Actor sells Oscar for sick wife

NEW YORK (AFP) - Harold Russell, 78, is offering for auction his best supporting actor Academy Award for 1946 because he needs the money to pay for an eye operation for his wife.

Auctioneers Herman Darvick estimate that when the Oscar statuette for Russell's performance in The Best Years of Our Lives goes on the block next Thursday it will fetch dollars 20,000- dollars 40,000 ( pounds 10,500- pounds 21,000). But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is not happy at this Hollywood 'first', fearing it will spark a trade in the prestigious statuettes, and has offered to lend him the money.