Skip to footer

'My Gal Sal' Oscar auctioned, Academy sues

'My Gal Sal' Oscar: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Rhode Island-based Briarbrook Auction Services.

|
Briarbrook Auctions/AP
This undated photo released by Briarbrook Auctions shows an Academy Award Oscar statue awarded for color art direction in 1942 to Joseph C. Wright for his work on 'My Gal Sal.'
  • By Associated Press Associated Press

| LOS ANGELES

The organization that hosts the Academy Awards has sued over the recent auction of a 1942 Oscarawarded to the art director of "My Gal Sal" and is seeking to buy back the statuette for $10.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Rhode Island-based Briarbrook Auction Services.

Briarbrook sold the Oscar for $79,200 on June 24. "My Gal Sal" starred Rita Hayworth, and the art direction award to Joseph Wright was its only Academy Award win.

The academy adopted a rule in 1951 prohibiting winners or their heirs from selling Oscars. It is seeking an order requiring Briarbrook to sell it the Oscar for $10 in accordance with the academy bylaws.

Briarbrook owner Nanci Thompon said she has not seen the suit. But she noted that Wright's Oscar predated the academy's sales prohibition and said her company was careful before offering it for sale.

The lawsuit does not identify who purchased the statuette.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'My Gal Sal' Oscar auctioned, Academy sues
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0703/My-Gal-Sal-Oscar-auctioned-Academy-sues
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe