Hollywood has always understood that history lives in objects. A signed contract, a worn jacket, a reel of film left in a vault for nearly a century — these are not merely collectibles. They are evidence. Julien's Auctions' Hollywood Legends: Classic Hollywood sale in partnership with Turner Classic Movies brings together an extraordinary assembly of artifacts connected to some of cinema's most enduring male icons, from newly surfaced film history to intimate personal correspondence that reads like a window into another world.

John Wayne's Lost Screen Test

Perhaps the most historically significant discovery in the sale is a group of three original 35mm nitrate film reels from 1929 that rewrite what we know about the earliest documented footage of John Wayne. Two of the reels feature a rare screen test of the actor then known as Duke Morrison alongside Ward Bond, believed to have been shot by Russell Birdwell in connection with Rough Romance (Fox, 1930), a film in which Wayne would appear in an uncredited role. A third reel captures a separate screen test featuring Charles Morton and Ward Bond.

Before this discovery, Wayne's first Hollywood test footage — long considered lost — was presumed to have originated with The Big Trail (Fox, 1930), his first starring role. These reels predate that footage by several months, making this one of the most significant Wayne discoveries in decades. The nitrate film is remarkably well-preserved, the images exceptionally sharp — in the footage, a 22-year-old Wayne already wears the cowboy hat, neckerchief, and western bib-front shirt that would define his persona for the next half-century.

James Dean: The Contract, The Poster, The Final Chapter

Two consecutive lots offer a rare dual portrait of James Dean at the threshold of his last and perhaps greatest performance. The signed Giant contract is a typed Warner Bros. document dated April 2, 1955, in which Dean formally commits to portraying Jett Rink in George Stevens's epic. The contract extends the terms of his earlier Rebel Without a Cause agreement, securing Dean at $1,500 per week for a minimum of ten weeks. It is signed in blue ballpoint pen by Dean himself, and countersigned by Warner Bros. assistant secretary R.J. Obringer. Accompanying paperwork includes a memo from Obringer to Dean's representative at Famous Artists Corp. — small bureaucratic machinery that, in retrospect, marks one of the last formal transactions of a career that would end with Dean's death in a car accident days after filming wrapped.

Lot #168 completes the picture: a large-format Giant (Warner Bros., R-1970) movie poster, 40 x 60 inches, from the film that would earn Dean his second posthumous Academy Award nomination, one of nine nominations the film received in total. Giant was later selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2005.

Errol Flynn: Signed Portrait

A more intimate artifact comes by way of a signed headshot of Errol Flynn, one of the most charismatic presences of Hollywood's Golden Age. An offset lithograph made from a hand-painted photograph, the portrait shows Flynn leaning forward with a slight smile, wearing a smoking jacket and holding a pipe. Flynn signed the print in pencil on the lower right. Labels on the original photograph identify him and carry the Warner Bros. Pictures imprint — a quiet reminder that even this casual portrait existed within the studio machinery that shaped his image.

Jack Nicholson: From the Lawrence Grobel Collection

Lot #269 continues the sale's connection to journalist Lawrence Grobel's personal collection, which also includes Godfather memorabilia elsewhere in the auction. Here, a first edition paperback novelization of The Missouri Breaks (Ballantine Books, 1976) — the Arthur Penn Western starring Nicholson and Marlon Brando — carries Nicholson's signature on the title page. The cover's tagline, "The greatest motion picture ever to come out of the Old West," has the swagger of another era entirely.

Frank Sinatra: More Than 30 Lots from a Life Fully Lived

No collection assembled under the banner of classic Hollywood leading men would be complete without Frank Sinatra, and the sale reflects that with more than 30 lots spanning the full arc of his remarkable life and career. Among the most arresting is a 1980s address book — an intimate artifact that offers a glimpse into Sinatra's private world — alongside a custom-made 1969 tuxedo shirt and a 1977 jacket worn during the television special Sinatra and Friends. A 1970s parking sign — the kind that once reserved space at a Sinatra property — has already generated considerable bidding interest, as has a circa-1930s alms box that traces back to the earliest chapter of his story. Personal effects from his private jet, medallions from his residences at Caesars Palace, and an array of ephemera from his later decades round out a collection that captures the man as much as the myth.

Stan Laurel: Five Years of Letters

Rounding out the sale's portrait of Hollywood's great men is one of its most quietly astonishing offerings: an extraordinary collection of approximately 150 pieces of correspondence from Stan Laurel to a young Montreal fan named George McRae, written between 1955 and 1960. Rendered in fountain pen on personalized notepaper from Laurel's Santa Monica and Malibu residences, the letters are newsy, affectionate, and disarmingly candid. Laurel muses on the declining health of Oliver Hardy, gently discourages McRae from starting a Laurel and Hardy fan club, and offers his Golden Rule philosophy of life with the ease of a man at peace with himself. Scattered throughout are references to Steve Allen, Charlie Chaplin, Jerry Lewis, and others — a casual name-dropping that reflects how fully Laurel was embedded in the culture of his time. The collection was consigned directly by the McRae family.

Click to view Laurel and Hardy lots up for auction in Hollywood Legends

Together, these lots form something larger than a sale — they are a curated argument for the permanence of a certain kind of Hollywood stardom, and for the objects that carry it forward.

What unites this collection — a nitrate film reel, a signed contract, a parking sign, 150 handwritten letters — is not simply the names attached to them, but the texture of real lives lived at the center of American culture. These men shaped what the world understood a movie star to be, and the objects they left behind carry that weight quietly, waiting for the right hands. Julien's Hollywood Legends: Classic Hollywood auction is open for bidding now at juliensauctions.com. For collectors who have spent a lifetime watching these legends on screen, this is a rare opportunity to hold a piece of the story.