Celebrity Norma Shearer’s 1930 Oscar sold at auction
It sold together with the cinematography prize to get a 1928 movie, “White Shadows in the South Seas,” that additionally brought $180,000.
The 88-year old organisation has tried to keep possession rights to prizes given before 1950. A year ago, her Oscar was withdrawn by the estate of actress Joan Fontaine from a much-hoped-for auction when the Academy threatened to sue over its sale.
And in July, a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ruled that its rule could be applied by the Academy because its victor, art director Joseph Wright, stayed an Academy member past 1951 into a 1943 statuette that was sold at auction.
The Academy failed to react to your request for comment on Wednesday’s auction, ran in Hollywood by auctioneer Profiles in History.
The Canadian-created Shearer, best known for such movies as “Marie Antoinette” and “The Women,” was nominated for five other characters as Best Performer, cementing her acclaim as a Hollywood star through the 1930s. She died in 1983.