On the evening of 19 March 2000, Willie Fulgear went dumpster diving. It was what he did most nights. He’d moved to Los Angeles 40 years earlier with dreams of becoming a singer, but that plan had never worked out. Instead, he made his money scavenging for the jewels of the junkyard. Usually old bits of car. Anything that would sell to metal shops. But that night was different. Behind the Food-4-Less in Koreatown, he struck gold. Dozens of little gold men, in fact. Gleaming up at him, in a bed of Styrofoam, were 52 Oscars statuettes.
Fulgear frantically loaded the 24-carat gold-plated goodies into his 1989 Cadillac Coupe De Ville and sped home. One quick internet search later, he understood what he had: a small army of Academy Awards, with a $50,000 reward attached. He immediately called the local TV station and the police. He was rich!
