NAJIB’S STEPSON RIZA AZIZ, JHO LOW HIT THE HOLLYWOOD SPOTLIGHT AGAIN: IF THEY CAN STEAL BILLIONS OF THEIR COUNTRY’S MONEY, WHY NOT MARLON’S OSCAR

It was a tale with a cast of characters more far-fetched than any ofLeonardo DiCaprio’s movies. The unlikely plot included Marlon Brando’s long lost Oscar, the beleaguered Malaysian prime minister, a Harrow-educated financier and playboy, $30 million mansions, private jets, yachts, a supermodel-studded gala in St Tropez, the US Department of Justice, and a $57 million Monet painting.

There were even cameos for Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Througout it all DiCaprio protested his innocence, but the story was more than a little embarrassing for him.
It all began with the star’s long-held passion to make The Wolf of Wall Street, a movie about the drug-fueled swindler Jordan Belfort. For years no-one would touch the risque script.
But then a newly formed Hollywood studio called Red Granite Pictures, co-founded by a relative of Malaysian leader Najob Razak, appeared and put up the $100 million budget. Red Granite then announced itself to the movie world by holding a spectacular party on the beach in Cannes, where Kanye West performed. While Di Caprio was filming his scenes in 2012 he also celebrated his 38th birthday. Having at that stage been nominated but never won an Oscar executives gave him a present.

It was Marlon Brando’s golden statuette from 1955 for On the Waterfront, reportedly bought for $600,000 from a memorabilia dealer in New Jersey. Unfortunately, and it is unlikely DiCaprio knew, Oscars are not meant to be bought and sold.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a rule that winners, or their heirs, can only sell the statuettes back to the Academy itself for $10. The aim is to avoid them becoming “items of commerce”.

Mr DiCaprio with his own Oscar

Dozens of times the Academy has sued to enforce the rule, and it has been upheld by the courts.

The re-emergence of the Brando Oscar ended a long mystery as to its whereabouts. It had reputedly been used by the late great actor as a doorstop. He cared little for awards. According to one, perhaps aprocryphal story, it went missing after he defenestrated it in a rage.

However the statuette wound its way to DiCaprio’s living room at least one trustee of Brando’s estate now wants it returned.  “He (Brando) was trying to track it down and kept hitting dead ends,” Avra Douglas, a close personal friend of Brando’s for 30 years, told the Hollywood Reporter recently. “It would be geat to get it back.” Representatives of DiCaprio did not comment.

Nor, more surprisingly considering previous attempts to stop the buying and selling of Oscars, did the Academy itself. Perhaps they didn’t want to embarrass one of their own leading members.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/