Meet the Irish auctioneer to the stars
WHEN he landed in New York in 1989, Athlone-born Martin Nolan took the first job he could find — just two days off his flight and he was employed as a bell man at the Hilton Hotel. During his two years there he would meet and greet a roll call of celebrities — Stallone, Thatcher, Oprah Winfrey. You name them, he met them.
“They were all very nice,” he recalls. “You know, people are people, it’s all about how you react around them. I was just myself.”
He had no idea it would turn out to be the perfect training ground for the most unexpected career that lay ahead of him.
Two decades later, Nolan would spend nine months at Neverland, cataloguing the contents of Michael Jackson’s home for one of the most anticipated celebrity sales of all time. He had already done the same for Streisand, Cher, U2 and the estates of icons from Marilyn Monroe to Audrey Hepburn.
From a bell boy at the Hilton, Nolan had gone on become Executive Director of Julien’s Auctions, the auction house to the stars. “We are,” he says, “the go-to guys for celebrities.”
It was a far cry from the civil service job he signed up for in Teagasc at just 18.
“People couldn’t believe I was leaving a pensionable job,” he says of his decision to take up the American visa lottery offer. He came from family of seven, the middle child of siblings that chose safe, secure options in nursing and the Gardaí. “My mum was great, her attitude was ‘I gave you your wings’,” he recalls.
After two years at the Hilton, and in his late 20s, he knew it was time to forge a career in America. It was New York in the early ’90s. So he trained as a stockbroker. His career was on the up, working for JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch. And then he met Darren Julien.
With a background in classic cars, Julien had a contacts book full of celebrities. And after a stint at Sotheby’s, he went out on his own.
He created Julien’s Auctions, an auction house for the stars. The company was only a year old when Martin met Darren.
“I was trying to sign him up with Merrill Lynch,” Nolan recalls, laughing. Instead, he ended up quitting his job to join forces with Julien. He would be the money man.
For the second time in his life, his career change was greeted with disbelief, his employers in shock that he would leave to join a small start up company.
But Nolan couldn’t ignore his gut feeling — this company would be a success. Already Julien had overseen an auction for Barbra Streisand. One of the biggest names in the business, this was their calling card. And next on the agenda was the second auction of Marilyn Monroe’s estate — the first, in 1999, had raised $13m.
The company went from strength to strength, going head to head with the long-established Christie’s and Sotheby’s, by providing a very personal service for their celebrity clients, and holding the auctions in LA, where the stars wanted them.
Their one or two auctions a year now stand at eight to 10, a decade later. Business is booming, as investors realise the return they can make on celebrity memorabilia.
“I didn’t know people were so fanatical about it, everything from the touch to the smell. I still don’t get it,” he admits.
“It’s the story I love. We are preserving pop culture, and we create amazing catalogues. There are photos of celebrities wearing the costumes and it brings it to life, tells the story.
“There’s a global obsession now with celebrity with social media. They feel they know celebs because of instagram. If people can’t meet them, they buy a piece of them.”
Private collectors buy the pieces, as do museums and the likes of the Hard Rock Café and Planet Hollywood. Business is particularly strong in Asia, a destination Julien’s will usually visit during their memorabilia pre-auction world tours. Ireland’s Museum of Style Icons at Newbridge is also a regular base, a natural choice with the Irish connection.
“It’s so great to bring it to the public,” says Nolan.
Dorothy’s dress and the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, for example, toured the world, including Newbridge last year before they were sold.
“In 1981 this lovely guy from Jersey bought the Dorothy dress for €2,100 for his wife. He never bought anything before or since. They hung it on their wall, it was well preserved, with no direct light. In 2012, with two daughters and three granddaughters who all loved that one dress — they decided to sell.
“Well, I’m telling you, we carried the dress like it was a body. They walked behind us crying holding hands they were so attached to it.
“It sold for $480,000.”
And the best sale of his career? Michael Jackson’s Thriller coat which sold for $1.8m to a gold commodity trader. Again it’s the stories behind the sales that enthral.
“He goes around to kids’ hospitals, plays the Thriller video and shows them the jacket. It’s incredible,” says Nolan.
In 2008 they received a call from Michael Jackson’s management that left even Nolan and Julien — two men usually unfazed by the celebrity circuit — just the slightest bit starstruck. Jackson wanted to sell off the contents of Neverland — and he wanted Julien’s Auctions to do it. For nine months, from August 2008, they spent their days at Neverland with a team of 30 people. They had full access to his home, from his dressing room to his children’s bedrooms. Jackson’s people would go ahead and determine the pieces that were off limits. Everything else was there for the taking. It was a massive operation.
And on top of that, their plan was to transform an empty department store in Beverly Hills into a mini Neverland for display to the public before the auction.
“Neverland is 36 acres,” says Nolan. “I wore a pair of shoes out just walking around. Michael didn’t understand figures in a bank. Success to him was a warehouse full of ostentatious stuff.
“You’d open up a door and there’d be three Rolls Royces, and then you’d open up another door and it would be, oh there’s another one. He would have 40 variations of a bike.
“There was a Neverland train station with candy floss, ice cream and cappuccino stands. His theatre sat 65 people and when he came to watch a movie the poster outside had to be changed.
“There were wax figures scattered around — chefs, waiters, little ladies drinking tea. It was such a big place, you know.”
I ask if Michael had a family room, a place he could relax and maybe just watch some TV with his kids. “That would be the living room,” Nolan says. “But there was a castle in the middle of it, modelled after a castle in France.”
At Neverland it was Christmas every day. “He was brought up a Jehovah Witness,” says Nolan. “So he had permanent Christmas decorations. There was one room full, and I mean full, of wrapped Christmas gifts.
“One day he told his manager to organise a big barbecue for us all and we were all told to go up and take two presents. We had all these guys coming down with TVs and tricycles.”
Two weeks before the sale was due to take place, while some items were on tour and as Michael announced his O2 comeback, the auction was suddenly pulled. Nolan was at Newbridge, and at the press photocall, when he got word that Jackson’s manager had gone to court and stated that Julien’s had stolen the property. They were up all night working with their legal team in LA.
“They had to bring our contract to court — when we got back the judge said ‘these guys are doing what they were hired to do’.” Nolan says he could hear Michael on the phone to his father Joe Jackson screaming — he just wanted to write a cheque and make it all go away. “His attorney called ours. We explained if he doesn’t want it, then we don’t. We just wanted our costs covered — we had spent nine months on this, and put more into the Beverly Hills exhibit.” A deal was struck, they parted on good teams and Michael agreed to go ahead with the public exhibition, knowing so many fans were planning to visit.
Eight weeks later, Jackson was dead. It had a big impact on Nolan. “I had been in every part of his house — his kids’ rooms, everywhere. Thank god he died with his collection around him. You know, he loved Ireland, and I know from people close to him that if he had a say, he would have wanted to be buried here. He was left alone here, he could get on with life. He was a such a timid guy whenever I spoke to him on the phone.”
Nolan was in Ireland this week at the Newbridge Museum of Style Icons to tour Madonna dresses ahead of their November auction. From the Material Girl gown to Evita costumes, the iconic pink satin number is estimated at $20,000-$40,000 — but could make $80,000 — $100,000.
His base is New York and LA — but home is still very much Ireland. Family is key to Nolan, he always visits his mum and nieces and nephews when he’s back. The Irish accent is still there, and you couldn’t meet a more down to earth, natural guy. He’s visibly chuffed, for example, as he tells me he’s been on the Late Late Show three times. This from the man who hangs out with Hollywood’s A list.
Meanwhile, Larry Hagman and Linda Gray stayed at his mum’s place where Sue Ellen got a lesson in making Irish brown bread. “Dallas and the Late Late Show — we grew up with them,” he laughs.
But he’s never been starstruck. “You know, I’ll be in kitchen with Cher making a salad. We don’t fawn, we don’t ooh and aah, but we respect what these people have achieved.”
We talk of Lauren Bacall. It’s sad, he says. She was the last of the 16 stars mentioned in Madonna’s Vogue. “But I bet if you went up to the Museum of Style Icons, almost every one of them would be represented up there,” he says, praising Newbridge CEO William Doyle’s collection of celebrity dresses.
And you realise what he says is true — people like Martin Nolan and William Doyle are keeping a little piece of history alive for us all.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
