Two decades before Julia Roberts entered Hugh Grant's bookstore in Notting Hill, an equally seductive carpenter and aspiring actor was already lurking in that London neighborhood—then neither so bohemian nor so cosmopolitan.
In the mid-1970s, a couple rented part of the home they had in that area.
The advertisement caught the attention of an unknown company, and the person in charge of cleaning and conditioning the upstairs apartment was the one who recognized the new tenant when he came to see the house.
It was Harrison Ford.
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During the months of filming in the United Kingdom for the first installment of
Star Wars
(later known as
Episode IV: A New Hope),
the family—who occupied the ground floor of the house—and the neighbors remember a kind and social Ford, who shared beers and tea with them in the backyard, and through whose house other protagonists of the film such as Carrie Fischer or Mark Hamill (the “little boy,” as Ford, then 34 years old, called him) paraded. .
When leaving his London residence, the actor left some minor belongings, as with any move.
Among them, the script and the shooting plan that he managed during the six months of work at the Elstree studios.
This Saturday they go up for auction, for an initial price of 14,000 euros that the bid organizers hope to greatly exceed.
Elgin Crescent street, in the Notting Hill neighborhood (London)
“No one expected at the time that it would become the great film that it was,” explains Jonathan Torode of Excalibur Auctions.
He is the head of auctions at a house specialized in all types of collectibles (trains, cars, movie figures...), and will be responsible for conducting the bidding on Ford's belongings, which the family that owns the apartment has kept as a treasure during all this time.
“Part of the filming was in the United Kingdom, which had magnificent facilities, and another part in Tunisia.
Today we all refer to it as
Episode IV: A New Hope
, but back then it was popularly known as
simply
Star Wars .
And Ford was not yet as famous as he is now, he had only participated in a couple of films.
The family got to know him quite well.
They invited him to his son's birthday, and he even bought them some plants for his garden.
They remember him as a kind, clean and tidy guy,” explains Torode.
The 'Star Wars' script that Harrison Ford worked on
Along with the film script, the part of the lot most coveted by collectors, there are a couple of copies of the shooting plan and some technical notes from Ford himself on
post-its
, with an initial price of 1,200 euros.
And a letter from his agent in which she urges the actor to sign a couple of contracts that he had pending, for which he asks for around one hundred euros.
Harrison Ford's personal notes and filming plans
Ford did not note any revealing personal details, and his copy of the script is pristine, which gives an idea of the actor's way of working.
But any trace of what was a legendary shoot is worth its weight in gold.
“We have hired several specialists who have confirmed that it was Ford's handwriting.
There is a note, for example, in which it is noted: 'It is the first sequence in which Han Solo enters the cantina', and others that he uses to remember that he has met for dinner with some friends," explains Torode.
Everything that has to do with the
Star Wars
saga generates enormous expectations.
“We are confident that the auction will be an absolute success, because we have had coverage from media outlets around the world, who have not stopped calling,” says Torode.
“We work a lot with everything related to
Star Wars.
We are specialists in this type of collection material.
And it doesn't stop growing, it's gigantic,” he concludes.