Which only goes to show that you should perhaps not believe all you read in Wikipedia. I can't guarantee how things were done in 1981, but I can tell you for certain that these days Dramatic Presentation Hugos are NOT awarded for scripts. They are awarded for the presentation as a whole, and the trophy generally goes to the producer or director. It is the Nebula that is awarded to scripts.

The Locus index to SF awards says that the 1981 Dramatic Presentation Hugo went to The Empire Strikes Back, not to Leigh Brackett.

Yeah, I was suspicious of that, too. I posted a comment on the discussion page; be curious if anyone’s paying enough attention to the article to pick it up. If no one’s done anything in a few days, maybe I’ll take it out.

Anyone actually at the 1981 Hugos? Wish I’d noticed this a couple of weeks ago; bet I could have asked Howard Waldrop last week . . .

What Cheryl said. Dramatic Presentation Hugo Awards are not given to the author of the screenplay. They are presented to the work. The screenplay isn't even what the category is! The category (now categories) is for Dramatic Presentation, which is the dramatic work, not the written script for that work.

In recent practice, this has meant giving the trophies to the producer or director. Sometimes in the past -- most notably Harlan Ellison® and "City on the Edge of Forever" -- the author of the screenplay has ended up with the trophy, but that is not considered the normal procedure these days. (As usual, H.E. is a special case, not to be considered a general precedent.)

At ConFrancisco in 1993, when the ST:TNG episode "The Inner Light" won Dramatic Presentation, we gave the studio two trophies. Episode director Peter Lauritson accepted at the convention. They contacted us later and said the screenwriter wanted one as well. We told them, "We already gave you twice as many as most award winners get." They offered to pay for a third trophy, and as it happens, we had one spare trophy left, so we sold it to them. I was ConFrancisco's WSFS divivion manager, and was thus involved in the negotiation.

I wonder who actually accepted the Empire award?

Hollywood-type folks rarely turn up to collect awards unless the con is in LA. It is quite likely that no one from Lucasfilm was there.

Right. And Brackett was dead, so it can’t have been her. But I suppose it could have been someone associated with Brackett . . . possibly leading to confusion.

It is more likely that the Wikipedia article was written by someone who didn't know how the Hugos work. Every time a fantasy novel wins a Hugo we see protests from people demanding that the "Hugo Committee" or "Hugo Judges" rescind the award because it is only for science fiction and clearly a mistake has been made. Because the Nebulas do have an award for scripts people tend to get confused over BDP quite often.