There is a myth that due to a broken ankle, Alice 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 purportedly 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, the story goes that the man was had been an impostor who had crashed the party, accepted her award and walked off with it and neither the stolen Oscar nor the man who walked away with it were ever heard from again. This is untrue.
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.
