Welles' Oscar for 'Citizen Kane' sells for $861K

[Fuji Vice]

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Academy Award statuette that Orson Welles won for the original screenplay of "Citizen Kane" was auctioned for more than $861,000 Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Nate D. Sanders Auctions spokesman Sam Heller said bidders from around the world, including David Copperfield, vied for the Oscar.

The 1942 Oscar was thought to be lost for decades. It surfaced in 1994 when cinematographer Gary Graver tried to sell it. The sale was stopped by Beatrice Welles, Orson's youngest daughter and sole heir.

Copperfield, who was outbid in the auction, said he admires Welles not only for his cinematic successes, but because he, too, was a magician. Welles hosted Copperfield's first television special.

The auction house declined to release the highest bidder's name. It said only a handful of Academy Awards have sold for nearly a million dollars.

Michael Jackson paid $1.54 million in 1999 for the best picture Oscar awarded to David O. Selznick for "Gone With The Wind."

There should be a Best Picture and Best Director Oscar to go along with that one. Regardless, that's a nice little sum for a gold statuette.

 

[TroyTheAverage]

That is insane. I wouldn't think something like that would sell for that much.

 

[Fuji Vice]

That is insane. I wouldn't think something like that would sell for that much.

Even better is that the Welles family actually gets the money because he won it before they put the right of first refusal clause into the "contract" you sign when you win an Oscar. I believe after 1960 or so they began saying you couldn't sell the Oscar without first offering it back to the Academy for $1. That way they curbed people from selling them in an attempt to keep them special.

 

[TroyTheAverage]

Why anyone would want to sell one that they won anyway is beyond me. Those are supposed to be special. But hey, people are assholes. :

 

[Fuji Vice]

Why anyone would want to sell one that they won anyway is beyond me. Those are supposed to be special. But hey, people are assholes. :

Or their cocaine habits are quite expensive and they are running out of money.

 

[TroyTheAverage]

Leave Lindsay Lohan out of this.

Even though she will never, ever win an Oscar.