Hollywood model maker's creations up for auction

DALLAS

From an early model of the iconic alien mothership from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to a complete Stormtrooper costume from “Star Wars,” bidding opens on Sept. 8 on thousands of pieces Hollywood model maker Greg Jein collected over his lifetime, including many he created during his nearly half-century career.

The collection amassed by Jein, who died last year at age 76, will be offered up by Heritage Auctions next month in Dallas. Jein, who had an Oscar and Emmy nominated career making miniature models, was also a collector of costumes, props, scripts, artwork, photographs and models from the shows he loved.

“He spent his entire lifetime in a movie industry at a time when practical effects and models were the way that magic happened," said Joshua Benesh, Heritage’s chief strategy officer. “They were the way that spaceships traveled through outer space. They were the way that aliens came and visited Earth. They were the way that catastrophes and disasters were depicted.”

Jein, who grew up in Los Angeles, began his career in the mid-1970s, and over the decades worked on movies including “The Dark Knight Rises,” “The Hunt for Red October” and “Avatar.” A fan of “Star Trek” from the start, he later worked on pieces for the franchise.

Jein was still early in his career when he led the team that created the mothership for Steven Spielberg's 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The model that appears in the movie — just over 5 feet long but appearing gigantic — is now part of the collection at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. But a small preliminary model, which is about 5 inches (12 centimeters) long, is among Jein's creations that will be offered at the auction.

“It is equal parts incredibly intricate and just sort of incredibly simple,” Benesh said. “It has this sort of whacked together informal quality to it but you see it and you know exactly what it is.”

Other creations from Jein's career going up for auction include a miniature wrecked spaceship from the 1997 film “Starship Troopers" and a miniature shack, airplanes and newspapers from Spielberg’s 1979 war comedy “1941.”

Also being offered up are a dizzying number of items Jein collected from the 1960s “Batman” television show and the “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” franchises. The “Batman" memorabilia includes Batarangs, utility belts and a Bat radio. There are phasers, communicators and tricorders from “Star Trek: The Original Series” from the 1960s, in addition to many costumes, including the formal dress tunic William Shatner wore as “Captain Kirk.”