The estate of the late swashbuckling producer and Paramount boss Bob Evans will be up for auction Oct. 24, a year after he died at 89. His son Josh, with third wife Ali MacGraw, coordinated the sale through Julien’s, a specialist in stardust-laden stuff.
“We did Hugh Hefner a few years ago,” explains Julien’s executive director Martin Nolan. “Evans appeals to the same collectors who gravitate toward this idea of power, cool and mystique.”
Hefner crafted his iconography through everything from the mansion to the silk pajamas. For his part, Evans had his nearby Woodland estate — immortalized in a signed color print by Slim Aarons that’s on the block (estimate: $400 to $600) — and was known for his own sartorial signatures, many available for purchase, including bolo ties and his thick black Oliver Peoples glasses ($1,000 to $2,000).
Among the nearly 600 items is a contentious set of two telegrams ($400 to $600) between Evans and Francis Ford Coppola regarding The Godfather. Barry Levinson is mounting a feature about the making of the film, with Oscar Isaac as Coppola and Jake Gyllenhaal playing Evans, who in this telegram replies to Coppola’s jab — “You have doublecrossed me for the last time” — with his own: “I bear great sympathy and concern for your apparent paranoid schizophrenic behavior.”
This story first appeared in the Oct. 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
