The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) proposed giving O'Brien an Oscar for his technical effects on "King Kong" but Willis insisted that each of his crew receive an Oscar statue also, which the AMPAS refused to do, so O'Brien refused to accept the Oscar award for himself. This act of refusing his Oscar hurt O'Brien's reputation as a player in the Hollywood establishment, forever making him a semi-outsider in the industry, and thus whose own film proposals were seldom taken seriously. One of O'Brien's crew was Linwood G. Dunn, who did all of the optical composites for "King Kong" and "Son of Kong", and who was a future Treasurer and President of the AMPAS and who revealed this story in private conversations with various visual effects associates years later, long after O'Brien's death. The success of "King Kong" led to the studio commissioning a hurried sequel "Son of Kong" (also 1933), which O'Brien described as cheesy. With a limited budget and a short production schedule O'Brien chose to leave the animation work to his animation assistant, Buzz Gibson, and asked the studio not to credit him on the project. While making one of his daily visits to the set, O'Brien, who had remained close to his two sons after his separation from his estranged wife, invited Willis Jr. and the now completely blind William with him to handle the Kong and dinosaur models. A few weeks after this visit O'Brien's ex-wife, Hazel Ruth Collette, shot and killed William and Willis Jr. before turning the gun on herself. The suicide attempt failed and by draining her tubercular lung actually extended her life by another year. A publicity photo of O'Brien taken around this time shows the anguish on his face. Hazel Ruth Collette remained in the Los Angeles General Hospital prison ward until her death in 1934. On November 17 that same year O'Brien married his second wife, Darlyne Prenett, with whom he remained until his death. O'Brien continued to work with Merian C. Cooper at RKO on a number of projects including the epic "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1935) and "Dancing Pirate" (1936), which was O'Brien's first Technicolor production. The two also developed "War Eagles" about a race of Vikings riding on prehistoric eagles fighting with dinosaurs, but the project was cancelled when Cooper re-enlisted as a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces at the outset of World War II.