Screen-used ‘E.T.’ model from 1982 film heads to auction with $900k estimate

The model comes from the estate of Italian special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi. (Credit: Universal Pictures))

The screen-used E.T. model from the scene in “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” in which the film’s namesake hides among a closet of stuffed animals will be sold publicly for the first time, carrying a high estimate of $900,000.

The model comes from the estate of Italian special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi, who died in 2012 and previously designed the aliens for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

The model was used in the film's famous closet scene. (Credit: Sotheby's)

Rambaldi was tapped to design the animatronics for E.T., supposedly basing the eyes off photos of Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway and Carl Sandburg, per director Steven Spielberg’s instructions.

Sotheby’s says “In the end, the look of E.T. eyes came not from Einstein or Hemingway, but from the Rambaldi family’s Himalayan cat.”

Rambaldi was given his third Academy Award in Visual Effects for his work on the film in 1983.

One of the main ground rules guiding the creation of E.T. according to Sotheby’s was that “E.T. is not a monster.”

Another inspiration for Rambaldi came from his own abstract painting, called “Women of the Delta,” which helped shape E.T.’s neck.

Rambaldi produced four full-scale working models of the iconic character, each built under a heavy veil of secrecy. When the animatronic figure was finished, it could make 86 different movements.

“About 30% of what I do now is artistic,” Rambaldi told the Los Angeles Times in 1982. “The [rest] is purely technical.”

One of the other original models of E.T. sold for $2.56 million in 2022.

Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.

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