When Derek East retired from teaching mathematics in Basingstoke, the brightly coloured world of hyperbole and dramatic cinematic tag lines took over from his old school life. By the time of his death in 2011 at the age of 72, he had amassed an astonishingly comprehensive collection of vintage film posters.
Now that collection, featuring some of the world’s best-loved stars, including Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery and Harrison Ford, in films such as Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, will go under the hammer at a Surrey auction house on Thursday.
East had been a film fan while growing up in the small town of Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, often seeing six different releases a week in the local cinema. During his life as a schoolteacher he carried on the hobby, sharing the enthusiasm with his partner Pat, until her early death. At that point, in grief, East immersed himself in the world of film memorabilia professionally and set himself up in the collecting and dealing business, recruiting his brother, Alex, to help him run a series of small stalls.
He collected a vast range of posters, portraits, stills, magazines and books, and from the early 1990s ran a Saturday stall at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. From there he moved to a grander plot at Westminster Central Hall, attracting clients from Europe.
“This is a truly eclectic collection that has mass appeal because of the extensive crossover interest,” said Alastair McCrea, a specialist valuer at Ewbank’s.
Highlights of the sale include a large scale poster for Thunderball, the 1965 James Bond film starring Connery, with a guide price of between £1,500 and £2,500. A poster for the classic film noir 1971 British gangster film Get Carter, starring Michael Caine, is expected to fetch a similar amount.
Other highlights include posters for sci-fi films such as Warlords of Atlantis and At The Earth’s Core, the 1960s classics Easy Rider and How To Steal a Million, starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. Horror fans will be bidding for The Exorcist and The Shining, or posters for Christopher Lee in Dracula.