Orson Welles’ Replacement Oscar for ‘Citizen Kane’ Sold in Auction but Not Without Controversy
1941 brought the world Citizen Kane, which some consider one of the best movies ever made. Whether you love it or you hate it, you can’t deny that it is classic Hollywood. Recently, Heritage Auctions sold a replacement Oscar that Orson Welles received for the film. The award was sold to the highest bidder for a price of $645,000, but left some questioning, was the entire interaction legal? First, it was not the original Oscar that Welles won but the replacement that his daughter Beatrice asked for in 1988 when she couldn’t find it in her father’s belongings after his death.
The Academy granted her request but she had to sign a release that said she would not sell it before offering it back to the Academy for one dollar as this was the standard agreement. Fast forward a few years to 1994, when the original Oscar was found up for auction at London’s Sothebys. A cinematographer named Gary Graver claimed that Welles gave him the Oscar as partial payment for a project they were working on. He later sold it to a company that would eventually put it up for auction. Sotheby’s notified Beatrice Welles about the Oscar and a court granted her ownership of it.
Heritage Auctions
In 2003, she attempted to sell it after being forbidden to sell the replacement. So, why was she able to sell the replacement now? The answer isn’t really clear just yet and may end up going back to court. Heritage Auctions has a good reputation for only selling items that are allowed to be sold which means that it may not be Beatrice actually selling the replacement Oscar. The story gets even weirder as the person who just purchased the Oscar is already trying to sell it for a higher price!
Everett Collection
According to Yahoo!, “Heritage has a policy that a winning bidder of any auction can immediately offer it up for sale through them as soon as the auction ends. Whoever was the winning bidder of this ‘Citizen Kane’ replacement Oscar that sold for $645,000 is trying to unload it quickly and now is offering anyone else the chance to own it for $967,000 or ‘more’ in Heritage’s ‘make offer to owner’ feature. That markup is even before the buyer has paid for it themselves or it has even been shipped by Heritage.” Reportedly, the Academy is currently looking into this situation. What’s your take on this crazy story?
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March 2022
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