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Alan Rickman's personal shooting script pages, role music, T-shirt and other production ephemera from the production of Tim Burton's 2007 musical film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. This lot comes from the personal archive of the late Alan Rickman.
Included in the lot are 40 script pages, highlighted and annotated by Rickman on 30 of them; sheet music with Rickman's parts highlighted; and nine CDs with music from the film. Also included is a note, handwritten by Rickman, a studio log sheet from one of Rickman's recording sessions, a black T-shirt in size L with a promotional image from the film printed on the front, and the film's title printed on the back, as well as a copy of the Sweeney Todd Still Lifes and Deaths photobook, a limited edition number 9 of 500. Notable annotations in the script include song lyrics written out with diacritics emphasising the rhythm of the music, and a hand-drawn character doodle. The lot is held together in a plastic box labelled "SWEENEY TODD" in Rickman's handwriting. Rickman personally archived all of his cinematic mementoes in this manner before his death in 2016. Dimensions (box): 33.5 cm x 26 cm x 6 cm (13.25" x 10.25" x 2.25")
Estimate: £3,000 - 6,000 M
Equally at home on stage or screen, Alan Rickman was a major star, despite entering his profession late. After working in graphic design, his first theatrical engagement after graduating from RADA in 1974 was at the Library Theatre, Manchester, where, aged 28, he was contracted for a season of underwhelming plays.
Steady work followed, but an unhappy season with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1978 led Rickman to question his future. But after appearances at the Bush, London's pre-eminent fringe theatre of the time, in 1981, he found his spiritual home: the Royal Court Theatre. Rickman appeared in several shows, which established him as a leading man, but also provided him with the rehearsal technique - his "process" - which he would use in the preparation of every role he played. He returned to the RSC in 1985 to play the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, first in Stratford, then the West End and finally Broadway, establishing him as a theatrical star.
Rickman's commitment to theatre meant that he did not make his theatrical film debut until 1988, but what a debut it was. Die Hard was an instant classic, with Rickman elevating a character who could have been the standard Euro-villain into a Hollywood Hall of Fame psychopath, Hans Gruber. Rickman became an overnight star at the age of forty-two, and three years later, he cemented his place in Hollywood with his film-stealing performance in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
He set about putting his fame to work for him, enabling "difficult" projects to get funding, as well as opening doors and wallets for his favourite causes. Rickman was a firm believer in "sending the elevator back down" and provided support to young actors, writers and theatres whenever possible. His fellow professionals shared audience adoration of him, and the young casts of the Harry Potter films could not have asked for a more generous mentor than Severus Snape, on whom they bestowed homemade gifts and awards - all of which Rickman kept, and form a poignant part of this archive.
View all lots from SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007)
View all lots from Alan Rickman Archive