10 Biggest Oscar Goofs Of All Time
9. Stolen Oscars
While this one didn’t take place on the Oscars stage, it might be one of the most disastrous foul-ups to befall the historic ceremony.
On March 10th, 2000, just over two weeks before the 72nd awards would take place, 55 Oscar statuettes were stolen from a loading dock in Bell, California. A few days earlier, 1000 voting ballots were also discovered at a postal distribution centre in the same town, having never reached their intended academy voters.
This could have spelled disaster for the ceremony, had the voting deadline not been extended, and 52 of the statuettes not been discovered in a bin outside a Koreatown supermarket in LA. Willie Fulgear, the man responsible for finding the gongs, was awarded $50,000 as thanks, and invited to the upcoming ceremony, while the thieves in question – Lawrence Ledent and Anthony Hart – received a six month sentence and probation respectively.
One of the missing Oscars was later found during a drug bust in Florida, while two are still unspoken for.