The item was sold as part of a two-day mega-sale put on by Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies that included over 1,300 props ranging from Robert DeNiro’s “Raging Bull” boxing gloves to Chris Hemsworth’s “Thor” hammer.

But the highest-ticket item was the extra-friendly extra-terrestrial, whose glowing finger and childlike innocence melted hearts in 1982, before the age of ubiquitous computer-generated imagery.

With 85 mechanical joints, nearly everything moves on the E.T. model, from the eyes and neck to – of course – that pointy finger that was held aloft as the alien informed his new friend Elliott that he wanted to “phone home”.

A maquette of ET also sold for US$125,000, while one of the bicycles used in the film’s climatic getaway scene went for US$115,000.

Other movie memorabilia sold at the Beverly Hills auction included the staff used by Charlton Heston to part the Red Sea in “The Ten Commandments” – which went for US$448,000 – and Daniel Radcliffe’s Nimbus 2000 broomstick from the “Harry Potter” series, which fetched US$128,000.