Matilda Ledger Owns Heath’s Potential Oscar

Remember the discombobulation of Summer ’08, when people were still saying the Academy never awards posthumous Oscars, because they like to see people get out there and campaign? How we had to hammer the possibility into inevitability, and argue it like a Supreme Court case? Problems were simpler pre-economic meltdown, weren’t they?

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. ‚Äî If Heath Ledger is named best supporting actor at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, his daughter, 3-year-old Matilda Rose Ledger, will become the owner of the Oscar statuette.

But of course, Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.

“It’s complicated, because there are two different questions that have to be answered,” says Bruce Davis, executive director of the academy. “First, we have to decide who gets the job of accepting the award onstage on the night of the ceremony. And then there’s the question of the eventual disposition of the posthumous statuette, which may not stay with the person who accepts it.”

Stay crassy, AMPAS.