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This is Part 3 of a 5 Part Series. If you missed the previous parts, click the links below to catch up!
NOSTROMO: A LEGEND BORN AND BORN AGAIN: Part 1
NOSTROMO: A LEGEND BORN AND BORN AGAIN: Part 2
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The “basement” of Los Angeles resident Bob Burns has become a famous Mecca to sci-fi and horror fans everywhere. In truth, it’s really more a first floor edition as few Los Angeles residents have honest-to-goodness, dug-into-the-earth basements. But Bob’s private collection is an altar to all that is holy in genre filmmaking. His connection to sci-fi and horror stretches back to the campy heyday of the 1950s and 1960s when he worked as a producer of film and television and also as the host of a popular children’s TV program. During this time, he met and mentored many young geeky hopefuls who would eventually become visual effects wizards themselves. Burns was a collector for most of his life, so when his former protégés began making the models, props, and costumes that would be immortalized on film, his private museum saw a marked increase in donations.
The Burns collection was further bolstered by the popular Halloween show that he ran every October. Just as Burns isn’t your typical collector, he did not put on a typical Halloween show. He put on full-scale haunted houses that would see neighbors, travelers, and even industry folks lining up for blocks just to be a part of the realistic experiences Burns and his effects crew would conjure. After ALIEN was released in 1979, Burns didn’t even have to think about the theme of that year’s show. It was going to be ALIEN. What began as an innocent call to 20th Century Fox simply looking for permission to put on the show created, well, a monster. In fact, the response Burns received still floors him.
Fox not only gave Burns permission. They gave him props.
The Nostromo sits in Burns' yard circa 1979.
With authentic creatures, set pieces, costumes, and props from the hit movie, the Halloween show was a runaway hit. So pleased was 20th Century Fox with Burns’s sci-fi-horror spectacular that they ended up donating many of the ALIEN props, models, and costumes that had been shipped in from England’s Shepperton Studios to Burns’s private museum.
It was here that the Nostromo would make its next stop. Burns knew that if he did not agree to take the massive filming miniature into his museum—where it could be visited and enjoyed for years to come—it would likely be abandoned or destroyed. Burns, ever the film historian, simply would not have that. The problem was, even if his generously-proportioned basement existed yet (it didn’t), it wouldn’t be big enough to house the space-hogging space tug.
And so, the Nostromo was delivered to Burns where it was lowered into his driveway… by crane.
Visitors came and went and saw and enjoyed the Notsromo where it rested, right there in Burns’s driveway. But there was really no other place for it to go. So that’s where the Nostromo would live on for nearly two decades, cared for the best way Burns could manage with the resources he had available—protected from the elements with a series of waterproof tarps.
Unfortunately, even with the best shelter Bob could provide, time still would not be kind to the Nostromo. Between drenching Southern Californian rainy seasons and wood-and-plastic-splitting heat of the summers that would follow, the miniature was tortured by nature for some twenty years. Although some have questioned the propriety of the Nostromo’s living quarters during its time in Burns’s collection, it is very clear to one who reviews the history that, had it not been for the generous donation of his driveway, the Nostromo would not have survived at all. It was not the ideal storage facility, but Burns’ driveway was a better place for the Nostromo than an industrial dumpster at 20th Century Fox.
Nostromo circa 2007.
Nostromo circa 2007.
Join us for part four of this in-depth biography of the Nostromo when the rescue ship PROP STORE OF LONDON arrives in orbit over LV-426, er, Bob Burns’ driveway.
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Check out our next installment of this 5 part series!
NOSTROMO: A LEGEND BORN AND BORN AGAIN: Part 4
NOSTROMO: A LEGEND BORN AND BORN AGAIN: Part 1
NOSTROMO: A LEGEND BORN AND BORN AGAIN: Part 2
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The “basement” of Los Angeles resident Bob Burns has become a famous Mecca to sci-fi and horror fans everywhere. In truth, it’s really more a first floor edition as few Los Angeles residents have honest-to-goodness, dug-into-the-earth basements. But Bob’s private collection is an altar to all that is holy in genre filmmaking. His connection to sci-fi and horror stretches back to the campy heyday of the 1950s and 1960s when he worked as a producer of film and television and also as the host of a popular children’s TV program. During this time, he met and mentored many young geeky hopefuls who would eventually become visual effects wizards themselves. Burns was a collector for most of his life, so when his former protégés began making the models, props, and costumes that would be immortalized on film, his private museum saw a marked increase in donations.
The Burns collection was further bolstered by the popular Halloween show that he ran every October. Just as Burns isn’t your typical collector, he did not put on a typical Halloween show. He put on full-scale haunted houses that would see neighbors, travelers, and even industry folks lining up for blocks just to be a part of the realistic experiences Burns and his effects crew would conjure. After ALIEN was released in 1979, Burns didn’t even have to think about the theme of that year’s show. It was going to be ALIEN. What began as an innocent call to 20th Century Fox simply looking for permission to put on the show created, well, a monster. In fact, the response Burns received still floors him.
Fox not only gave Burns permission. They gave him props.
The Nostromo sits in Burns' yard circa 1979.
With authentic creatures, set pieces, costumes, and props from the hit movie, the Halloween show was a runaway hit. So pleased was 20th Century Fox with Burns’s sci-fi-horror spectacular that they ended up donating many of the ALIEN props, models, and costumes that had been shipped in from England’s Shepperton Studios to Burns’s private museum.
It was here that the Nostromo would make its next stop. Burns knew that if he did not agree to take the massive filming miniature into his museum—where it could be visited and enjoyed for years to come—it would likely be abandoned or destroyed. Burns, ever the film historian, simply would not have that. The problem was, even if his generously-proportioned basement existed yet (it didn’t), it wouldn’t be big enough to house the space-hogging space tug.
And so, the Nostromo was delivered to Burns where it was lowered into his driveway… by crane.
Visitors came and went and saw and enjoyed the Notsromo where it rested, right there in Burns’s driveway. But there was really no other place for it to go. So that’s where the Nostromo would live on for nearly two decades, cared for the best way Burns could manage with the resources he had available—protected from the elements with a series of waterproof tarps.
Unfortunately, even with the best shelter Bob could provide, time still would not be kind to the Nostromo. Between drenching Southern Californian rainy seasons and wood-and-plastic-splitting heat of the summers that would follow, the miniature was tortured by nature for some twenty years. Although some have questioned the propriety of the Nostromo’s living quarters during its time in Burns’s collection, it is very clear to one who reviews the history that, had it not been for the generous donation of his driveway, the Nostromo would not have survived at all. It was not the ideal storage facility, but Burns’ driveway was a better place for the Nostromo than an industrial dumpster at 20th Century Fox.
Nostromo circa 2007.
In the late 1990s, Burns knew that the Nostromo was in rough shape. He sent up the bat-signal (no, that particular prop is not in his basement) and called in a favor from one of his many close relationships in the visual effects industry: Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger of KNB Effects. Not wishing to see such a beloved piece of movie history endure any more torture at the hands of the San Fernando Valley, Nicotero and Berger happily took the Nostromo in like some kind of sci-fi foster child. KNB had full intent to rehabilitate and restore the ravaged miniature themselves, but real movies and production gigs kept preventing them from completing their passion project. So there the Nostromo sat for nearly eight years, hurting but now dry and cool, tucked away in a storage locker.
The hope for a rescue of the marooned spacecraft via a complete restoration thrived as a persistent tease, but it was not a reality.
At least not yet.
The hope for a rescue of the marooned spacecraft via a complete restoration thrived as a persistent tease, but it was not a reality.
At least not yet.
Nostromo circa 2007.
I hate to bring this up but, uh, this a commercial ship, not a rescue ship...
Join us for part four of this in-depth biography of the Nostromo when the rescue ship PROP STORE OF LONDON arrives in orbit over LV-426, er, Bob Burns’ driveway.
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Check out our next installment of this 5 part series!
NOSTROMO: A LEGEND BORN AND BORN AGAIN: Part 4
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