Harrison Ford's script for the original Star Wars sells at auction

Harrison Ford's personal copy of the script for Star Wars was recently auctioned off, fetching a price of over $13,000. But how exactly did such a unique Star Wars item come up for sale?

It turns out that while Ford was shooting the original Star Wars movie in 1976, he rented a house to stay in the Notting Hill suburb of London. And when he left after the movie was completed, he may have left his script behind. 

The script that went up for auction is not technically complete. Pages 49-54 are missing as well as page 57. The script also doesn't contain any pages after 88. Still, it provides a fascinating look at the process that Star Wars went through as it was being made.

It's also worth noting that this script is the fourth draft of the script, which is noted in the corner of the title page and dated March 15th, 1976. We know there were five different script drafts, but Ford had a copy of the next-to-last draft rather than the final one. It's also worth noting that the script still bears the movie's original, very long title, The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as Taken From the "Journal of the Whills" Saga I: The Star Wars. The available script pages also contain some scenes and characters that were cut from the final movie. Another interesting note is that while most of the script is printed on white paper, some of the pages are printed on blue and pink paper. These different colored pieces of paper would note where the changes in each revision were made. 

It's incredible to realize that the owner of the house, who was the person selling the item, had held on to the script for all these years. After all, when Ford left back in 1976, well before anybody had any idea that Star Wars was going to be one of the biggest franchises of all time. The owner could have easily thrown out the script, thinking it was nothing more than a pile of papers that his tenant didn't take with him when he moved out. According to the person selling the script, whose name has not been revealed, neither she nor her husband knew who Harison Ford was when he came to live in their flat for the summer, though the cleaner did recognize him as a star. They also stated that both Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher visited Ford throughout the summer, though at the time, neither she nor her husband knew who they were either. 

The script sold for 8,500 pounds which is roughly $13,600. Other items sold in the same auction include a letter to Harrison Ford, possibly from his agent at the time, and another collection of papers that included two shooting schedules and a call sheet for the movie. Like the script, these were apparently left behind by Ford as well once he had finished working on the movie. The shooting schedules provide additional interesting behind-the-scenes information about the production of the movie, letting us get a glimpse at exactly what parts of the movie were filmed on which dates and who was involved with the creation of specific scenes. These items have all sold, but the script still fetched the highest price.