4,000 Oscar Ballots Are Missing

By JEFF WILSON, .c The Associated Press

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (March 7) - Ten mailbags with all 4,000 Oscar ballots are missing in a real Hollywood whodunit for Academy Awards executives, a distinguished accounting firm and the Postal Service.

A week after mailing the ballots, tucked in business envelopes with 33-cent, first-class postage, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was getting panicky Tuesday because members hadn't received them.

The deadline for returning ballots is March 21. The Oscars are March 26.

''We mailed the ballots, 4,000 of them, to Academy members last Wednesday and Price Waterhouse Coopers took the 10 mailbags to the Beverly Hills Post Office and left them there as would anybody,'' Academy spokesman John Pavlik said.

''That's the last they have been seen,'' Pavlik said, adding foul play isn't suspected.

The mailing had been treated with considerable fanfare by the Oscar people, who invite the news media to witness the annual ritual at the Academy's offices.

In Washington, Postal Service spokeswoman Monica Hand said the agency is investigating.

If the ballots aren't found, the numbers on them will be invalidated and new ones will be printed and mailed.

Ballots have been lost by the post office before. In 1982, nominating ballots were mistakenly stuck into a bin marked for nonpriority bulk mail. They were found in time.

AP-NY-03-07-00 1620EST

Source: America Online, no url available

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), March 07, 2000

Answers

Url for article above:

http://www.ne wsday.com/ap/entertainment/ap293.htm

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), March 07, 2000.

That Url belongs to the following updated article. Two of ten mail sacks have been located. Will Hollywood survive? ;-) .....

March 7, 2000

4,000 Oscar Ballots Are Missing

By JEFF WILSON, Associated Press Writer

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Ten mailbags with all 4,000 Oscar ballots were missing Tuesday in a real Hollywood whodunit for Academy Awards executives, a distinguished accounting firm and the Postal Service.

Part of the mystery was solved in the early afternoon when postal workers found two of the missing sacks, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spokesman John Pavlik said. They had been hauled from the 90210 post office to a bulk mail warehouse in South Central Los Angeles.

''They have tracked them in the third-class system and found some of the sacks in the general mail facility,'' post office spokeswoman Terri Bouffiou said. ''We anticipate finding them all there.

A week after mailing the ballots, tucked in business envelopes with 33-cent, first-class postage, the Academy learned members still hadn't received them.

The deadline for returning ballots is March 21. The Oscars are March 26.

''We mailed the ballots, 4,000 of them, to Academy members last Wednesday and Price Waterhouse Coopers took the 10 mailbags to the Beverly Hills Post Office and left them there as would anybody,'' Pavlik said.

The mailing had been treated with considerable fanfare by the Oscar people, who invite the news media to witness the annual ritual at the Academy's offices.

If all of the ballots aren't found, the numbers on them will be invalidated and new ones will be printed and mailed as early as Tuesday night.

Ballots have been lost by the post office before. In 1982, nominating ballots were mistakenly stuck into a bin marked for nonpriority bulk mail. They were found in time.

On the Net: http://www.oscars.com

AP-NY-03-07-00 1707EST

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), March 07, 2000.

Either foul play is involved with the missing Oscar ballots and Oscar statuettes, or there are Y2k shipping and postal service snafus going on here. Hmm.

Friday, March 17, 2000

Oscars stolen

In this file photograph Academy employees Richard Wilson (L) and Dina Michelle unpack and inspect Oscar statuettes as they arrive from the manufacturer March 21, 1996. (Photo Courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - REUTERS)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- It's Hollywood's latest caper: Who took the Oscars? Nine days before the Academy Awards, police today searched for 55 of the coveted statuettes that vanished from a trucking company loading dock.

Spokesman John Pavlik said the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said late Thursday that it is believed the Oscars "have been stolen."

The academy has already had to grapple with a batch of missing ballots this year. According to a brief statement, the Oscars disappeared from a loading dock used by Roadway Express, the academy's regular delivery company. The company did not immediately return a phone message.

Scott Siegel, head of R.S. Owens Co., the Chicago company that makes the Oscars, said he learned Monday that 55 of them, the entire shipment, had vanished. They had been supposed to arrive Friday.

"They were packed in cartons and there was no ID to indicate they were anything special," Siegel said today.

Since the Academy has about 20 Oscars in storage, he said the company will have to make 35 more in time for the March 26 ceremony. The company's Oscar team will have to work overtime to do so, he said.

"It just puts a tremendous amount of pressure on us. This is our busiest time of the year," Siegel said. "We're doing a month's worth in a week."

Siegel, who noted the shipment was insured, declined to say how much an Oscar costs.

"It's worth millions to the recipient, as we always say," he said.

Each Oscar is 131/2 inches tall, is covered with gold-plated britannium and weighs about 8 pounds. Awards are to be given out in 23 categories plus three special awards, whose winners have already been announced. The precise number of statuettes given out will depend on how many people wind up sharing awards in various categories.

The origin of the Oscar nickname -- the statuette is officially called the Academy Award of Merit -- is unclear. One legend has it that an academy official, Margaret Herrick, exclaimed in 1931 that it "reminds me of my uncle Oscar."

Earlier this month, sacks containing 4,000 ballots were misrouted after delivery to the Beverly Hills Post Office by an accounting firm. The Academy was forced to print and mail new ones.

The deadline for returning the ballots was extended from March 21 to March 23, just three days before the awards show.

Source: CNews, Canada

http://www.can oe.ca/TopStories/oscars_mar17.html

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), March 18, 2000.