Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg is the “mystery” bidder who snatched up the Oscar Bette Davis won in 1939 for Jezebel at an auction on Thursday. Calling in his £413,000 bid, the Saving Private Ryan director asked to remain anonymous but later came clean to Amy Archerd of Hollywood trade publication Variety.
Steven will present the famed trophy to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as he did after acquiring Clark Gable’s It Happened One Night Oscar for £425,000 at auction in 1996.
Insiders at Christie’s had expected Bette’s statue to fetch £170,000, but saw the asking price jump to more than double that figure. The allure behind this particular trophy extends well beyond the fact that it features the original, smaller, 12-inch design.
It is believed that Bette herself coined the term “Oscar” after referring to her statue’s bottom as resembling that of her husband Harmon Oscar Nelson.
The trophy was part of an auction of movie memorabilia to benefit the Bette Davis Foundation which raises money for aspiring young artists. Non-Davis items up for grabs included two sports coats worn by Elvis Presley in Girls, Girls, Girls and Spin Out, which each went for £15,000, and a suit Marilyn Monroe wore in Love Nest which sold for nearly £30,000.
The record sale price for a piece of movie memorabilia was set in 1999 when the King of Pop Michael Jackson stumped up more than £2 million for David O Selznick’s Gone With The Wind Oscar.
Two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis died in 1989 aged 81.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
