The Yak Takes Out The Trash!!! June 10th, 2011

Hello everyone and welcome back! It’s time once again for the Yak to take out the trash! We’d like to thank our own Yak Nicholson for performing this obligation every week, taking out the trash can be a dirty and risky business. So, let’s get down to it, shall we?

Well, well, well….sometimes being an MTV reality star isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not if you’re Amber Portwood. Hey, remember that episode of Teen Mom where she basically tried to beat the hell out of her baby daddy, Gary Shirley?? Well, it was time to pay the piper for that, or so I thought….keep reading to see why I say she got the legal equivalent of a Tic Tac punishment. She plead guilty in an Indiana courtroom Thursday to two counts of felony domestic battery. amberportwoodShe had faced up to three years in a federal prison and a $10,000 fine but instead the judge let her off with a two year suspended sentence and two years of probation. Raise your hand if you expect her to be labeled a parole violator within a year. My hand’s up! This was a plea deal, of course, and as part of it the judge dropped the two other charges, a felony count of neglect of a dependent and a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. The no-contact order with Shirley was vacated as well. Oh, it gets better….Shirley himself was busted recently for driving with a suspended license (seriously, if your license is suspended it was for a damn good reason AND it means you can’t drive braniac!). Portwood was with him at the time, of course, and they were overheard arguing which is when the cops got involved. Portwood claims they weren’t fighting and that they haven’t had a major fight in two years. Good god, round two commencing in t-minus 3,2,1…..

Hey, speaking of vehicular mishaps, let’s talk about little miss drunkard Estella Warren, yay! estellawarrenMy bet is this Planet of the Apes beauty would probably like to be on another planet right now (hey, she should call Charlie Sheen, isn’t he going to be on HSN soon hawking his own world?). Anyway, she was charged on June 9th with DUI, hit-and-run driving, battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest. This came from a truly bizarre episode last month where she went drunk driving, smashed into three cars, left the scene, then got busted by the cops and arrested for DUI…..and THEN when they were trying to cuff her she pretty much kicked a cop, ultimately landing herself in jail. These charges are all misdemeanors, and the next date for her case is June 17th, but she is not required to attend. She did luck out in one aspect, she hadn’t been booked when she fled the cops and thusly couldn’t be charged with felony escape. Either way, she’s out on $100,000 bail and faces 2.5 years in prison. She should seek out Portwood’s judge, no?

Alright, onto politics! Alec Baldwin might run for mayor of NYC in 2013 and he’s got Mr. and Mrs. Affleck backing him already. alec_baldwinAfter the recent Weinergate scandal broke, apparently Baldwin felt as though the dynamics had shifted and the race would be changed since Weiner HAD been a former golden boy of the Dems but now falls in the Stupid category. Baldwin’s rep has stated not to rule out a run for office and Baldwin himself has even hinted that next year may be his last on 30 Rock. Plus, in January Baldwin told CNN’s Eliot Spitzer that he would be interested, but only if he could run specifically in New York City. Garner stated in an interview recently that she and her husband Affleck were backing him, saying he could give them all a run for everyone’s money. What do you think?

I don’t even want to give this next person space on the Yak’s front page but I have to because it’s so completely disgusting that people should know….they should know that Tracy Morgan isn’t just some funny guy from 30 Rock as well but rather an anger management needing homophobe. 61162442 On June 3rd, Morgan was giving a comedy show in Nashville and apparently went on a tirade so offensive (it was) that now the non-profit group Truth Wins Out has gotten involved in speaking out against his actions. A recent Facebook note from Kevin Reynolds titled “Why I No Longer Like Tracy Morgan – A Must Read” tells of Reynold’s recent experience at that show and the things Morgan said that have inflamed the gay rights community. Reynolds says that he has a very thick skin when it comes to good humor, and that he’d been prepared for “a good ribbing of straight gay humor”, since he himself had been a fan of Morgan’s since his SNL days.

However, Reynolds went on to say that Morgan essentially “took it upon himself to mention about how he feels all this gay shit was crazy and that women are a gift from God and that ‘Born this Way’ is bulls-it, gay is a choice, and the reason he knows this is exactly because ‘God don’t make no mistakes’ (referring to God not making someone gay cause that would be a mistake).  He said that there is no way a woman could love and have sexual desire for another woman, that’s just a woman pretending because she hates a f–king man.  He took time to visit the bullshit of this bullying stuff and informed us that the gays needed to quit being pussies and not be whining about something as insignificant as bullying.” Apparently Morgan went on to say that “gay” was something that children learned from the media as well as programming.

But it doesn’t end there. Tracy Morgan has a son, and said at that show that if his son were gay he’d better talk to him (Morgan) like a man and not in the stereotypical high pitched effeminite voice people think all gay men have. More fun for Morgan’s son, I guess if his son does use the high pitched voice he would “stab the little (insert offensive ‘N’ word here) to death”. If someone who is gay takes offense to Morgan’s words, he doesn’t care either because he says that if a gay man can “take it up the (insert slang for donkey here), they can take a joke too”. Nice, huh? Reynolds, who keep in mind was in the audience, also states that during this portion of the show Morgan’s demeanor changed and seemed to be completely serious. “He was truly filled with some hate towards us.”

About 10-15 people left the auditorium at the time, but Reynolds stayed, stating that he knew Morgan wanted them to leave and to do so would be giving him that satisfaction. The Ryman auditorium, which housed Morgan’s show, stated that they do not control the content of the show but were also obviously apologetic for offense anyone may have taken. Evan Hurst, director of Truth Wins Out, issued a statement as well, saying that while comedians have long pushed the envelope with controversial subjects and good comedians are able to do it in a way that keeps people laughing but also that directing hatred at vulnerable kids isn’t funny by any means. I don’t know about all of you, but my opinion of this man has definitely changed.

Well, that’s it. I can hear the garbageman coming down the street and I need to get this out to the curb. You should probably make sure yours is out too! Don’t forget to come on into our forums and tell us what you think! Have a good Take Out The Trash story idea? Send a private message to KaysarRocks in our forums or leave a comment below!

The Yak Takes Out The Trash! June 3rd, 2011

Hello everyone, it’s time for the Yak to take out the trash! Every week we’ll have all those little bits and pieces of buzz that we felt needed to be shared and dumped at the same time. Recycled, if you will. But either way, we’re here to dish the dirt before it heads off to the landfill.

Well, well, well, could the “twilight” be fading just a bit for one of the hit movie series’ stars? Taylor Lautner, set to appear in the movie “Abduction” in September (actor/producer), has been dropped by his publicist Robin Baum, of Slate PR. After just three months, Baum, who also reps Johnny Depp and Daniel Craig, abruptly dropped Lautner. Baum hasn’t commented on reasons, and Lautner’s management couldn’t be reached for comment but word on the street is that Lautner’s father, Daniel Lautner, isn’t exactly an easy guy to work with. taylordaniellautnerJust a tip for you, Daddy Lautner……go google Michael Lohan and see how far being an overbearing stage father gets you.

This past Wednesday, Simon Cowell, executive producer of hit series Britan’s Got Talent and X-Factor, angrily denied allegations that the winners of said series had been picked from the very start. simoncowellOr rather, Syco, Cowell’s production company, dismissed the allegations as being “100% totally false”. Reps for the company told the Hollywood Reporter that they were taking legal action against a website for posting a memo purportedly from a Sony Music exec which said they had insider knowledge of the “fix”. One of the allegations made was that Ronan Parke, the 12 year old favored to win Saturday’s final of Britain’s Got Talent, has been under contract by Syco and groomed for the past two years for the show. ronanparkeParke, who is getting Justin Bieber comparisons, was also according to this memo, told to play up his youthful looks and to be more effeminate. (Sorry, but what 12 year old wouldn’t have youthful looks?). This memo went on to say that Parke had been picked to win before auditions for the 2011 series had even begun. Producers of the show emphatically state that the blog, which has been widely spread on the web, is completely false. Well..hmmm..there’s always conspiracy theories when it comes to shows like this and while I’d like to think they’re false, it’s also been apparent on many seasons of various shows such as American Idol, etc. that the judges do have their favorites and at points have not been so subtle in their urging of fans to vote for them. Plus, if you read the fine print at the end of shows such as Idol, and even Project Runway, it does state that the producers of the show do have a final say in the results themselves. I’m not sure what to think about this honestly.

Who wants to see J-Lo in the buff? Well,  her first husband, Ojani Noa, wants to help you. ojani-noa-and-jennifer-lopezApparently he has been shopping around one of the all too common celebrity sex tapes of himself and Mrs. Marc Anthony. He’s gotten bids too, from major porn companies, of the alleged “honeymoon sex tape”. Anyone remember “A Night in Paris?”. Starting bids of the hundreds of thousands of dollars are expected to skyrocket into the millions now that several top-tier porn companies have entered the bidding war. J-Lo has apparently fought for years to keep this tape under wraps, as the footage itself comes from the 1997 honeymoon (before she broke out into total fame) and apparently has 27 hours of footage, with 15-20 minutes of total nudity in it. What I find funny is that all these porn companies are salivating to get their hands on the footage, yet Noa’s producing partner, Claudia Vazquez, states that it’s not technically a “sex tape” either. The marriage was short-lived, as they divorced after a year, and for several years after that they were on good terms. It’s because of that amicability that Noa got many possessions, including the tapes themselves (seriously J-Lo?).

Eventually Noa and Lopez had a falling out, over her firing of him from her restaurant and later over a “tell-all” and biopic that Noa and Vazquez were trying to produce. During the research for this biopic, they discovered this footage. Lopez managed to block the tell-all book in 2006, however, last week a Los Angeles judge cleared the tapes for release. So from the looks of it, we’ll get a view of Lopez we have never seen before….I wonder if it’ll be on the floor, London to Ibiza. What do you think?

Hey, join us in our forums and let’s chat, about this and everything else we have there! Look up, you’ll see the link to it there!

‘Heavily Intoxicated’ Nicolas Cage Arrested In The Big Easy

He might be Leaving Las Vegas, but he isn’t leaving New Orleans with a nice domestic violence charge. Winning! Nicolas Cage, Academy Award winning actor and nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, went on a tear Friday night in New Orleans’ French Quarter. This tear ended with his arrest on several charges, including domestic abuse battery.

This all started at about 11:30 pm local time, when Cage, who is in town filming a movie, began arguing with his wife in the 600 block of Dumaine Street. The building they were arguing in front of was one Cage insisted they’d been renting. His wfie disagreed and he grabbed  her by the arm, trying to drag her to the property he believed was theirs. After that? He started hitting vehicles and tried to get into a taxi. Cops were called, and they tried to get a heavily intoxicated Cage out of the taxi. Mr. Cage expressed his displeasure at this notion quite loudly and in return, he got arrested. He was charged with domestic abuse battery, disturbing the peace and public drunkenness. Bond was set at $11,000, and his booking date has been set at May 31st.

A “stay away” order  was waived, meaning he does not have to keep away from his wife and no visible signs of injury were present on her arm. Cage was released from jail on Saturday afternoon. Cage, 47, and his third wife, Alice Kim, have a 5-year-old son. His previous two marriages, to Patricia Arquette and Lisa Marie Presley, ended in divorce.

Click to discuss this and all other things (which is pretty much true!) in our forum!

Flashback Friday: The Westside Middle School Massacre in Jonesboro

Today’s Flashback Friday in History, was a very sad moment indeed.

It was March 24th, 1998. 13 year old Mitchell Johnson and 11 year old Andrew Golden had, the night before, loaded Johnson’s mothers Dodge Caravan with camping supplies, snacks, two semi-automatic rifles, one bolt-action rifle and four handguns which they’d stolen from Golden’s grandfathers house. On the morning of March 24th, they drive the Caravan to Westside Middle School located in unincorporated Craighead County, Arkansas, United States, near Jonesboro. When they got to the school, Golden pulled the fire alarm while Johnson took the weapons to the woods outside of the school; Golden joined him after pulling the alarm. The two boys opened fire as teachers and students began filing out of the school. The boys killed four female students and one teacher, while wounding ten others. They then attempted to run back to the van and escape, but police captured them. Their plan was to run away, evidenced by the survival gear, food and camping supplies.

These two boys were amongst the youngest ever to be charged with murder in American history and were it not for their ages, the prosecutor stated he would have sought the death penalty. The maximum sentence under Arkansas law at the time was confinement until the age of 14! They actually served longer than that due to the additional weapons charges; Golden was released on May 25, 2007 and Johnson was released on August 11, 2005. If they’d commited their crimes years later, even at the ages they were at the time of the crime, they could have possibly been sentenced to life. Obviously, for Johnson at least, the confinement did nothing for his character as on January 1, 2007 he was arrested for drug posession and carrying a prohibited weapon; he’d been riding in a van with his roommate, who ironically had been sentenced in 1999 for killing his father with a crossbow. They claimed that their original motivation for the shootings was due to bullying and they only wanted to scare, not kill people.

This brings up a major Catch-22 for me, as it did at the time of the shootings. On one hand, bullying is a major issue and has been for a long time. It is horrific the things that kids do and say to each other and as adults, it’s our responsibility to set an example and show why bullying is wrong. On the other hand, obviously it’s not the right thing to kill people who have bullied you. So where is the balance? What do you all think?

Flashback Friday! Dough Boy and Stones

Hungry for a biscuit? Remember the ones that mom used to make? That savory, luscious smell of fresh baked rolls wafting out from the oven as you waited in hungry anticipation, your mouth watering as you wait. Well folks, 50 years ago today a gastronomical tradition began in many a household. March 18th, 1961 saw the introduction of the Poppin’ Fresh Pillsbury Doughboy, that iconic symbol of biscuitry everywhere. Poke that stomach, hear that giggle, open your mouth and in goes….sorry, I couldn’t find a word to rhyme with biscuit!

Now, while the Dough Boy kept us all in good humor as we ate, the Rolling Stones had something else in mind on March 18th, 1965 as they were fined 5 pounds for public urination. Maybe that’s why Jagger bounces all over the stage when he performs, hmmmmmmmm. Either way, on that day Jagger, Bill Wyman and Brian Jones tried to use the toilet at a gas station in West Ham, England but were turned away. When you gotta go, you gotta go. And went they did. Busted! But really, what’s 5 pounds to relieve your bladder?

So, on this day in history, we got biscuits and we got…well, relief. What do you have? Tell us about it in our forums here!

Flashback Friday! The Day The Popsicle Was Split and a Jackass Was Born

It was March 11th, 1986 and I was in the midst of my pre-adolescent Michael Jackson obsession which included but was not limited to a replica of that infamous glove, a 45″ record player with a picture of him on it that I carried everywhere and of course the cherished Thriller album. I grew up with three older siblings, all boys, so I had to grab every luxury I could as fast as I could or it would inevitably end up shredded. I would like to send a belated apology to every Barbie doll I had that my brothers told me were in a car wreck (in that Barbie car of course) and had to have her legs amputated or risk gangrene.

Our household, I’d say, was a typical Midwestern middle class home. We had the Atari (and still do, it works save for one paddle that is broken). We had the Commodore. We had cable television and HBO that we watched Fraggle Rock on. Every week my parents would buy an 8 pack of soda, back when they came in the glass bottles and each one of my siblings and I would get to drink two for the week. Our choice as to when. I’d save mine for Friday and Saturday nights when dad would pop popcorn and we’d sit down together to watch Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Dallas and Falcon Crest. But the coup de gras for me was the popsicles. God I loved popsicles, but not just any popsicle…..it had to be the twinsicle. I’m sure y’all remember those lovely gems, they were two popsicles in one, complete with double sticks. I think the main reason I loved them was because I felt like I was cheating the nutrition gods by getting a double treat. It was golden, a masterpiece of childhood sugar frenzy. But sadly, on this day in history, March 11th, 1968, Popsicle announced it’s plan to end the traditional twin-stick popsicle for a single one. Greedy buzzards, the lot of them! Gone were the days of indulgence and gluttony over this frozen delight. Sad, truly sad.

But never fear, my dear Popsicle lovers, because another great moment occurred on this day in history. It was March 11th, 1971 and a genius made his way into this world…..a genius by the name of Philip John Clapp. Who? Philip John Clapp! Aw, come on, he’s a jackass! Okay, I’ll give you a clue. His friends have done things such as getting their buttcheeks pierced together, stapled notes to their body, made snow cones out of actual snow, peed on them and then ate them……still stumped? Okay, FINE. He co-starred with The Rock in “Walking Tall”. Ding, ding ding, we have a winner! Yes, yes, yes my friends, rejoice for on this day in history the premiere jackass, Johnny Knoxville himself, was born to bless this world with his crazy hijinks.

Born to a Sunday school teacher mom and a tire selling father said to encourage his son’s practical jokes from early on, Johnny Knoxville was known then as “P.J.”. Raised in Knoxville, TN (get it?), one of his earliest pranks was to fake a report card to show all F’s when he actually had earned all A’s, and spread false rumors of his own venereal disease. Lasting less than a month at the Pasadena Academy of Dramatic Arts, he’d moved to Hollywood with dreams of being an actor. He soon began to write for skateboarding magazines like Blunt, Bikini, and Big Brother, where the staff enjoyed a pasttime of creating dangerously stupid stunts- such as Knoxville displaying his willingness to test the dependability of a bulletproof vest by shooting himself with a .38. The editor of this magazine soon convinced Knoxville to videotape these stunts, and released under the name of Big Brother Video Triology it soon became an underground cult hit. Word soon spread and soon Comedy Central and MTV were in an all out bidding war. MTV won out, and Jackass was born.

So, even with the popsicle split, I’m sure “P.J.” and his boys would find a creative way to remedy that travesty…..maybe I should give them a call!

Christina Aguilera: In Custody, Pink Tweets

As if things couldn’t get any worse for this talented songstress; after her botching the national anthem at the Superbowl and nearly falling over at the Grammys, Christina Aguilera was taken into custody early Tuesday morning in West Hollywood “for her own safety”. The LA County Sheriff’s office states that she was taken into custody because she was intoxicated and no one else could take care of her. Aguilera was brought in until she sobered up.

You may or may not have heard the rumors earlier this year that she was found in the bedroom of actor Jeremy Renner, passed out on his bed during his 40th birthday party. Renner told Jimmy Kimmel in February that this was incorrect, and it may be, however her latest antics certainly show that she is having issues.

Pink even threw out her own comment via Twitter: “Out of Myself, Britney and Christina – didn’t everyone think I was gonna be the troublemaker? LOOK MA!!! NO CUFFS!” Too funny!

Authorities state that she wasn’t technically arrested, she is still in custody and will be leaving soon. However, her boyfriend Matthew Rutler was arrested for driving while intoxicated. What do you think? Leave us a comment below, then come chat with us in the Forum HERE!

Oscar Week: Didja Know? More Fun Oscar Facts!

For today’s Didja Know, we thought we’d visit memorable red carpet fashions from the Academy Awards! Presenting, the Top 5 Best and Top 5 Worst Oscar Gowns throughout the years! It’s definitely hard to pick from so many, feel free to tell us what yours would be in our forums!

Top 5 Best

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Top 5 Worst

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Well, there you have it! Think we will see some “bests” or “worsts” at this years Oscars? Leave us a comment below!

Oscar Week: Didja Know? Fun Random Oscar Facts!!

Let’s have some fun today, with some random fun Oscar facts. These are just fun little tidbits you may or may not already know, but will take you on a fun little trip down Oscar Lane. Join us in our forums HERE and tell us what you think!

Didja Know?

– The most Oscars awarded to any film were 11. There is a current three-way tie for that number; Ben Hur in 1959, Titanic in 1997 and The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King (which won in every category it was nominated for) in 2003.

– The most Oscars to any film that didn’t win Best Picture: Cabaret won 8 Oscars in 1972, but lost Best Picture to The Godfather.

– The only silent film to win Best Picture was Wings in 1927.

– The only X-rated film to win Best Picture was Midnight Cowboy in 1969.

– The shortest film to win Best Picture was Marty in 1955.

– The longest film to win Best Picture was Gone With The Wind in 1939, which had a running time of 234 minutes. (That’s 3 hours and 54 minutes!)

– The last movie in black and white to win Best Picture was Schindler’s List in 1993. Before that was The Apartment in 1960.

– The most Oscars to any actor was 3, to Walter Brennan (all Best Supporting Actor) and Jack Nicholson (2 Best Actor, 1 Best Supporting Actor).

– The most Oscars to any actress was 4, to Katherine Hepburn (all Best Actress).

– The youngest Best Actor winner was Adrien Brody, at age 29, for The Pianist in 2002.

– The youngest Best Actress winner was Marlee Matlin, at age 21, for Children Of A Lesser God in 1986.

– The oldest Best Actor winner was Henry Fonda, at age 76, for On Golden Pond in 1981.

– The oldest Best Actress winner was Jessica Tandy, at age 80, for Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.

– The only performers to be nominated for playing the same character in two different films was Bing Crosby as Father O’Malley in Going My Way in 1944 and The Bells of Saint Mary’s in 1945; Peter O’Toole as King Henry II in Becket in 1964 and The Lion In Winter in 1968; Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather in 1972 and The Godfather: Part II in 1974; Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler in 1961 and The Color Of Money in 1986; Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth in 1998 and Elizabeth: The Golden Age in 2007.

– The most nominations to any film was 14 for All About Eve in 1950 and Titanic in 1997.

– The most nominations to any individual was to Walt Disney, with 59 nominations.

– The only ties for major awards was for Best Actor in 1931 and that was between Wallace Beery in The Champ and Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as for Best Actress in 1968 between Katharine Hepburn in The Lion In Winter and Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl.

– The Academy Awards have been postponed three times: in 1938 for one week due to floods, in 1968 for two days due to the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. and in 1981 for one day due to the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.

– Peter O’Toole has been nominated 8 times for Best Actor and has lost all 8 times. He did receive an honorary Oscar in 2003 but check out what he was nominated for and who he lost to:
– 1962: O’Toole was nominated for Lawrence of Arabia but was beaten by Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird
– 1964: O’Toole was nominated for Becket but was beaten by Rex Harrison for My Fair Lady
– 1968: O’Toole was nominated for The Lion in Winter but was beaten by Cliff Robertson for Charly
– 1969: O’Toole was nominated for Goodbye, Mr. Chips but was beaten by John Wayne for True Grit
– 1972: O’Toole was nominated for The Ruling Class but was beaten by Marlon Brando for The Godfather who declined the award
– 1980: O’Toole was nominated for The Stunt Man but was beaten by Robert De Niro for Raging Bull
– 1982: O’Toole was nominated for My Favorite Year but was beaten by Ben Kingsley for Gandhi
– 2006: O’Toole was nominated for Venus but was beaten by Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland

Join us tomorrow for another edition of Oscar Didja Know! Leave us a comment below and let us know what you think!

Oscar Week: Didja Know?

Each day this week we’ll be featuring various factoids and tidbits about the Oscars. We found them interesting and thought you would too! So, for today’s feature, we wanted to talk about lost and/or missing Oscar statuettes. It’s happened more than you think, but I have say, if I ever one won, it would be locked up tighter than Fort Knox!

Over the years AMPAS (Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences) has put into place policies to prevent the Oscar from turning into a mere piece of commerce or movie memorabilia in order to keep to the credo that the only way to get an Oscar is to actually win it. The one exception is if it’s bequeathed to a friend or family member by the actual winner. Since 1950 there has been in place a “Winner’s Agreement”, which is a binding legal document that restricts all winners and their heirs from selling the Oscar statuette. There may be a few Oscars popping up for auction here and there, but AMPAS reports that they’re generally pre-1950 awards. However, the Oscar has found itself in some strange situations, so sit back, relax, and read on about 10 of the weirdest places Oscar has found himself in.

In 1996 Clark Gable’s Oscar for 1934’s It Happened One Night was purchased at auction for $607,500 by an anonymous bidder, anonymous for a short while anyway. Keeping to the tradition of not wanting the Oscar to end up in strange hands, this bidder turned out to be none other than Steven Spielberg who promptly donated this Oscar back to the Academy.

In 1940 Jimmy Stewart won an Oscar for The Philadelphia Story. After the ceremony, he gave it to his father, who displayed it in the front window of the family business J.M. Stewart & Co. Hardware. It stayed there for nearly 20 years.

F. Keogh Gleason worked as a set decorator at MGM for 40 years and ended up winning a total of four Oscars. In the 1980’s, three of those awards were eventually found in a West Hollywood pawnshop called “Elliott Salter Gives Instant Loans” (for his work on An American In Paris, Gigi and Somebody Up There Likes Me). From what the shop owner states, Gleason’s son Pat brought them in for some fast cash. He later came back and reclaimed them.

In 1938 Alice Brady won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in In Old Chicago. She was too ill with cancer to attend the actual ceremony, and when her name was read as the winner, a stranger bounded on stage to accept the award on her behalf. The kicker is that she didn’t know this person and her Oscar was never seen again. Sadly, the Academy wasn’t able to reissue her one in time before her eventual death from cancer.

“Who’s the black private dick, that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft, ya, damn right”. Remember that song? Isaac Hayes wrote and sang the theme to Shaft and won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1972. That award sits in the entrance to his Memphis restaurant “Music, Food and Passion”.

Shelley Winter’s 1959 Oscar (Best Supporting Actress, The Diary of Anne Frank) was bequeathed to the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam.

Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Ghost. Although she was reluctant to let it go, it was sent out for cleaning by the Academy to R.S. Owens of Chicago. UPS later told them that it was lost in transit. It was later found, of all places, in a trash bin at the Ontario, CA airport by a security guard and returned to Goldberg. She has said that she’s dropped plans to have it cleaned and it will never leave her house again.

Margaret O’Brien and Shirley Temple both received mini-Oscars for ‘Outstanding Child Actress’. O’Briens’ 1944 Oscar was reportedly stolen by the maid in 1954. The Academy replaced it with a full sized one, and nearly 40 years later at a Pasadena City College swap meet the original turned up! It was returned to O’Brien.

In 2006 William Hurt was moving between homes and reported his 1985 Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman stolen during the move. It was later found by the police in a ditch, but it was badly damaged. Hurt has yet to take the Academy up on their offer to have it repaired.

Nestor Almendros, an acclaimed Spanish Director of Photography, was nominated in 1979 for his work on Days of Thunder. Apparently, he didn’t want to go to the ceremony, thinking the other DP’s and films had a better chance of winning. Close friend Scotty Bowers pulled him into the car and they barely made it to the ceremony, just as the doors were being closed. Being grateful for his friends urging him to go, he bequeathed the Oscar to Bowers before his (Almendros) death due to complication of AIDS in 1992. Bowers, who is a caterer, states he keeps it in his home, loaning it out once in awhile for parties.

What do you think? Would you lock yours up if you won? Would you display it for all the world to see? Let us know below, and come join us in the Forum HERE to talk about all things Oscars! Don’t forget to vote in the Oscar polls too!