Olivia Rutigliano is a doctoral student in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She has done some fascinating research on the history of stolen Oscars, and in the process she uncovered the truth behind a longstanding stolen Oscar myth. Olivia recently published two articles on her research, one in Politics/Letters and another in Vanity Fair. She kindly took the time to answer some of my questions about the theft of and market for Oscar statuettes.
Actress Bette Davis at the 50th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, California, April 3, 1978. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)
PD: How many Oscars have been stolen over the years?
OR: Since the Academy's first ceremony in 1929, 70 Oscars have been stolen, and five additional Oscars vanished and were resold without their owner realizing. These thefts have all been extremely different in nature. In 2000, fifty-five statuettes were stolen together in an Academy shipment truck hijacking. In 1989, Olympia Dukakis's Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Moonstruck was stolen from her kitchen shelf. One of Frank Capra's Oscars, co-won with the United States Army, for the production of the 1942 WWII Documentary Prelude to War, disappeared from its display at the Army Pictorial Center when the center closed in 1970. And sometime in the late 60s, the Best Supporting Actress Oscar won by Hattie McDaniel for Gone with the Wind in 1939 vanished from its perch in an arts complex at Howard University.
PD: Is there a secondary market for Oscars? How much do they go for?
OR: The Oscars market is particularly limited, largely because Oscars sell for very high prices, and are highly specific in their appeal. A single statuette will typically sell for more than $50,000, and awards won for particularly iconic roles or films will often sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 1993, Vivien Leigh's Best Actress Oscar for Gone With the Wind sold for approximately $500,000. Occasionally, Oscars that are sold at auction are bought with intent to be given back to the Academy. Steven Spielberg has bought and returned to the Academy three Oscars: Clark Gable's Best Actor Oscar for It Happened One Night purchased in 1996 for $607,500, Bette Davis's Best Actress Oscar for Jezebel purchased in 2001 for $570,000, and Bette Davis's Best Actress Oscar for Dangerous bought in 2002 for $180,000.
PD: How many stolen Oscars have resurfaced?
OR: 67 of the 75 missing have been returned to their owners, or the Academy. Many have turned up in strange places - Whoopi Goldberg's missing Best Supporting Actress Oscar, which had been stolen from a shipping container at an airport in 1990, was found in a garbage can shortly after disappearing. Margaret O'Brien's honorary Oscar for Outstanding Child Performance, won after her performance in Meet Me in St. Louis, wound up at a flea market in 1995 (40 years after it went missing). Aaron Rochin's Oscar for Best Sound, won for The Deer Hunter in 1979, went missing from a repair facility not long after, and turned up on eBay in 2011.
PD: What does the Academy do to prevent Oscar theft and resale?
OR: An Oscar statuette's first line of defense is the serial number etched into its base, and, if it has officially been presented to the winner, it features the winner's name on a plaque along the bottom. Even if the plaque has been removed, the serial number allows the Academy to identify it once it has been found. Furthermore, unauthorized sales of Oscars that have been awarded since 1950 are prohibited - contracts the winners sign backstage at the ceremony, after being presented with their statuettes onstage, dictate that they cannot sell their Oscars without first offering them to the Academy in exchange for a sum of $1.