Orson's Oscar Off the Block
Orson Welles' career was often marked by dashed expectations. The same applies to his garage sales.
The Hollywood icon's only Oscar, for writing his 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane, failed to attract a suitable bid, forcing Sotheby's to withdraw the statuette from the block.
The auction house said that all offers were well below the minimum price set by the seller.
Welles' Oscar had once been believed to be MIA until it turned up in the collection of Gary Graver, a cinematographer who worked with Welles late in his career, when he was better known for being a rotund wine pitchman.
The Dax Foundation, a Los Angeles-based charitable group, eventually acquired the trophy in the mid-90s and hoped to auction it for between $800,000 and $1.2 million to raise cash for programs aiding disabled children and supporting educational initiatives.
Sotheby's sales estimate was based on the sale of the Best Picture Oscar for Gone with the Wind. That trophy went for $1.5 million, while Vivien Leigh's Best Actress statuette went for $550,000.
Now the auctioneer says it's considering selling the memento privately.
There was a consolation prize, however.
A 156-page screenplay of Citizen Kane, which purportedly was based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Heart, did fetch $97,000 from an anonymous buyer who bid over the phone.
Written in 1940, the script was stamped "second revised final" and was his last working draft before the shooting script. The document had "Mr. Welles" written in large text on the cover and circled by pink crayon and contained the filmmaker's notes in the margins as well as numerous annotations and revisions.
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