, Joe Maddalena must solve riddles, navigate through tricky situations and use his charm to discover treasures and save the day.The main difference is that instead of battling booby traps and Nazis, he must negotiate with owners and convince them to hand over their own idols – not ancient archaeological artifacts but rare movie memorabilia.
The son of antique dealers, Maddalena is the founder of Profiles in History, an auction house he began in 1985 to sell historic documents, including baseball cards, comic books, and novels from great American writers like William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Over time, Profiles began to deal with prop and items from the movies, such as current sellers like the hover board from Back to the Future II
, an original golden ticket from Willy Wonka
& The Chocolate Factory and Brand Routh’s Superman suit from Superman Returns
.Most recently, Maddalena gained headlines for his Lost
auction that pulled in more than $1.8 for items like the Dharma VW van (for $47,500) and 12 cans of Dharma beer ($5,000). But the auctioneer and movie buff is about to get headlines again with his new Syfy show Hollywood Treasure, which premieres tonight with two back-to-back half-hour episodes, and airs Weds. at 10 p.m., ET.On the show, Maddalena and his team travel to various destinations to track down leads and find highly collectible Hollywood memorabilia for fan auctions. Over the course of the 12-episode series, Joe pursues the carpet bag used on camera in Mary Poppins
, the hat worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz
, the genie bottle Barbara Eden lived in on I Dream of Jeannie
, miniature biplanes King Kong
swatted at in 1931 and many more legendary items.We spoke with Maddalena to discuss Hollywood Treasure and his life on the auction block. Additionally, we’ve included video from the Hollywood Treasure panel at the Syfy Digital Media Press Tour in Orlando, Fla. earlier this month.