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'Tiffany's' Hepburn dress sells for $807,000

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LONDON, England (AP) -- The black Givenchy gown worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" sold at auction Tuesday for $807,000.

The price, paid by a telephone bidder, was almost six times the highest pre-sale estimate.

The iconic garment had been expected to fetch between $98,000 and $138,000 as part of a sale of film and television memorabilia at Christie's auction house in London.

Proceeds from the sale will go to the charity City of Joy Aid, which helps India's poor.

Hepburn wore the dress for one of her best-known roles, as eccentric Manhattan socialite Holly Golightly in the 1961 film adaptation of Truman Capote's novel.

The opening scenes of the film show Golightly in the dress emerging from a taxi on 5th Avenue with her brown-bag breakfast to ogle diamonds and luxury goods in the storefront windows of Tiffany & Co.

Images of Hepburn dressed as Golightly -- with gloves, an elaborate pearl choker and trademark cigarette holder -- still endure.

In a different auction yesterday, in New York's Christie's location, some pieces of music memorabilia also went for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Paul McCartney's original handwritten working lyrics for the 1969 Beatles song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" went for $192,000 at Christie's sale of rock and pop memorabilia. The pre-sale estimate had been $200,000 to $300,000.

Jimi Hendrix's guitar, a 1968 Fender Stratocaster with a sunburst finish that was modified to accommodate his left-handed use, sold for a staggering $168,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of $80,000 to $120,000.

Jim Morrison's circa 1970 handwritten poem "The American Night" had an estimate of up to $12,000 but sold for $50,400.

All sale prices include a buyer's premium. The auction house didn't reveal the identities of the winning bidders.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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