The first Academy Award winner to sell their Oscar
For the majority of recipients, an Oscar is the greatest achievement of their professional careers, and many of them will proudly display it in their homes for the rest of their lives as a reminder of their crowning glory.
However, in one instance, an Academy Award winner was forced to sell their statue for personal reasons, something that’s never happened again since. In a roundabout way, it wasn’t the most significant loss in the world for Harold Russell, considering he’d already made history as the first person to win two for the same performance.
The former soldier had lost both of his hands in an accidental explosion, which led William Wyler to recruit him to play a major role in 1946’s The Best Years of Our Lives, having been captivated by Russell’s story in the Army-sponsored film Diary of a Sergeant, which told the story of wounded veterans and their rehabilitation.
The Academy wasn’t expecting the non-professional actor to win an Oscar on the night, so a special award was created and handed over to celebrate Russell for “bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures”. Later, though, he also scooped the prize for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, securing his first slice of history.
Becoming a two-time Oscar winner regularly leads to bigger, better, and brighter things for anybody fortunate enough to receive more than one, but Russell was paid less than $10,000 for starring in The Best Years of Our Lives and wasn’t entitled to any residuals after the fact, meaning he was far from wealthy despite his unprecedented success.
Even though rules had been in place since 1951 forbidding Oscar winners from selling or disposing of their statues “without first offering to sell it to the Academy for the sum of $1” – a rule that also applies to those who inherit another person’s gong – Russell put his on the market in 1992 to help pay for his wife’s medical bills.
The Academy offered him a $20,000 loan if he’d hand it back over to the organisation, which he rejected before ultimately netting over $60,000 from a private collector. As he explained to the Los Angeles Times, his situation required him to obtain as much money as possible, which is why he spurned the advances of the people who’d awarded him two Oscars in the first place.
“My wife has to have an eye operation and we had a problem with the house and I need some money. I don’t know why anybody would be critical,” he said. “My wife’s health is much more important than sentimental reasons. I’m not asking for sympathy. I feel bad about it. Inside me, I look on my mantelpiece and see one Oscar and the other should be there, and it’s not.”
