A ‘Star Wars’ Actor Says Goodbye (to His Memorabilia)

Anthony Daniels is parting with his head and is feeling a little hesitant.

The actor, who has played the intergalactic robot C-3PO in numerous Star Wars movies and TV shows spanning over 40 years, is unloading his entire collection of Star Wars goodies in an auction thrown by memorabilia specialists Propstore that will be held next week in Los Angeles.

One of the centerpieces of the Anthony Daniels Collection is a screen-matched light-up head that Daniels wore in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. The object, consisting of a faceplate, backplate, and neck-ring, could fetch anywhere between $500,000 to $1 million. (At a similar auction involving Daniels last November, another C-3PO head gaveled for almost $850,000.)

C-3PO is central to Daniels’ identity as an actor and that head is in some ways the mask he presents to the world. “It is not only the prop that I wore, but it was also a prop I would use in interviews to identify myself,” Daniels tells The Hollywood Reporter from his home in England. “It’s very much, ‘You don’t know my face but you know this face.’”

And a few weeks ago, he was doing a final photoshoot with the head and “had a slight wobble,” as he puts it. “Am I right to move this on?” he asked himself. “I have lived with these items for 50 years some of them,” he notes, “and I have very mixed feelings.”

It was a fleeting feeling, his resolve rebuilding itself as quickly as some new Death Star. “I had all this stuff, almost all of it was in cupboards, drawers and in attics. Nobody was looking at it, nobody was treasuring it, if you will. And it was too good to throw away,” says the actor.

This is the second and final batch of items being unloaded by the actor, who previously sold a stash in a Propstore auction in London in November. It’s a rare opportunity for collectors, as Daniels is the only major actor from Star Wars to openly sell his memorabilia. In 2023, items belonging to late Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew were to have been sold off until his widow learned of the auction and asked for the items to be donated to Mayhew’s foundation.

Daniels originally was going to leave his collection to his wife, Christine Savage, to sell after he died. When he told her his plan, her response was, “Why don’t you sell it now?”

“She doesn’t want to deal with this stuff,” says the actor, who turned 78 in February.

Amid the everything-must-go mentality, Daniels did keep two things. One was a statue from Lucasfilm congratulating him for 40 years of service. The other, an 18-inch C-3PO statue made out of Legos.

But it feels like everything else droid and Daniels-related is in the auction, from a hand-annotated early draft script from the original Star Wars movie and pages of hand-written Ewok dialogue to a C-3PO Igloo cooler and a pair of unworn RD-D2 Adidas jogging shoes.

It is evening in London, and the actor picks up the auction catalog for his objets d’art. He falls into a reflective mood as he thumbs through the pages, memories bubbling up like an X-wing rising from a swamp.

Among the items are two lots of sockets and tubes from the famed starships the Millennium Falcon, parts that Daniels rescued when he came across a bonfire transpiring in the U.K.’s Elstree Studios after completing shooting Return of the Jedi. There was less thought given to props in that era of moviemaking and storage space always remained an issue. Besides, no one thought Star Wars would continue after the original trilogy.

“They were burning the Millennium Falcon,” he said, his voice rising in astonishment. “I was horrified. I think everyone is fond of the Falcon. It had a character about it. The wooden and the plastic and parts, they were making a disgusting bonfire in the drizzle. I just picked up some pieces.”

Chairbacks, such as the ones from Returns of the Jedi and Force Awakens that are in the auction, were useless for the actor as he never used chairs while in costume on sets.

“I couldn’t sit down,” he says. “I could never get out of the costume. I always thought that if the world was nuked, I’d be wandering the desert to this day.”

Well, surely the C-3PO belt buckles got some use, no?

“They were more trophies than buckles,” he remarks, adding he was never the type of actor who would self-publicize himself. Then he jumps into a mock conversation. “That’s me on the buckle.” Then in another voice, says, “Really? Who are you?” “Anthony Daniels.” “And…?”   

Perhaps one of the more random items for sale is an autographed Pittsburgh Penguins hockey jersey with the number 77 (the year the original movie was released) that he received for doing a charity event for the NHL team. He even got to ride the Zamboni, which he was fine the first two times the ice resurfacing machine circled the arena for the presentation, but then had to stay on it as it went about smoothing over the ice for the entire rink.

“It was a superb evening,” he recalls. “Would I ever go a hockey match again? No.”

Also up for grabs also is an Empire Strikes Back set security badge with the letter S. and W.

“You couldn’t get on the set without that. And one day Gary Kurtz, the producer, arrived on the set and he didn’t have it. And they wouldn’t let him on,” he says, before erupting in a chuckle. “Brilliant.”

Elsewhere, the ginger bread cookie that is for sale may be more bitter than sweet. It was given to him on the last day of shooting 2019’s The Last Jedi by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.

“I passed Mark Hamill on his last day,” Daniels remembers, “and he said, ‘I’ve been in all these movies and what I am getting as a leaving present? A cookie.’ And I kinda laughed. And then the same thing happened to me. I got a cookie.”

How did you feel when you got the cookie?

“How did you think I felt?”

Why did you decide to not eat the cookie and instead keep it?

“Well, it was my leaving present. Would you eat your leaving present?”

Propstore’s entertainment memorabilia auction runs March 12 to March 14, with the Anthony Daniels Collection hitting March 13. Check out some of the items below.