out is the source. These are not props gathered from collectors. They come from the director's own store, offered for the first time through Bonhams, whose popular culture head is Claire Tole-Moir.
For fans, this means a rare chance to see the objects up close before they disperse. Even if bidding is out of reach, the travelling exhibition puts the axe, the dresses and the star child in public view in four cities.
