The Oscar mystery
The classic continues to charm millions of viewers, but the movie gained one particularly notable famous fan. The King of Pop, the late Michael Jackson, proved his love for the epic when he purchased David O. Selznick’s Best Picture Academy Award for a whopping $1,542,500 from an auction in 1999. Bizarrely, when the superstar passed in 2009, executors of his state began taking inventory of his assets only to discover the golden statue was missing.
Premiere pandemonium
In a true reflection of the film’s wild popularity, the premiere proved to be a grand spectacle. Over 300,000 people flocked to the streets of Atlanta in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the movie’s stars. The governor of Georgia, declared the day, December 15, a state holiday. A parade of limousines transported the stars to Loew’s Grand Theater and the star-studded evening would also include a lavish costume ball. American President Jimmy Carter called the affair “the biggest event to happen in the South in my lifetime.”