Stolen Oscars: The unbelievable true stories behind these infamous trophy heists
Winning an Oscar is by no means an easy feat. But keeping track of one is a whole other story.
While some actors playfully use their statues as doorstops and bathroom decor, others have no idea where the heck they went. Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges and Angelina Jolie have all admitted to misplacing their golden men through the years. Vivien Leigh, meanwhile, never recovered her second Oscar for “A Streetcar Named Desire,” after it was burgled from her house in 1952. Other crimes were further from home: Hattie McDaniel (“Gone With the Wind”) and Bing Crosby (“Going My Way”) donated their awards to universities, where both prizes vanished.
Here are five more memorable cases of Oscars going AWOL:
Frances McDormand
Beware of sticky fingers. Celebrating her 2018 best actress win for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Frances McDormand had her Oscar stolen when she set it down at an after-party. She was seen crying outside the event, and a search ensued. Hours later, police arrested a man who was allegedly spotted leaving the soiree with her freshly engraved statue in tow. “After a brief time apart, Frances and her Oscar were happily reunited,” McDormand’s representative said in a statement the following day. “They celebrated the reunion with a double cheeseburger from In-N-Out.” Charges were dropped against the man without further explanation.
Jared Leto
We all lose track of things. Sometimes, it just so happens to be an Oscar. Jared Leto took home best supporting actor in 2014 for AIDS drama "Dallas Buyers Club." But while appearing on “The Late Late Show With James Corden” in 2021, the singer casually revealed that his statue “just magically kind of disappeared" while moving homes in Los Angeles, although no one bothered to tell him until "like three years" after it went missing. Leto agreed with Corden that it was likely stolen, although he seemed unconcerned with its whereabouts: "Hopefully someone is taking good care of it.”
Whoopi Goldberg
One man’s trash is another man's Oscar. Whoopi Goldberg, who won best supporting actress for “Ghost” in 1990, mailed her statue out for a cleaning in 2002. But when the award’s manufacturer received the package, the UPS box was empty. Days later, her Oscar was found in a waste bin at the Ontario Airport. Whoever it was that stole and resealed the parcel remains a mystery, but the trophy was successfully sent back to Goldberg. “Oscar will never leave my house again,” “The View” host said in a statement at the time.
Olympia Dukakis
Did someone swipe your Oscar? Well, snap out of it! "Moonstruck” star Olympia Dukakis took a proactive approach when her best supporting actress statue was robbed in 1989. While she was away filming, a thief broke into her Montclair, New Jersey, home and nabbed the award from her kitchen, leaving everything else behind. The culprit later called asking for ransom, and her family attempted to set up a sting operation with police. Although the original never resurfaced, Dukakis told the Academy what happened and “they sold me another one,” she said on the Employee of the Month podcast in 2015. The cost of a replacement Oscar: $75.
Margaret O'Brien
Do you remember Tootie from “Meet Me in St. Louis,” Judy Garland’s 1944 Christmas classic? Well, at age 7, O'Brien won a special juvenile Oscar for playing Garland’s precocious kid sister in the film. Ten years later, her family’s maid offered to take the award home so she could polish it, but never returned to work. Although the Academy gave O'Brien a replacement, she held out hope the original would one day resurface. It eventually did in 1995, when it was spotted at a flea market by two memorabilia collectors, who gave it back to O'Brien. “At last, my Oscar has been returned to me,” she told reporters, encouraging people to “never give up” searching for something they’ve lost.