Giant chicken leg stilts from Star Wars film plus showbiz family's Pelham puppets offered for sale by Derbyshire auction house

The stilts were used by English actor Peter Barbour who played The Stilt Monster in Star Wars IV A New Hope. They will be offered in Hansons Auctioneers’ Star Wars Auction on May 3 with a guide price of £1,000 to £1,200.

Peter’s daughter Dr Sue Barbour, who performed as a stilt-dancer with her father said: “Star Wars director George Lucas had a dream of a giant chicken. The next day when he went to Pinewood Studios he mentioned it to his cameraman who suggested the Barbours, as we had just finished filming Mr Quilp starring Anthony Newley with him.”

The Barbours are a renowned family of stilt-dancers and entertainers. The stilt-dancing act was set up in Blackpool in the 1940s by Peter, Roy and Geoffrey who were sons of Sheffield-born comedian Roy Barbour. Sue partnered her dad in the act when her mother, Jean, retired in 1977.

Sue said: “Peter and I were contacted by Leslie Collins, an agent, who asked us to go to Pinewood to meet George Lucas. When we arrived George took us round the prop rooms. This was before filming had started. He showed us all the amazing ideas he’d developed and asked my father if he thought a giant chicken could be done.

“Peter suggested he could use the stilts he’d made for another film, The Hellfire Club. We took the stilts to Pinewood and they created the giant chicken legs around them. They decided that only the legs would be visible.

“The ground of the film set was very uneven as they were going to Tunisia to film and wanted the studio street to look like a Tunisian street. On one take Peter tripped and fell on Sir Alec Guinness, who told him, ‘Don’t worry, dear boy!’

“The props department also made some short grey hippo-like legs for me but they were never used. Years later, when George Lucas brought his daughter to Walt Disney World, when Peter and I were working there, he told me he’d kept all the discarded footage as he might use it in one of the follow-up films. We had invitations to the Star Wars premiere at London’s Odeon in Leicester Square but I didn’t want to go as I didn’t like science fiction films. I sold my ticket.”

Also set for auction are Pelham Puppets used in the Barbours’ famous speciality act which saw them manipulated from their stilts. They will go under the hammer at Hansons on April 25. Sue said: “These oversized professional puppets were carved by Bob Pelham’s woodcarver, Gil Leeper. They range in height from 2ft-4ft. The marionettes were put on very long strings and operated from the stilts in full view of the audience. The act was immensely popular from the 1940s until 2001, when my dad had a stroke.

“He had been performing since the age of 14. His father paid an act called The Astairs to teach two of his sons staircase and stick dancing. They also learned to walk on stilts. Peter, not content to just ‘walk’ on stilts, decided to dance on stilts, originally putting taps onto the bottom of the size 2 children’s Oxford shoes which he put on the bottom of the stilts to make them more lifelike.

“The Barbours, who dressed immaculately in top hat and tails to perform, found dancing on stilts a tiring business, so Peter decided it would be a good idea to get some giant Pelham Puppets, like a clown he’d seen in Hamley’s toy shop in London.

“He contacted Bob Pelham, explaining that he and his two brothers were booked to appear at the Prince of Wales Theatre, in London, in ‘Paris to Piccadilly’ starring Norman Wisdom. Peter met up with Bob and they discussed suitable characters for the speciality act.

“The first three puppets bought were The Scotsman (Scottie), The Girl (Girlfriend) and The Spiv. More Pelham puppets followed including a Clown, a Dog called Mitsy, the Toreador and the Little White Bull and Indians (Native Americans), complete with papoose.”

Hansons said: “This is an amazing collection from an amazing showbusiness family. The Barbours carved a niche in Britain’s 20th century entertainment industry that will never be forgotten. They entertained people all over the world for more than 50 years.

“To give you some idea of their pedigree, the Barbour Brothers and Jean appeared on America’s famous Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. They also performed in the Latin Quarter Club in New York, toured Australia and Europe and entertained at the Royal Command Performance in April 1955.

“In the 1980s Sue and Peter performed in Barnum at the London Palladium and, later at the same venue, in Babes in the Woods with Cannon and Ball. They also entertained countless families at Walt Disney World in Florida from 1989-1997. The fact that they knew George Lucas says it all.

“When Sue joined the act in 1973, they added The Wombles to their act and those puppets, which are not Pelhams, are also set for auction.”

The Pelham puppets and Wombles puppets are guided at £500 each. Hansons Derbyshire saleroom is at Etwall, near Derby, where both the Star Wars giant chicken leg stilts and Pelham and Womble puppets will be auctioned.