Bidding for this lot will end on Friday, December 5th. The auction will begin at 3:00PM GMT (7:00AM PST) and lots are sold sequentially via live auctioneer; tune in to the live streaming broadcast on auction day to follow the pace. Note other lots in the auction may close on Saturday, December 6th or Sunday, December 7th.
A Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon) early filming head and unfinished head from Henry Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack appeared throughout the film as the leading character who brought Christmas time to Halloween Town.
The film's animation team produced hundreds of hand-sculpted replacement heads for Jack to capture his facial expressions and mouth movements. Various materials were used to construct the multiple heads during production, with early filming replacement heads being fashioned in clay.
Originating from the personal collection of Academy Award®-nominated actor Chris Sarandon, this lot consists of one painted clay and one unpainted resin head with different facial expressions. The clay head is painted white, with dark grey used for his eye sockets and a purple grey colouring inside his mouth. These heads come with an acrylic display with an engraved metal plaque. The heads exhibit some casting imperfections, and cracked paint throughout. Dimensions: (display) 20.5 cm x 10.25 cm x 10.25 cm (8" x 4" x 4")
Estimate: £3,000 - 6,000 Ω
Actor Chris Sarandon burst into popular culture with Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon in 1975, earning Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for just his film debut. He quickly became known as one of Hollywood's most versatile talents, embodying a villainous vampire in Tom Holland's Fright Night, the comically evil prince in Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride, and Goldie Hawn's romantic foil in Herbert Ross' Protocol with equal ease throughout the 1970s and 80s.
On the heels of these acclaimed roles, Sarandon gave voice to one of the most beloved characters in modern animation when he portrayed Jack Skellington in Henry Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Having achieved massive commercial and critical success upon its release in 1993 - including earning $107.8 million in box-office grosses as well as the first-ever Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects for an animated film - Nightmare has since become recognized as both a Halloween and Christmas classic, earning permanent preservation in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry in 2023.
Propstore is therefore pleased to present several never-before-released pieces from this legendary star's personal collection of The Nightmare Before Christmas memorabilia. Drawn from more than three decades of appearances as Jack Skellington across multiple media, the lots in the Chris Sarandon Collection stand as testaments to both this irreplaceable artist and the creation for which he will be forever associated in the minds of fans around the world.
View all lots from NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, THE (1993)
View all lots from Chris Sarandon Collection