Famous Jewelry In The Movies, Vol 2: Pretty Woman

Famous Jewelry In The Movies, Vol 2: Pretty Woman

Unless you were under a rock in the 90’s, you saw it. In the theater. Replayed on TBS or another cable channel. Via your own VHS copy…. Pretty Woman. Some of us saw it more than once. Ok, maybe 22 times and counting. And we own the VHS and DVD versions. And we can recite the whole movie word for word and lines from the movie actually make their way into our everyday conversation. I mean, I’ve read about people like that.

The Famous Ruby and Diamond Necklace

Moving on . . . . We all know the story line, but for the two people on the planet that don’t – A down on her luck gal (Julia Roberts), who’s made some bad life decisions, runs into a hunky multi-millionaire businessman (Richard Gere) trying (and failing miserably) to drive a borrowed six speed Lotus Esprit SE (a super fancy sports car). She helps him get to his destination and he asks her to keep him company, as he conveniently just broke up with his girlfriend that evening. He likes her and so he asks her the next day to stick around for the week. He’ll happily compensate her for her time. But she needs some different clothes. People at the stores are mean to her. He and a forgiving and benevolent hotel manager save the day. The hunky millionaire buys her pretty clothes so they can go out in the evenings and one night he flies her in his private jet up to San Francisco (the story is taking place in LA), to see the opera. The day of, he’s worked at the office all day, and gets to his hotel to meet her there, finding her in the bar, a transformed woman. He notes that she’s stunning. She chides him (with a twinkle in her eye) that he’s late. But he makes up for it because he pulls out a box. One of those, “this is going to be something amazing” kind of boxes. It’s a necklace and earrings. But not just any necklace and earring set. A necklace/movie prop valued at $1.35 million, with 23 rubies cut into the shape of pears, nesting in the middle of heart-shaped diamonds.

Jewelry Trivia You Didn’t Know

But there was a bit of a prank as the necklace was being revealed. It turns out, however, that the prank was actually on us! Gary Marshall, the director of the film, revealed years later in interviews that he asked Richard Gere to play a bit of a prank on the very young 23-year-old Julia Roberts. Apparently, she would show up on set a bit tired in the mornings, having been rumored to have been out partying many of the nights before. “I said, ‘Richard, you gotta wake her up a little, so when she reaches for the box, slam it.’ It was a soft box. I would never hurt her,” Marshall has been quoted as saying. Originally, they thought they would include the clip in the end-of-movie gag real, but while editing the film, Gary liked it so much, they left it in.

And that necklace? It was in fact real. And apparently while filming, an armed security guard, hired by the jewelry store that provided the necklace for the film, was constantly standing behind the director.

Now….. we’re off to go watch the movie for the 23^rd time. We mean, clean the bathroom. Yup. That’s what we’re going to go do. And for you two folks who don’t know the ending, that’s why God invented Netflix.