Steven Spielberg has rescued another Oscar from the auction block.
The director-producer paid $180,000, not including fees and taxes, to buy Bette Davis' best actress Oscar for the 1935 movie "Dangerous," spokesman Marvin Levy said Thursday.
Spielberg will donate the Oscar to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
"It's part of preserving film history," Levy said.
A bid made by telephone on Spielberg's behalf was the winner Saturday at a Sotheby's auction in New York. The golden statuette should arrive at the academy within a couple of weeks, Levy said.
Spielberg, himself a multiple Academy Award winner, bought and donated two other Oscars that were being sold privately. He paid $578,000 last year for Davis' Oscar for the 1938 movie "Jezebel" and $607,500 in 1996 for Clark Gable's best-actor Oscar for 1934's "It Happened One Night."