 Eighteen days before the awards ceremony, 55 Oscar statuettes en  route from Chicago to the Academy were stolen from a Roadway Express  shipping dock in Bell, California. A week and a half later, a scrap  metal dealer, Willie Fulgear, found 52 of the statuettes in a  Dumpster behind a grocery store. (In the meantime, the Academy had  had replacement statuettes made.) For finding the awards, Mr.  Fulgear received two tickets to the Academy Awards show, where he  was praised by host Billy Crystal, and a $50,000 check from the  shipping company. A few months later, $40,000 of his reward was  stolen from a safe in his apartment.