New Twist in Ongoing ‘Citizen Kane’ Oscar Mystery as Its Replacement Statuette Sells

Oscar statuettes are displayed at Times Square Studios 23 in New York in January 2006. (Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images)

The replacement Oscar statuette for “Citizen Kane” that Orson Welles’s daughter was granted in 1988, after his estate couldn’t find the original following his death in 1985, sold at auction over the weekend for a whopping $645,000 although the transaction may not have been legal.

That’s according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which is looking into the legitimacy of the sale that occurred during a Heritage Auctioneers “Hollywood Entertainment” auction where, among other items from Welles’s career, featured the 1941 Oscar for Original Screenplay he shared with co-screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. The iconic film received nine nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Welles’s performance, but the movie only won Best Screenplay.

As first reported by Deadline, while Heritage Auctions sold the replacement Oscar, which was sent to Welles’s daughter Beatrice after the original couldn’t be found, Beatrice had to sign a release that stated she could not sell the Oscar unless she first offered The Academy the opportunity to buy it for $1. Before it sold to an unknown bidder over the weekend for $645,000, the statuette had a starting bid of $250,000.

Original ‘Citizen Kane’ Oscar Sold

Of significance is the fact that this isn’t even the original Oscar statuette, which somehow turned up for auction at London’s Sotheby’s in 1994. It was traced to cinematographer Gary Graver, who was working on Welles’s unfinished (until it was restored four decades later) 1974 film, “The Other Side of the Wind.” Graver claimed Welles gave him the statuette as payment for the financially hindered project. He later sold it for a reported $50,000 to a company that eventually put it up for auction at Sotheby’s with a reserve of $250,000.

But after Sotheby’s notified Beatrice Welles in an effort to verify Graver’s account was true before proceeding further, she decided to sue. The court then ruled in her favor, noting the transaction wasn’t for “payment” and the Oscar was then given to her. In 2003, she attempted to sell it herself since she was forbidden by AMPAS from selling the 1988 replacement.

Then AMPAS entered the picture. The Academy’s legal team tried to stop the auctioning off of the original, claiming that the 1988 replacement agreement signed by Beatrice Welles would in effect forbid the sale of either statuette. But because Beatrice Welles was not the original winner of the actual 1941 award, a judge ruled in her favor. She then sold the original Oscar for an unspecified amount to an unknown buyer. That unknown buyer was then trying to sell it for years with no success until 2011, when it was sold by the Nate D. Sanders auction house to an unknown buyer for $871,542. Then the other winning “Citizen Kane” statuette belonging to Mankiewicz was auctioned off a year later for $588,455.

Questions Surrounding Replacement Oscar

Interestingly, while the recent Heritage Auction listed many items that came from the Welles Estate—such as three spoken word Grammy statuettes ($45,000), Welles’s typewriter ($81,250) and three separate Citizen Kane Oscar nomination certificates ($105,000)—the infamous replacement Oscar was not listed from the Welles Estate or any specific consignor, but just that it would have a Certificate of Authenticity.

Heritage, however, guarantees, as Sotheby’s had attempted to do with the original, that every consignor must be legitimately and legally able to do so. That’s while the auction house has a policy of not revealing its consignors unless the name is specified in the individual auctions. So the question remains that, if the replacement Oscar did come from Beatrice, why wouldn’t she list it under the Welles Estate as with the other items?

Heritage also has a policy that enables auction winners to immediately offer the item up for sale through them as soon as the auction ends, and the mystery buyer appears to be doing just that, offering it up for $967,000 or more.

This leaves many questioning if it’s possible that Beatrice had privately sold or given the Oscar to someone else, outside of the auction circuit.

If that’s the case, it would seem that the buyer would be beholden to the agreement Beatrice Welles signed in 1988, to first offer the Oscar up to the Academy for $1. Still, the buyer (and now potential seller) has still not been identified, though it seems the Academy will launch an investigation of some sort.

Additionally, to make the twisted tale even more complicated, the “Citizen Kane” Oscar was not the only Oscar statuette offered here. That’s because a 1944 “unattributed” statuette with no name plate also went on the block with a starting bid of $15,000. It went for only $21,250 but now also is subject of an “offer to owner” immediate deal for $31,875.

In essence, the three “Citizen Kane” screenplay Oscar statuettes might all be in possession of people who had nothing at all to do with the film’s writing or the movie itself. That’s as Welles did actually receive another Academy Award, an honorary Oscar in 1971. For its part, 1941’s “Citizen Kane” is still considered by many movie aficionados as one of the best movies of all time.

The Epoch Times reached out to AMPAS for comment.