The Oscar for ‘Citizen Kane’ earns $861,000 under the hammer


If someone told me a few years back that Oscar statutes are sold for money, I would’ve been appalled! Well, this is the same thing, but it’s not like the Academy Award is fixed; it just means that some winners give it up as keepsakes. This time around, the Oscar statuette that Orson Welles bagged for the original screenplay of “Citizen Kane” went under the hammer. The shimmering statue fetched over $861,000 in an auction conducted by Nate D. Sanders Auctions at Los Angeles.

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Spokesman Sam Heller said that the auction attracted bids from all over the world, including bids from David Copperfield. The statue that was handed in 1942 was said to be lost and resurfaced in 1994 when cinematographer Gary Graver tried to sell it, only to be stopped by Beatrice Welles, who is Orson’s youngest daughter and sole heir. This is not the first statue to be sold under the hammer. In 1999, Michael Jackson forked out $1.54 million for David O. Selznick for “Gone With The Wind” best picture Oscar.

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