For the first time, Chicago will host a "Meet the Oscars" exhibit, at which fans will be able to hold an actual Oscar statuette. “Meet the Oscars, Chicago” will open Friday, February 13, at The Shops at North Bridge on Michigan Avenue, and will run through Sunday, February 22, the night of the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony. Hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free.
Chicago, by the way, is the only city to host a “Meet the Oscars” exhibit this year.
As per the Academy's press release, “Meet the Oscars, Chicago” will feature "a display of Oscars in various stages of completion, as they undergo their intricate, weeks-long manufacturing process. Chicago’s own R.S. Owens & Company has manufactured the statuettes each year since 1982. Six of the Oscars on display will be presented at next year’s Academy Awards ceremony."
Also on display will be the statuette that Clark Gable (above, with Claudette Colbert) won for It Happened One Night (1934). (Among the three best actor nominees that year, my vote would have gone to William Powell in The Thin Man; Gable should have won for Gone with the Wind.) In 1996 an anonymous buyer purchased Gable's Oscar at auction for $607,500, and later that year returned the statuette to the Academy. The buyer in question turned out to be Steven Spielberg.
The 2009 Academy Awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center. In the US, the Oscarcast will be televised live by ABC.
Photo: Alex Oliveira / ©A.M.P.A.S.
I plan to be there to hold one of those finished Oscars – and to make my acceptance speech. No fun if I can't pretend because this will be as close as I ever get to an Oscar of my own. It will also be fun to see them in various stages of completion. We're the hometown manufacturers and we're just now getting to see them up close and personal? Should have happened years ago.
i'm sorry but clark gable should have won the oscar for both iton and gwtw. he should have won a third oscar for mongambo as well. and the same goes for avagardner in that film. she was beautifull and she was great.