I was watching the film Jane Eyre last night and like to look up information about the stars of films I'm watching, and I found this inspiring story of the return of Margaret O'Brien's stolen Academy Award.
'While Margaret O'Brien was growing up, her awards were always kept in a special room. One day in 1954, the family's maid asked to take O'Brien's Juvenile Oscar and two other awards home with her to polish, as she had done in the past.[7] After three days, the maid failed to return to work, prompting O'Brien's mother to discharge her, requesting that the awards be returned.[8] Not long after, O'Brien's mother, who had been sick with a heart condition, suffered a relapse and died.[7] In mourning, 17-year-old O'Brien forgot about the maid and the Oscar until several months later when she tried to contact her, only to find that the maid had moved and had left no forwarding address.[7][8]
Several years later, upon learning that the original had been stolen, the Academy promptly supplied O'Brien with a replacement Oscar, but O'Brien still held on to hope that she might one day recover her original Award.[7][8] In the years that followed, O'Brien attended memorabilia shows and searched antique shops, hoping she might find the original statuette, until one day in 1995 when Bruce Davis, then executive director of the Academy, was alerted that a miniature statuette bearing O'Brien's name had surfaced in a catalogue for an upcoming memorabilia auction.[7] Davis contacted a mutual friend of his and O'Brien's, who in turn phoned O'Brien to tell her the long-lost Oscar had been found.[7][8]
Memorabilia collectors Steve Neimand and Mark Nash were attending a flea market in 1995 when Neimand spotted a small Oscar with Margaret O'Brien's name inscribed upon it.[9] The two men decided to split the $500 asking price hoping to resell it at a profit and lent it to a photographer to shoot for an upcoming auction catalogue.[7] This led to Bruce Davis' discovery that the statuette had resurfaced and, upon learning of the award's history, Nash and Neimand agreed to return the Oscar to O'Brien.[7] On February 7, 1995, nearly 50 years after she had first received it, the Academy held a special ceremony in Beverly Hills to return the stolen award to O’Brien.[7][9] Upon being reunited with her Juvenile Oscar, Margaret O'Brien spoke to the attending journalists:
For all those people who have lost or misplaced something that was dear to them, as I have, never give up the dream of searching—never let go of the hope that you’ll find it because after all these many years, at last, my Oscar has been returned to me.[10]'

Last edited by Cynthia (3/03/2018 1:12 pm)