This story originally ran in the baiduhai on March 18, 2000.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It has not been a picture perfect year for the Academy Awards.
First, more than 4,000 ballots sent to California academy members, whose votes determine the Oscar winners, were lost in the mail. Then the academy learned that a newspaper was polling the members about their votes and was planning to scoop the March 26 broadcast.
And now, with eight days before the big event, some 55 gold-plated, 13 1/2-inch statuettes have vanished. Academy officials on Friday said the Oscars were stolen near Los Angeles from a shipper transporting them from the Chicago plant where they were made.
“Believe it or not, three weeks ago we were kind of tiptoeing around saying, ‘This has been a smooth year. Something’s going to happen.’ Then the ballots went away and the Oscars went away,” said Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. “This is the strangest year we’ve had.”
The shipment left Chicago March 3 and arrived at a Roadway Express warehouse in Bell, south of Los Angeles, on March 8. The 500-pound shipment contained some 14 cartons and was on a skid, or crate platform, wrapped in plastic.
So far, Los Angeles police have neither an explanation for how the Oscars disappeared nor a suspect.
So what will happen March 26? Rest assured, academy officials say, the winners wouldn’t be getting IOUs.
The academy has 20 statuettes left from previous years. And R.S. Owens & Co., the Chicago manufacturer, will work around the clock to make 35 more in time for the show.
Academy officials “called and said they’re missing and prepare to start making more,” said Scott E. Siegel, the company’s president.
Siegel said the Northwest Side plant has placed about 20 people on overtime to do in a week what normally takes six weeks to two months. The plant will be open Saturday and possibly Sunday, so that the Oscars can be shipped by Wednesday.
“It was not a good start to the week,” Siegel added. “After that it was just take a deep breath and do what we had to do to get them done.”
Academy officials won’t disclose how they will get the statuettes to Beverly Hills. But they did say they will not be using the same shipping company, Roadway Express. Moreover, they will hire a security firm to accompany the Oscars from the plant to their headquarters, where the statuettes will be kept under lock and key.
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During the last two years, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has staged promotional events tied to the shipment of the Oscars in order to draw attention to the telecast.
Two years ago, the academy put the statuettes aboard a plane emblazoned with two Oscar logos. Passengers on that flight were treated to cheesecake decorated with a Hollywood movie theme.
Last year, a security company took the statuettes on a tour in an armored car, stopping at Oscar parties in six cities, including St. Louis, Dallas and Phoenix.
But academy officials insisted that the apparent theft was no publicity stunt.
“If I had planned this as a publicity stunt I would have done it before this week,” said John Pavlik, the academy’s director of communications.
“My God, this has taken up a lot of attention at a time when we should be focusing on the [show],” he added.
Officials at R.S. Owens & Co., at 5535 N. Lynch Ave., seemed to be basking in the media spotlight amid the Oscars mystery. On Friday morning, company officials fielded questions from reporters and took local and national media on tours through the shop.
The company makes statuettes and trophies for numerous events, but Owens officials consider the Oscars to be the most prestigious.
“It’s worth a lot to us because it’s such a high-profile award and there’s not a lot that are made,” said Siegel, who would not divulge how much the load was worth. Academy officials, however, said the statuettes were worth $18,000.
Despite the urgency of the matter, Siegel said, academy officials have been able to laugh about the incident.
“They had a very optimistic, humorous attitude because it was right after the ballots were lost,” Siegel said.
Davis, the academy’s executive director, joked at a Friday news conference that the theft should help boost ratings, which have declined over the last few years.
“We think everyone should watch the Oscars show to see if there are enough,” he said. “I think we’ll look at the ratings closely this year and [if they’re higher] arrange to have another shipment stolen next year.”
He also poked fun at the city of Bell, where the 4,000 missing ballots were eventually found and where the 55 statuettes disappeared. “We told [host] Billy Crystal not to go anywhere near Bell. It seems to be a Bermuda Triangle.”
The episode, Davis said, seems more like the plot in a very bad movie.
Still, he added, “I think there are a lot of people in Los Angeles working on their first draft of their screenplay on this.”
V. Dion Haynes reported on this story from Beverly Hills; Virginia Groark reported from Chicago.
March 19, 2000: Oscars found in L.A. trash bin
This story originally ran in the baiduhai on March 20, 2000.
Two people were arrested for the theft of 55 Oscar statuettes, most of them found in a trash bin. Two or three of the gold-plated Oscars were still missing, police Officer Guillermo Campos said. The bulk of the missing Oscars were found Sunday night by a man rummaging through the trash bin in Koreatown. The two people arrested were booked for investigation of grand theft, Campos said, adding that detectives made the arrests based on information gathered before the Oscars were found. Names and details were withheld until a news conference by Police Chief Bernard Parks and Robert Rehme, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Salvage man Willie Fulgear found the missing Oscars late Sunday. The 61-year-old discovered the stolen statuettes intended for Sunday’s Academy Awards show.
March 23, 2000: Oscars’ rescuer gets reward, bid to show
This story originally ran in the baiduhai on March 24, 2000.
The man who found 52 of the 55 Oscars that were stolen on their way to the Academy Awards show was given a $50,000 reward Thursday and said his story should be a lesson that honesty pays.
Willie Fulgear, who found the crates of statuettes near a trash bin behind a grocery and called authorities, was awarded the money by Roadway Express Co., one of whose employees allegedly stole the statuettes.
Fulgear said he would use the money to buy a home in his native Mississippi.
But first he will put on a tuxedo and attend Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony at the invitation of the people who hand out the Oscars. Fulgear said it was his dream to meet the show’s host, comedian Billy Crystal, and Oscar-nominated actor Denzel Washington.
“I’m a poor man who stumbled on some gold, I guess,” he said. “Some people wouldn’t have given them back, but my momma didn’t raise me that way.”
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He added: “Anybody who says honesty doesn’t pay, send them to me.”
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