These Oscar Awards Ended Up in the Wrong Hands

Some awards given to these Oscar winners have never been seen again.

Getting an Oscar is the height of making it in the film industry, but sometimes, the gold statuettes don’t always end up with the intended Oscar winners.

About 80 statuettes have been misplaced or stolen since the beginning of the Academy Awards. While some have been found, there are others that were never seen again.

Hattie McDaniel

Wikimedia Commons

Year won: 1939

Movie: “Gone With the Wind”

Award: Best Supporting Actress

Hattie McDaniel was a trailblazer — she was the first African American to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (or any Oscar, for that matter) for her role as Mammy in the 1939 film “Gone with the Wind.”

However, despite her historic win, she almost didn’t make the award ceremony due to segregation laws at the time. She was able to go when producer David O. Selznick pulled some strings, but she had to sit at separate table away from her white co-stars.

After her death in 1952, McDaniel’s Oscar was bequeathed to Howard University; however, it was lost or stolen sometime in the 1960s or 1970s and has never been found.

David O. Selznick

Wikimedia Commons

Year won: 1939

Movie: “Gone with the Wind”

Award: Best Picture (Producer)

When Selznick’s died in 1965, his two Best Picture Oscars, one of which was his “Gone with the Wind” award, were bequeathed to his son, Jeffrey, but in 1980, Jeffrey sold both at auction.

In 1999, the “Gone with the Wind” Oscar was resold again to Michael Jackson, who paid $1.54 million for it, outbidding Steven Spielberg. When Jackson died in 2009, the award could not be found.

Allegedly, the Oscar found its way back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but it’s unclear if the Academy will return it to the Selznick family.

Bing Crosby

Wikimedia Commons

Year won: 1944

Movie: “Going My Way”

Award: Best Actor

Bing Crosby held onto his Oscar, but upon his death, he bequeathed his Oscar to a university — specifically Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, where he went to college to earn a law degree. He never graduated, as he was more interested in being an entertainer.

In 1972, someone noticed the Oscar was gone and had been replaced with a statue of Mickey Mouse. Luckily, it was just a college prank — a week later, it was found hidden in the university’s chapel.

Margaret O’Brien

Wikimedia Commons

Year won: 1945

Movie: “Meet Me in St. Louis”

Award: Academy Juvenile Award

The Academy Juvenile Award was given to outstanding young talent intermittently between 1934 and 1960. It was given to actors considered too young for traditional Academy Award categories. O’Brien and the other child recipients got mini statuettes.

O’Brien kept it in her possession for many years, but in 1954, O’Brien’s home was robbed, and the Juvenile Award was taken. Nearly 40 years later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave O’Brien a replacement. The new one was the regular size, as the original mold used to make the smaller statuettes was destroyed years before.

Years later, the original turned up at an L.A. flea market and was sold for just a few hundred dollars — but the buyers put it up for auction. It was eventually returned to O’Brien.

Vivien Leigh

Wikimedia Commons

Year won: 1952

Movie: “A Streetcar Named Desire”

Award: Best Actress

In 1952, Leigh couldn’t come to Hollywood to collect her statuette, but the Academy held a smaller ceremony in London a few months later where she could accept it.

She didn’t have it for long nefore her house was robbed, and the Oscar disappeared with some clothes and silverware. She never recovered the original, but the Academy replaced it within just a few weeks.

Olympia Dukakis

Lennox McLendon / AP Photo

Year won: 1988

Movie: “Moonstruck”

Award: Best Supporting Actress

Dukakis did have possession of her Oscar statuette for a few years and proudly displayed it in her living room in Montclair, New Jersey. But in 1993, her home was burglarized, and it and other valuable items were stolen.

Unfortunately, the Oscar was never recovered. Though devastated by the loss, she paid $78 for a replacement statuette from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Whoopi Goldberg

Mark G. Taylor / Wikimedia Commons

Year won: 1991

Movie: “Ghost”

Award: Best Supporting Actress

Goldberg had her Oscar for about 10 years when it began to look tarnished, so she sent it to the Academy to be cleaned. The box that the award was stashed in traveled from Los Angeles to New York and was bound for Chicago where the Oscar would be polished. However, when it was opened in the Windy City, there was nothing inside.

Days later, it was found to have never left Los Angeles at all — and had been dumped in the trash near the airport.

Angelia Jolie

Matt Sayles / AP Photo

Year won: 2000

Movie: Girl, Interrupted

Award: Best Supporting Actress

After winning the Academy Award, Angelina Jolie gave her mother, Marcheline Bertland, the statuette and basically forgot about it. In 2007, her mom passed away, and Jolie never found the award.

She said, “I didn’t actually lose it, but nobody knows where it is at the moment.” As far as we know, it has yet to turn up.

Jared Leto

Jordan Strauss / Invision / AP Photo

Year won: 2014

Movie: “Dallas Buyers Club”

Award: Best Supporting Actor

Jared Leto’s Oscar has been missing for some time. In a 2021 interview with James Corden, he revealed it’s been missing since he moved houses. “I found out that it’s been missing for three years,” he said. “I didn’t know that — I don’t think anyone wanted to tell me.”

He added, “It could be somewhere, but everyone’s searched for it high and low. I hope it’s in good hands wherever it is.”

Frances McDormand

Eric Jamison / Invision / AP Photo

Year won: 2019

Movie: “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Award: Best Actress

McDormand was celebrating her win at an Oscar after-party when her award disappeared after she put it down and walked away from her table. At the time, Terry Bryant, a man attending the same party, had picked it up. He stepped outside and went live with it on social media, pretending it was his.

Bryant was arrested and charged with felony grand theft but later said he didn’t know it was real, as there were prop Oscars all over the room. When he was set to go to trial, the charges were inexplicably dropped — it is believed that McDormand may have refused to testify.