Alice Brady

 There is a myth that due to a broken ankle, Alice Brady was not able to attend The 10th Annual Academy Awards in which she won Best Supporting Actress for "In Old Chicago" (1938). During the ceremony an unidentified man walked up to the podium and accepted the award on her behalf. When she called the Academy to say that she had not received her Oscar, it was revealed that the man was had been an impostor who had crashed the party, accepted her award and walked off with it. Brady passed away before the Academy could issue a replacement. Neither the stolen Oscar nor the man who walked away with it were ever heard from again.

In fact, Henry King, the director of the film "In Old Chicago" accepted her award on her behalf. According to newspaper clippings discovered by librarians at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library, he brought the Oscar to her later that night. It did leave her possession after that, but only to be engraved. No replacement was necessary, after all.

"In Old Chicago" is a fictionalized account about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. and Brady appeared as Mrs. O'Leary, the owner of the cow which started the fire. Despite crediting the Chicago Historical Society for assistance with historical research, much of the film is fictionalized. The area known as "the Patch" did exist as a predominantly Irish neighborhood, and was associated with crime, as portrayed in the film. In the years before the film was made it had been supplanted by the Levee, an area renowned for its corrupt politicians, known as the Gray Wolves, whose deeds resemble those of the characters in the film.

The portrayal of the O'Leary family is largely fictitious down to the names of the characters. Mrs. O'Leary's name was Catherine, not Molly. The O'Learys had two children, one son and one daughter. In the movie there are three sons. Her only son was named James Patrick O'Leary. The daughter was named Anna. Their father Patrick O'Leary did not die in 1854 as a result of an accident involving his horses. He died in 1894. Mrs. O'Leary did not run her own "French Laundry" out of their house.

The Mayor of Chicago in 1871 was Roswell B. Mason, not an O'Leary son. However, Mason was elected on a reform ticket like the fictional Jack and took similar measures to deal with the fire. Mrs. O'Leary's son James Patrick did achieve success as a gambler and saloon owner comparable to that of Dion in the film.

A lantern manufacturer wrote to the studio insisting that the fire must have been started by a lamp, not a lantern. They claimed a lantern would extinguish itself if tipped over, but that claim was found to be false by an actual experiment performed by two assistants at Twentieth Century-Fox. Soon after the fire started, the barn where the fire was supposed to have originated was thoroughly investigated, and no evidence of a lamp or lantern was found.

Happy Birthday, Alice Brady!