Princess Diana’s Blouse, an Animatronic E.T. Head, and ‘Big Lebowski’ Robe Headline Memorabilia Auction

The blouse Princess Diana wore for her engagement portrait, E.T.’s head, and the robe “The Dude” wore in The Big Lebowski are just some of the wide range of instantly recognisable pop culture artefacts going up for auction next month.

Julien’s Auctions is partnering with Turner Classic Movies for the Dec 14-17 sale, titled Hollywood Legends.

“Associated with phrases such as ‘Danger, Will Robinson,’ ‘E.T. phone home,’ and ‘Avengers, assemble!,’ these iconic collectibles provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fans, pop culture enthusiasts, and collectors to own a piece of Hollywood history,” Martin Nolan, Julien’s co-founder and executive director, said in a statement announcing the sale Monday.

The sale comprises three components taking place over four days at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills (Dec. 14), Julien’s facility in Gardena, Calif. (Dec. 15-17), and online at JuliensLive.com.

Featuring props, costumes, and models from some of the most iconic science fiction, fantasy, action, and superhero franchises dating back to the 1950s, the first program—billed as Robots, Wizards, Heroes & Aliens—will be held during the sale’s first two days (Dec. 14-15). In celebration of Warner Bros.’ 100th anniversary, an assortment of items from the studio’s biggest film franchises, such as Harry Potter and Batman, will be offered.

E.T’s Animatronic head
Julien’s Auctions

The marquee item is an original mechanical animatronic E.T. head—created by the legendary special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi and as seen throughout Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film E.T. the Extra Terrestrial—that’s estimated to fetch between US$800,000 and US$1 millionThis model comes from Rambaldi’s own collection, as did the animatronic figure of E.T. sold by Julien’s Auctions last November for US$2.56 million.

Also sure to draw heightened interest is one of the most famous robots of all time, the Model B-9 from Lost In Space. One of only two full-scale figures that were made for the pioneering 1960s science fiction series, the still-functional model is expected to sell for between US$300,000 and US$500,000.

Fans of the Coen Brothers’ 1998 classic film The Big Lebowski will focus on day three (Dec. 16) of the sale, which will celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary. More than 250 items, including storyboards and costumes, will go under the hammer, with a portion of the proceeds going to Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign.

Expected to draw the highest bids are a pair of lots featuring items worn by Jeff Bridges in the title role. Estimated to go for between US$30,000 and US$50,000, The Dude ensemble—which appears throughout the film, including in the memorable opening scene—consists of a light-brown knitted fleece bathrobe and an off-white cotton Jockey T-shirt. An original pair of sunglasses featuring nylon frames with amber-coloured polycarbonate lenses is expected to sell in the neighbourhood of US$20,000 to US$30,000.

Glamour, Grace and Greatness, the third component of the auction, will close out the sale’s final day (Dec. 17) with items created by revered designers and worn by some of the greatest style icons of all time.

Headliner status goes to a piece from one of the most iconic images ever taken of Princess Diana: the blush pink chiffon blouse worn in her 1981 engagement portrait—famously captured by the world-renowned photographer Lord Snowden for the February 1981 issue of Vogue—is estimated to fetch between US$80,000 and $100,000. With its ruff-like collar and loose pleats to the front, the garment was created by designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel, who would later design Princess Diana’s wedding gown. The blouse, which Elizabeth Emanuel sold from her archives in 2010, was admired by millions when it was previously on display at London’s Kensington Palace as part of the exhibition “Diana: Her Fashion Story” that ran from 2017 to 2019.

Princess Diana’s Engagement Blouse
Julien’s Auctions

Another famous piece sure to draw intense bidding is a ballerina-length evening dress from the Moroccan-British fashion designer Jacques Azagury that was worn by Princess Diana in Florence, Italy on April 23, 1985. Featuring a black velvet bodice with embroidered stars in metallic thread, and a two-tier royal blue organza skirt with sash and bow, the dress is estimated to sell for between US$100,000 and US$200,000.

Other highlights include Givenchy-designed garments worn by Audrey Hepburn in one of her most memorable roles as Regina “Reggie” Lampert in the 1963 film Charade. A marigold wool coat is expected to sell for between US$20,000 and US$40,000, while a cream wool dress is estimated to earn between US$30,000 and US$50,000.

Fans of timeless classics can bid on iconic pieces such as the dramatic black satin sleeveless gown worn by Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard and the blue and white cotton gingham pinafore worn by Margaret O’Brien as Tootie Smith in the 1944 musical comedy Meet Me in St. Louis.

As tech leaders race to bring Windows systems back online after Friday’s software update by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike crashed around 8.5 million machines worldwide, experts share with CIO Journal their takeaways for preparing for the next major information technology outage.

Be familiar with how vendors develop, test and release their software

IT leaders should hold vendors deeply integrated within IT systems, such as CrowdStrike , to a “very high standard” of development, release quality and assurance, said Neil MacDonald , a Gartner vice president.

“Any security vendor has a responsibility to do extensive regression testing on all versions of Windows before an update is rolled out,” he said.

That involves asking existing vendors to explain how they write software, what testing they do and whether customers may choose how quickly to roll out an update.

“Incidents like this remind all of us in the CIO community of the importance of ensuring availability, reliability and security by prioritizing guardrails such as deployment and testing procedures and practices,” said Amy Farrow, chief information officer of IT automation and security company Infoblox.

Re-evaluate how your firm accepts software updates from ‘trusted’ vendors

While automatically accepting software updates has become the norm—and a recommended security practice—the CrowdStrike outage is a reminder to take a pause, some CIOs said.

“We still should be doing the full testing of packages and upgrades and new features,” said Paul Davis, a field chief information security officer at software development platform maker JFrog . undefined undefined Though it’s not feasible to test every update, especially for as many as hundreds of software vendors, Davis said he makes it a priority to test software patches according to their potential severity and size.

Automation, and maybe even artificial intelligence-based IT tools, can help.

“Humans are not very good at catching errors in thousands of lines of code,” said Jack Hidary, chief executive of AI and quantum company SandboxAQ. “We need AI trained to look for the interdependence of new software updates with the existing stack of software.”

Develop a disaster recovery plan

An incident rendering Windows computers unusable is similar to a natural disaster with systems knocked offline, said Gartner’s MacDonald. That’s why businesses should consider natural disaster recovery plans for maintaining the resiliency of their operations.

One way to do that is to set up a “clean room,” or an environment isolated from other systems, to use to bring critical systems back online, according to Chirag Mehta, a cybersecurity analyst at Constellation Research.

Businesses should also hold tabletop exercises to simulate risk scenarios, including IT outages and potential cyber threats, Mehta said.

Companies that back up data regularly were likely less impacted by the CrowdStrike outage, according to Victor Zyamzin, chief business officer of security company Qrator Labs. “Another suggestion for companies, and we’ve been saying that again and again for decades, is that you should have some backup procedure applied, running and regularly tested,” he said.

Review vendor and insurance contracts

For any vendor with a significant impact on company operations , MacDonald said companies can review their contracts and look for clauses indicating the vendors must provide reliable and stable software.

“That’s where you may have an advantage to say, if an update causes an outage, is there a clause in the contract that would cover that?” he said.

If it doesn’t, tech leaders can aim to negotiate a discount serving as a form of compensation at renewal time, MacDonald added.

The outage also highlights the importance of insurance in providing companies with bottom-line protection against cyber risks, said Peter Halprin, a partner with law firm Haynes Boone focused on cyber insurance.

This coverage can include protection against business income losses, such as those associated with an outage, whether caused by the insured company or a service provider, Halprin said.

Weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the various platforms

The CrowdStrike update affected only devices running Microsoft Windows-based systems , prompting fresh questions over whether enterprises should rely on Windows computers.

CrowdStrike runs on Windows devices through access to the kernel, the part of an operating system containing a computer’s core functions. That’s not the same for Apple ’s Mac operating system and Linux, which don’t allow the same level of access, said Mehta.

Some businesses have converted to Chromebooks , simple laptops developed by Alphabet -owned Google that run on the Chrome operating system . “Not all of them require deeper access to things,” Mehta said. “What are you doing on your laptop that actually requires Windows?”