Third-Ever Best Actress Oscar Fetches $180,000

Two decades-old Academy Award trophies -- including Norma Shearer’s 1930 best actress Oscar -- fetched $180,000 each Wednesday at an auction of Hollywood memorabilia.

Hosted by Calabasas-based memorabilia dealer Profiles in History, the three-day sale, which concludes Thursday, also features autographs, letters, documents, vintage signed photographs and scripts.

Shearer’s 1930 Oscar for her lead role in the pre-code drama “The Divorcee” was the third best actress Academy Award ever presented, according to Joe Maddalena, president and chief executive officer of the auction house.

Clyde De Vinna’s 1928-29 best cinematography trophy for “White Shadows in the South Seas,” only the second cinematography Oscar ever presented, also changed hands.

De Vinna was a cinematographer on more than 120 film and television projects from 1916 through 1953.

“The demand is strong for early Oscars,” Maddalena said, adding that few of the trophies are ever made available to the public.

The auction house did not identify either winning bidder.

Orson Welles’ personal shooting script for “Citizen Kane,” thought to have been lost forever, sold on Tuesday for $44,800, according to the memorabilia dealer.

-City News Service; Norma Shearer via Wikimedia Commons