5 Oscar Controversies You Don't Know About

Including one very big spoiler fail
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 23, 2013 7:09 AM CST
5 Oscar Controversies You Don't Know About
A general view of an Oscar statuette at the ribbon cutting of the 'Meet The Oscars' event at Grand Central Station in New York on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011.   (AP Photo/Peter Kramer)

Think you know about all the Oscar controversies? Think again. The Week rounds up five that flew under the radar:

  • In 1962, a Brooklyn cabbie managed to hop on stage, carrying a homemade Oscar statuette. He handed it to one of the presenters, grabbed the mic, and said he was there "to present Bob Hope with his 1938 trophy," a reference to Hope's film The Big Broadcast of 1938, for which he did not win.

  • In 1940, the Academy told the press the winners in advance—and one reporter let it slip that Gone With the Wind won eight awards.
  • In 1939, George Bernard Shaw won Best Screenplay for Pygmalion, but he didn't show up to accept the award. His reported reaction: "It's perfect nonsense! To offer me an award of this sort is an insult, as if they had never heard of me before—and it's very likely they never had." When he finally received the statuette, he didn't take good care of it, and it ended up being used as a doorstop in his museum for a while.
Click for the complete list, including another winner who didn't show up when his name was called. (More Oscars stories.)

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