A buyer in the US snaps up Welles's only non-honorary Oscar, awarded for the screenplay for his 1941 masterpiece
The Oscar that Orson Welles won for Citizen Kane's screenplay has sold for $861,542 (roughly �550,000) at a California auction house.
The award, sold and bought anonymously at Nate D Sanders Auctions, was awarded to Welles at the 1941 Academy Awards for his groundbreaking debut feature, which he also directed and starred in. Among the bidders was the magician David Copperfield, who owns a number of props used on the shoot.
The statuette was the only Oscar that Welles won during a career spanning more than 50 years, although he was given an honorary award by the Academy in 1970. It was lost for many years until 1994, when cinematographer Gary Graver attempted to sell it after claiming Welles (who had died nine years earlier) had given it to him as a form of payment.
Welles's daughter Beatrice retrieved the Oscar after a series of legal challenges but was herself blocked from selling by the Academy in 2003. She eventually sold it to a non-profit organisation. Since 1950 the Academy has insisted that all winners sign a contract giving the body the right to buy back the statuette for a dollar.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/dec/21/orson-welles-citizen-kane-oscar
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