March 23, 2000. Copyright 2000. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

THE CASE OF THE STOLEN OSCARS

by Julie Mullins

LONDON, March 23, Graphic News: ÒTHE SHOW will go on!Ó said Robert Rehme, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, when police opened a case of stolen Oscars earlier this week, recovering 52 of the 55 missing trophies in time for SundayÕs big show. ÒNot even a Hollywood screenwriter could have made up the plot of the stolen Oscars,Ó Mr Rehme said.

When the statuettes were stolen two weeks ago a joint police task force was formed to investigate the heist, the FBI was called in, a special hotline was set up and a $50,000 reward was offered. Authorities said they were still hunting for three of the short, bald, gold-hued male statuettes Ð all answering to the name Oscar Ð and were hoping that Òthey wonÕt get far on foot.Ó

Oscar was born in 1927, the brainchild of MGM art director Cedric Gibbons who, while attending a dinner of lobster Eugenie at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with the newly-formed Academy Awards Committee, sketched on a tablecloth the figure of a knight holding a crusaderÕs sword and standing on top of a roll of film.

How he came to be christened is less certain. Originally known simply, and unimaginatively, as the Academy Award of Merit, it is thought he received his name from an academy secretary who thought the statuette resembled her uncle Oscar. Whether true or not, from 1934 onwards our knight has been known as Oscar.

A heavyweight at 8.5lbs, he was for the first two years of his life hand-cast in solid bronze, with 24-carat gold plating. Since 1930, except for a break during World War II when winners had to make do with plaster, the statuette has been cast from britannia Ð an alloy of tin, copper, nickel and silver, still plated in 24-carat gold. He stood first on a base of black marble but in 1945 this was replaced by metal.

In 1949, the academy began to number Oscars so that it was possible to return missing knights to their owners if they were lost or stolen, occasionally to turn up in pawn shops or rubbish bins. If owners cannot be traced lost Oscars are reclaimed for academy archives, but the academy was powerless to prevent the auction of Vivien LeighÕs award for ÒGone With the WindÓ which sold for half a million dollars.  

But most Oscars remain highly prized by their owners, whether taking pride of place on a mantelpiece or used fondly but less glamorously as a doorstop. Only two have ever been unclaimed, when Marlon Brando and George C. Scott, disapproving of competition among creative artists, refused to accept their awards.

This yearÕs stolen Oscars were recovered after they were found by a scavenger named Willie Fulgear in a trash bin at a ÒFood 4 CheapÓ supermarket in Koreatown, Los Angeles Ð not one of HollywoodÕs star hangouts by a long shot.

ÒIÕm going to buy me a house,Ó Fulgear said when asked about the $50,000 reward for the OscarsÕ safe return and the arrest and conviction of the thieves. ÒI'Õm going to get out of one room and go buy me a little house,Ó he added.

Source: UPI, Reuters, Variety