Estate Sued For Seeking to Sell Mary Pickford Oscar for Charity

Estate Sued For Seeking to Sell Mary Pickford Oscar for Charity

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Lawsuit Forces Estate to Pay for Legal Fees Instead of Donating Money to Charity

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- As final preparations for Sunday's Oscars award ceremony are being made, the Oscar awarded to Mary Pickford, the film legend who received the first-ever Best Actress Oscar for a speaking role in 1929, is the subject of a hotly contested lawsuit filed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences against the executors of the estate of Beverly Rogers. The three executors, who will not make one penny from the sale of the Oscar, are merely trying to carry out the will of their sister and aunt Beverly Rogers. Mrs. Rogers was the widow of Pickford's late husband Charles "Buddy" Rogers, who was married to Pickford when she died in 1979.

The will provides that that the Oscar be sold and the funds go "to support the acting profession and the Buddy Rogers Symphony for young musicians."

Since 1950, the Academy has required all winners to sign a "Receipt for Academy Award Statuette" granting the Academy a right of first refusal to buy the statuettes back from the winners for $10. However, since Mary Pickford's 1929 Oscar for the film Coquette predated 1950, Pickford was not required at the time to sign any such Receipt.

The Academy claims that the executors are bound by a "Receipt" which includes a right of first refusal relating to an Honorary Oscar presented to Ms. Pickford in 1975. The executors dispute the authenticity of Ms. Pickford's signature on the "Receipt" and claim that the "Receipt" has no impact on the Estate's right to sell the 1929 Oscar for charity.

"The family is disappointed that the Academy has chosen to sue the executors for trying to sell the 1929 Mary Pickford Oscar in order to donate the money to charity, which will support the next generation of actors and musicians," said their attorney Mark Passin, partner at Dreier Stain Kahan Browne Woods George LLP.

The executors are not required by the will to sell the two other Oscars in the Estate, and they are not interested in selling them, preferring to keep the Oscars as valued family heirlooms.

"The heirs are merely trying to carry out the wishes of their deceased sister and aunt, and they will not make any money from the sale of the Oscar," said Mr. Passin. "Unfortunately, the executors are being painted by the Academy as greedy, when in fact they are trying to make sure the money is donated to a worthy cause," states Mr. Passin.

Dreier Stein Kahan Browne Woods George LLP

Dreier Stein Kahan Browne Woods George LLP is headquartered in Santa Monica's Water Garden complex, with a second office at Fox Plaza in Century City. Its primary areas of practice include entertainment litigation, commercial litigation, intellectual property, media, corporate, finance, securities, tax, franchise and distribution law, mergers and acquisitions, labor and employment, private client, bankruptcy, insolvency and other areas of transactional and litigation law. Dreier Stein Kahan Browne Woods George LLP serves as the west coast affiliate of Manhattan-based Dreier LLP, a firm that represents institutional, entrepreneurial and individual clients in diverse sectors of financial, industrial, hospitality and service-oriented markets.

Source: Dreier Stein Kahan Browne Woods George LLP

CONTACT: Amy Greenfield of Van Prooyen Greenfield LLP, +1-212-289-6733,
greenfield@vpgllp.com

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