Bidding for this lot will end on Saturday, December 6th. 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 Friday, December 5th or Sunday, December 7th.
Alan Rickman's personal annotated scripts, photographs, notes and personal messages from the production of Anthony Minghella's fantasy drama Truly, Madly, Deeply. Rickman played Jamie, a recently deceased cellist who reappears as a ghost to visit his girlfriend Nina (Juliet Stevenson). This lot comes from the personal archive of the late Alan Rickman.
This lot comprises a 104-page script dated "December 1989" and featuring the original title "Cello"; a highlighted and heavily annotated rehearsal script, printed on A5 paper and also dated "December 1989", held in a hardback file; 16 loose pages of script amendments, including one which features a hand-drawn doodle by Rickman on the back; six behind-the-scenes photographs, including one of Rickman practicing the cello; four A4 envelopes with handwritten cello notation and fingering notes; an invite to a pair of screenings of the film; a message for Rickman on hotel paper; a postcard of a cello with a personal, handwritten message to Rickman; and a personal, handwritten note from director Minghella to Rickman, thanking him for his work on the film.
The lot is held together in a plastic box labelled "TRULY MADLY DEEPLY" 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 TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY (1990)
View all lots from Alan Rickman Archive