We have one of the golden statuettes living happily in our house standing on one of the few horizontal surfaces that is tall enough for it amongst a bright crowd of my daughter's collection. It was awarded to my late father-in-law, James Coburn. The Academy allows heirs to inherit the statues, but they can't be sold unless they are offered to the Academy first for $1. Not that we would ever, ever want to sell this. It's a long story, but my husband has very few things that were his father's, even fewer that were meaningful and not just "stuff". This is one of the very special things.
As a figure sculpt, they have very clean lines, and a sense of timelessness. The original design was drawn by Cedric Gibbons, art director at MGM at the time, and the original sculpt by Los Angeles artist, George Stanley (here's more of his work in the Moderne style of the time). And yes the guys really are very heavy.
2 comments:
You are doing great, I love the blog and am happily getting lots of neat links... thanks so much
WOW....How cool is that!!!! James Colburn just happens to be one of Richard's and My favorite actors (we have several western movies that he was in) and my Dad met him one time, said he was a really nice guy...and handsome. I remember the night he was awarded that statue...how WONDERFUL for you to own it...it was very sad when he passed...
Thanks so much for sharing this special piece of history with us all...
Jodi
Post a Comment