Note: If viewing Michael Jackson Ultimate Archive on archive.org (Wayback Machine), please view the latest snapshot of this page for the most up-to-date information and media.

Purchasing Director David O. Selznick's "Best Picture" Oscar Award for "Gone With The Wind"

Date confirmed in “The New York Times” (archived) (“Michael Jackson paid $1,542,500 at Sotheby'syesterday [June 12, 1999]”)

The allure of Hollywood proved its potency as records fell at a New York auction of film memorabilia.

Superstar Michael Jackson paid a record sum to own a coveted Oscar.

The Thriller star paid $1.54m at auction to own the Best Film Oscar awarded to producer David O Selznick for Gone With The Wind.

Bidding by telephone and through an agent, the bid swept away the previous record for Hollywood memorabilia - a mere $607,000 for Clark Gable's best actor Oscar for his role in the 1934 film It Happened One Night.

And the Jackson bid was five times more than the highest pre-sale estimated price at the New York Sotheby's auction.

A Sotheby's spokesman said the purchase had fulfilled Michael Jackson's "lifelong desire to own that particular object".

But the singer, who made his millions with worldwide hits like Billie Jean, Thriller and Ben, only realised his ambition after a protracted duel with another telephone bidder.

Dana Hawkes, Sotheby's memorabilia and collectibles specialist, said: "It's just one of those objects where the sky is the limit.

"I had no idea that it was going to go as high as it did."

“The New York Times” (June 13, 1999) (archived)

For someone else's Oscar, Michael Jackson paid $1,542,500 at Sotheby's yesterday. The singer's winning bid, for the gold-plated Best Picture statuette awarded in 1939 to the producer David O. Selznick for ''Gone With the Wind,'' dwarfed the previous Oscar auction record of $607,500 paid in 1996.

But Mr. Jackson, whose own doodads have occasionally gone on the auction block and who has been known to bid on esoteric items like an obscure Sinclair Lewis novel, was not alone in taking nostalgia to inflationary heights.