Spielberg saves Bette Davis Oscar

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. It was auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York last Saturday.

Spielberg will donate the Oscar to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “It’s part of preserving film history,” 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.”