Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandment Tablets Sold for $325,000

Leading the Cecil B. DeMille section of Heritage Auctions' Hollywood/Entertainment sales was led by the DeMille-commissioned granite Ten Commandment tablets which went for $325,000.

In addition to the granite tablets commissioned by DeMille for his 1956 movie, a set of the director's canceled checks and stationery was sold for $93,750, while a The Ten Commandments shooting script inscribed by DeMille to sound ecordist John Cope "To John Cope - whos (sic) sound understanding has carried many of my pictures to success - in appreciation. Cecil B. DeMille. March 8th 1955" was sold for $6,875.

DeMille's Guest Book featuring more than 130 pages of signatures from various statesmen invited to the set, as well as actor Charlton Heston (Moses), including the President of the U.N. Assembly, the Prime Ministers of Thailand and Ceylon, the Premier of Burma, the Foreign Minister of Italy, the Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court, and several ambassadors was sold for $3,750.

Spanning the last 15 years of his career, a pair of DeMille's casting books, each containing more than 200 pages of typewritten audition and meeting notes with corresponding actor photos, was sold for $6,562. The candid and often cutting remarks focus on the casting process for four of his epic films Unconquered (1947), Samson and Delilah (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), and The Ten Commandments (1956) with critiques of Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall, Anne Bancroft, and Yvonne DeCarlo, their looks and performances.

Other highlights included:

• DeMille's personally-annotated Bible with the director's library bookplate went for $5,500
• a complete set of J.K. Rowling-signed hardcover first editions of her Harry Potter series, including the rare hardback issue of the first printing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone went for $162,000
• Robert Peak's Apocalypse Now painting which sold for $687,500
• a one-sheet poster final key artwork by Drew Struzan for John Carpenter's 1986 cult classic Big Trouble in Little China sold for $300,000
• the Rosebud sled which, sold for a price of $14.75m, makes it the second most-valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever sold