AT THE end of the movie Titanic, Rose floats atop an ornately decorated piece of a door frame as her beloved Jack clings to its edge, holding her hand. A rescue boat finally arrives, but in time only for Rose, who promises to “never let go” of Jack as she frees herself from his icy grip and he slips below the surface of the Atlantic.

In reality, the ocean was a tank that held 17 million gallons of water. And the door frame? Balsa wood.

The wood panel sold at auction for US$718,750 on Saturday (Mar 23), part of a trove of memorabilia from Planet Hollywood. About 1,600 items, including the whip from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a bowling ball from Kingpin and the axe from The Shining, brought in US$15.7 million, according to Heritage Auctions, the auction house that handled the sales.

Heritage Auctions said that the event “shattered expectations” and set a record for the company’s auctions of movie props and costumes, drawing more than 5,500 bidders from around the world.

The live auction was held at Heritage’s headquarters in Dallas, with several auctioneers rotating over the course of five days. The auction was also streamed on Heritage’s website.

The “hero floating wood panel”, as the auction house described the Titanic prop, was designed to mimic the most famous complete piece of debris salvaged from the 1912 shipwreck. According to Heritage, it includes ornate floral accents and scrolling curves prevalent in rococo motifs that align with the reign of King Louis XV of France. The prop “bears a striking resemblance”, the auction house said, to a panel housed at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which the movie’s director, James Cameron, visited while doing research for the film.

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The prop itself has been the subject of fan debate: Could the panel really keep both Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) afloat?

The prop measures approximately eight feet long and nearly 3½ feet wide and is reinforced with hardwood.

“Big item, the biggest scene really, the climatic scene if you will,” the auctioneer said as he opened the bidding at US$90,000. “This is the goodbye.”

In just over five minutes, the price soared with a winning in-person bid of US$575,000. With a fee to the auction house known as a bidder’s premium, the final price was US$718,750. The winning bidder, who attended the auction in person, wishes to remain anonymous, a Heritage spokesperson said. The prop had been in storage for the better part of two decades and before that had been displayed at a Planet Hollywood in Orlando, Florida.

The prop was one of several Titanic items on the auction block; others included the ship’s helm and costumes worn by DiCaprio and Winslet. All but a few sold, and some are still available, including high school yearbooks featuring Steven Seagal, Sharon Stone and Michelle Pfeiffer; and a red thong from The Full Monty.

In February, Robert Earl, the chair and co-founder of Planet Hollywood, said that the sale was “an extremely exciting, pivotal moment” for the resort and casino group. The items were a selection of memorabilia from the Planet Hollywood vaults, he said.

When the first Planet Hollywood opened in New York City in 1991, it was a star-studded affair, with appearances from Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, who were among the restaurant’s financial backers. Planet Hollywood would go on to open more than 100 locations around the world. But the lustre quickly faded, and the company filed for bankruptcy twice after opening a marquee location in Las Vegas in 1998. Earl lost US$1 billion along the way.

Earl and Planet Hollywood did not respond to a request for comment.

In an interview with Heritage Auctions before the event, Earl said that Planet Hollywood was meant to be “an extension of the red carpet experience to you where you were”.

“Unless you were in LA or possibly New York, you never touched anything except seeing your idols on screen,” he said. “You didn’t have any involvement in any extensions of the movie or their lives, and we afforded that.” NYTIMES