Great Scot April 2019 Great Scot_156_April_2019_Online | Page 78

OSCA
GEOFF CLOSE
(’83) — A MAN
AND HIS MOVIE
MEMORABILIA
GEOFF CLOSE (‘83) IN THE SCOTCH LIBRARY WITH A DISPLAY OF HIS MOVIE MEMORABILIA.
As a very young boy, Geoff Close (‘83) had
been fascinated by Disney cartoons such as
Dumbo and Sleeping Beauty, but his passion
for movies and animation really took off when he
saw the first of the Star Wars films in 1977.
He fell head over heels in love with movies
and movie memorabilia, and he is still fascinated
by it all. As a teenager he would head to the
city to look in awe at Star Wars books and
magazines in bookshops such as Moviola,
Minotaur and Space Age Books. The first time
he walked into Moviola, he bought the first of
hundreds of posters he would acquire over the
years — and not surprisingly, it was a Star Wars
poster.
The years passed, and Geoff’s collection
of movie and movie-related memorabilia grew
— and grew — particularly of original animated
material created in the Disney, Warner Brothers
and Hanna Barbera studios. His collection of
more than 1500 VHS tapes (later converted to
DVDs), pre-recorded DVDs, Blu-rays, books,
toys and lobby cards also grew exponentially.
(Lobby cards are colour posters of scenes from
movies which are hung in cinema lobbies.) At
the height of his collection Geoff had more than
800 movie posters (all different) and 200 sets of
lobby cards.
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Great Scot Number 156 – April 2019
But it occupied a lot of space at his
Queenscliff home. By 2003, Geoff started to
reduce his holdings, selling some of it, donating
some to charity, and giving some to friends for
their children to enjoy. He kept his VHS and DVD
collection, but culled his posters, toys and lobby
cards extensively.
By 2009, Geoff had acquired some very
precious items, in particular lobby cards signed
by many of the animators of classic features
from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In 2012,
he decided to bequeath the special items in
his collection, along with many of his DVDs, to
Scotch so the boys of today could learn from
the original masters of animation. As well as his
bequest, Geoff made an immediate donation of
some of his collection to Scotch, and many of
these items — lobby cards, books and DVDs,
are now on display in the Senior School Library.
Geoff’s collecting days are not over, and
they probably never will be — movies and movie
memorabilia are in his blood. He continues to
collect items, especially movie posters created
by the Pixar Company (now a branch of Disney).
Geoff’s working life was in the transport
industry. He began in the Accounting
department of Victorian Railways in 1984,
while completing his Accounting degree part
time. Over the years he worked in a number
of accounting-related positions, and retired in
2006. He has always been interested in railways
and trains; his grandfather worked in the
railway workshops as an upholsterer on the old
leather-seated trains.
Geoff loves lawn bowls and has played
variously for the Old Scotch Bowls Club, the
Victorian Railways Institute Bowls Club, and
now the Queenscliff Bowls Club. He helps to
administer the Old Scotch Bowls Club web
pages and in the past helped to expand the
Old Scotch Film Society’s OSCAnet pages. He
enjoys Old Boy reunions.
Always conscious of what he can donate
to Scotch for posterity, Geoff has donated to
the Scotch Archives a collection of back copies
of the School publication, Satura, and Scotch
bulletins.
A self-published author of poems and
photos, Geoff has written a poem entitled
What Scotch Means to Me. He has produced a
series of 10 books, copies of which he has also
donated to the Archives.
DAVID ASHTON ('65)