Attic to the Stars : Decades Worth of Costumes and Props Patiently Await Their Next Turn Before the Camera

At first glance, Roger Shook looks to be the owner of an enormous secondhand store. “Las Vegas lounge chairs? We’ve got dozens,” he says, broadly gesturing in the direction of a seemingly endless row of furniture. “They’re right next to the round hotel-lobby sofa that looks like a giant orange-juice squeezer.”

A request for toasters is answered by a display of two dozen, ranging from something grandma might have used to futuristic models. Overhead, chandeliers hang lifeless, waiting to shine on the next make-believe dinner party. “And in this room,” he says proudly, as if introducing something new to the world, “we’ve got rings, silverware, jewelry . . . wait, here’s something, a Bon Ami cleanser can from the 1930s.”

What’s going on here? Why is there a futuristic ray gun lying next to a coonskin cap? And where did Shook get that green freeway sign that says, “Welcome to Cleveland”?

This is an unusual store--one not open to the public--where nothing can be bought, only rented or borrowed, and the merchandise is in great demand by all who enter. It is the prop department of Buena Vista Studios in Burbank, home of Walt Disney Productions. Most everything--except the freeway sign--is a leftover from a forgotten old production.

Hidden away in prop rooms, lofts and sound stages, here at Universal and the Burbank Studios, is an unseen collection of San Fernando Valley history. Most of it is just “stuff,” the tools of an unusual trade--called set dressing--used to create reality for a movie camera.

Most of the pieces, stacked from floor to ceiling, are no more famous than many of the people who try to break into the movies. Tucked away here and there, amid the refrigerators and lounge chairs, are some real gems, most having escaped destruction not because of their history--many prop and wardrobe people are unaware of or unconcerned about the origin of their inventories--but because they are still useful.

Like the ray gun, used by James Mason, and the coonskin cap, worn by Fess Parker.

The ray gun, which upon close inspection is nothing but a crude assembly of various diameter pipes, washers and fittings glued to a roughly carved trigger, dates to 1954 and Disney’s first full-length non-animated feature, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” and was one of a dozen guns used by Captain Nemo’s underwater navy. And the coonskin cap? Years before John Wayne played Davy Crockett at the Alamo, Fess Parker was his TV version in 1955 and 1956.

There are about a dozen other pieces of historical significance in the prop department, which Shook says contains more than 2 million items. These include a pair of 25-year-old parrot-head umbrellas from “Mary Poppins”; two swords from the “Zorro” TV series, starring Guy Williams from 1957 to 1960; a specially made red plush Victorian sofa used in Captain Nemo’s submersible in “20,000 Leagues”; and a working flintlock rifle, used by Fess Parker’s Crockett.

Although Shook, who is manager of production facilities and the property department at Disney, is sure which production each piece came from, their history before Disney acquired them is murky.

The Zorro swords, he said, “could just be cheap swords. They don’t have to be like fine pieces of machinery. But the flintlock is. It’s an authentic piece bought back in the ‘50s. Who knows where they got it.”

At Universal Studios, the prop department’s Burt Cohen, 56, has a similar set-dressing inventory of more than 1 million items. Universal doesn’t have dozens of Las Vegas lounge chairs, but it does have rows of pink-colored ‘50s hair dryers used in “Grease” in 1978.

There are also a few pieces of genuine pre-Columbian art, some knickknacks from Charlie Chan movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s, a pair of antique vases valued at $30,000 and a pair of live parakeets, held for whenever Angela Lansbury is shooting “Murder, She Wrote.” “She’s crazy about those birds,” Cohen said, “so we keep them when they don’t need ‘em.” Various busts are scattered about, including one of Einstein which is keeping company with Bill Cosby on the movie set of “Ghostdad.”

Nudging past a full-size grand piano, made entirely of balsa so one person could seem to show incredible strength (for a movie no one at Universal could recall), and a stuffed dummy of Bigfoot used in “Harry and the Hendersons,” Cohen surveys his acres of props.

“It’s almost all furniture of one form or another,” he said. This includes the chair in which Mother Bates rocked back and forth in 1960 for “Psycho,” as well as the specially made butcher knife son Norman was so adept at using. On the blade, hidden from the camera, was a copper tube that was connected to a rubber bulb on the handle. When Tony Perkins went slashing, he squeezed the bulb and “blood” spurted out.

Also in the back lot is “The War Wagon,” the principal prop in a 1967 John Wayne Western of the same name: an armored, windowless stagecoach designed to haul gold bullion. Now horseless, with its top gun turret gone and the plywood that stood in for steel aging poorly in the sun, “The War Wagon” sits placidly by the side of one of the tram-tour roads, hardly receiving mention from tour guides.

Farther up the Universal hill, hidden in the dark interior of an adobe church in a Western town, is another almost-forgotten relic. Surrounded by countless cowboy props and buggy whips, covered with a heavy veneer of modern-day dust, is a Roman-era chariot just begging for a wash and wax and Kirk Douglas to hop on, grab the reins and lead the gladiators to victory in 1960s “Spartacus.”

At the Burbank Studios, Bill McLaughlin, 51, has the chandeliers from Rick’s Cafe Americain in “Casablanca,” the 1942 classic, and a throne chair and painting of Errol Flynn from “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,” released half a century ago.

“I’m not a curator,” said McLaughlin, who is the property department manager. “This is a working prop department. Most of the older props that are around and still functioning have been reworked, re-upholstered and repainted. They’re not in their original form. This stuff isn’t furniture; it’s working stock for the decorators.” Their collection of props numbers about 1.5 million pieces.

If what makes a piece of furniture or clothing valuable is who owned or wore it, the Burbank Studios has found a number of “classic” pieces in its wardrobe department. The department was described simply as “nine acres of clothes” by Jered Green, the acting department manager. The Burbank Studios has been the combined production facility of Columbia and Warner Bros. since 1972.

Much of the clothing for the ample Sidney Greenstreet--the heavy in “The Maltese Falcon,” “The Hucksters” with Clark Gable and Rick’s friend in “Casablanca”--is still around, said Green, 37, because Greenstreet’s size demanded tailor-made clothes.

More diminutive items in the collection include a couple of pairs of pants worn by James Dean in 1955, his Levi’s from “Rebel Without a Cause” and a pair of camel-colored slacks from “East of Eden.”

There’s an orange chiffon dress Shirley Jones wore in 1962’s “The Music Man,” and a velvet evening gown Elizabeth Taylor slinked around in has been preserved since “Giant” was released in 1956.

One of the more bizarre articles of clothing is a wedding gown covered with pumpkin seeds and a gold crown, worn in 1967 by Vanessa Redgrave in “Camelot.”

But props and wardrobes with a high historical value for film fans are usually mixed in with the run-of-the-mill items, and with every studio actively soliciting independent production rental of their inventories, many have fallen victim to breakage, auctions and, in some cases, theft.

And as the movie business has changed, so have the property and wardrobe departments. When the studio system was operating, little left the confines of the lot. With the rapid shift toward independent production, most studios are eager to rent their wares to qualified companies, with an average of 20% to 30% of their business coming from the outside. The weekly fee is a percentage of the item’s value.

Although Disney’s coonskin cap isn’t for rent, the Victorian sofa James Mason enjoyed in “20,000 Leagues” goes for about $200 a week. The “War Wagon” at Universal might run about $650 per week. The “Spartacus” chariot is a real steal at $250 a week.

“We try to save everything that’s good,” Shook said. “But people can misuse them, or something is accidentally dropped and broken beyond repair. Some have just rotted into disuse.” There are items, such as the historically valuable parrot-head umbrellas, that Shook says he will never rent out. Others, such as the “20,000 Leagues” ray guns and Davy Crockett’s coonskin cap, have been assigned to the archive department for safekeeping.

“Sometimes a big actor or actress says, ‘I really want this piece,’ ” Shook said. “Then the producer comes to us and says, ‘We really want to give this piece to him.’ A lot of the pieces are lost that way.”