What do you do with a trophy when the winner is no longer around to accept it? That’s just the dilemma the Academy Awards is facing this Sunday when the Best Supporting Role is announced. The late, great Heath Ledger (we finally say him in The Dark Knight - a creepy and amazing performance) is up for the award, but since his death last January, this has been nagging question for all involved.
Heath, who died from an accidental overdose of prescription meds, was NOT married, and therefore the normal procedure of giving a posthumous award to one’s spouse won’t work. The next step is to give the golden statue to the winner’s oldest child. Ok, but Heath’s oldest and only child, Matilda Rose, is just three years old. Minor glitch right? But wait there’s a catch. A contract must be signed and while Matilda may be as brilliant as her mum and dad some day, she’s simply too young to sign. Here’s more from Yahoo:
Academy tradition calls for a posthumous statuette to go to the spouse, or, if there is no living spouse, to the oldest child. Ledger wasn’t married, and Matilda is his only child .
Yet because she is only 3, Matilda is legally unable to sign the winner’s agreement — a contract required of all nominees that says the recipient will not resell his or her Oscar without first offering it back to the academy for $1. The agreement is the academy’s way of limiting what might otherwise be a lively secondary market in Oscars.
“From our point of view, somebody has to sign the winner’s agreement, and a 3-year-old can’t do that,” says Davis. “Nor can a parent sign any kind of legal document that obligates a child to do something once they turn 18. I didn’t know that before we looked into it, but it’s a good law.”
After conversations with Williams and with Ledger’s family in Australia, the academy hit on a solution: “In the event that Heath Ledger should be selected as the supporting actor recipient, the statuette will be held in trust for his daughter by her mother, Michelle Williams , until Matilda reaches the age of 18,” says Davis. “At that point, she may execute what we call an heir’s agreement and keep the statuette forever — or, if she chooses not to do that, it will return to us.”
In other words, the Oscar statuette can spend the next 15 years with Matilda, but her mother, who has signed the academy’s agreement, will be the legal custodian. When Matilda is old enough, she can claim ownership by signing the agreement. If she does so, she’ll become the official owner and will be legally bound not to sell her Oscar; if she opts not to sign, the statuette will revert to the academy without any payment.
As for who would accept the award, that — like many other aspects of the ceremony — is a matter that show producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon are keeping under wraps. Davis will only say that tradition calls for a posthumous Oscar to be accepted either by a close relative or “an artist who was close to the nominee, and who can speak credibly for him or her.”
There’s little doubt Matilda, under the watchful eye of her protective mother, will sign the contract and keep her dad’s statue safely secure, IF he wins. And chances are good he will, with experts and the public giving him an 83% chance of picking up the Oscar. Here are the nominees for Best Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin - Milk, Robert Downey Jr. - Tropic Thunder, Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight, Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road, Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
While this Oscar dilemma may be temporarily resolved, we still don’t know who will actually accept on behalf Ledger should he win. I’d put my guesses on Michelle or someone closely affiliated with the film, maybe even Christian Bale (a long shot, especially after his recently revealed F-bomb tirade) or perhaps director Christopher Nolan. At this point, your guess is as good as mine.
Glosslip plans to do some live-blogging this Sunday of the Oscars, stay tuned for more info.
Source: D
