David Copperfield outbid for Orson Welles' Oscar

(CBS/AP) LOS ANGELES - It's no illusion. David Copperfield was outbid for the Academy Award statuette that Orson Welles won for the original screenplay of "Citizen Kane"

The Oscar was auctioned for more than $861,000 on Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Nate D. Sanders Auctions spokesman Sam Heller declined to reveal the high biddetr's identity, but said bidders from around the world, including David Copperfield, vied for the Oscar.

The 1942 Welles Oscar was thought to be lost for decades. It surfaced in 1994 when cinematographer Gary Graver tried to sell it. The sale was stopped by Beatrice Welles, Orson's youngest daughter and sole heir.

The auction house said only a handful of Academy Awards have sold for nearly a million dollars. Michael Jackson famously paid $1.54 million in 1999 for the best picture Oscar awarded to David O. Selznick for "Gone With The Wind."

Earlier this year, an Oscar won by by Nathan Levinson for best sound recording for the 1942 film "Yankee Doodle Dandy" was sold in Texas for $89,625,

In 1950, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars, passed a rule prohibiting Academy Award winners or their heirs from selling a statue without first offering it back to the academy for a price of $1.

The Welles Oscar was awarded before the rule was passed.

Copperfield, who was outbid in the auction, said he admires Welles not only for his cinematic successes, but because he, too, was a magician. Welles hosted Copperfield's first television special.