The closest I have come to holding an actual Oscar was when I was staying with a great friend in Los Angeles, the Production Designer Dean Tavoularis, who won his award for The Godfather Part II (he worked almost exclusively for Francis Ford Coppola for about 30 years). He had used it as a garage door stop and it had become tarnished so he charged me with the task, while he was away on location, of returning it for re-plating to the hallowed halls of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. This I did duly, and a little later, as Dean was still absent, I went to collect it after intensive and secret refurbishment in the Academy's laboratories. (Another quick story about tarnishing: I met a girl at a Hollywood party who alleged to have spent the night with Warren Beatty. In the morning as they parted, he presented her with a gold wristwatch. Charmed by this gesture, she was so enamoured that she decided not to take it off. That is until week two when the bracelet turned gr