The Academy awards or the Oscars are one of a kind award ceremonies held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).The first Academy award ceremony was held on May 16, 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in a very private manner.
The Roosevelt Hotel in 1927.
- How did the Oscar award get its name? It is believed that the Oscar trophy received its name from Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who said that the little gold man looked like her Uncle Oscar. According to another origin, columnist Sidney Skolsky referred the Academy award as an Oscar while covering the 1934 ceremony. In his 1975 memoir he claimed that he was the one to give the statuette its nickname.
- Creation of Oscar statuette The Oscar statuette is the brain child of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) art director Cedric Gibbons.
Cedric Gibbons
- What is the Oscar award made of? The very first statuettes presented were made of gold-plated solid bronze. Within a span of few years , a Britannia metal – a pewter-like alloy which is then plated in copper, nickel silver replaced the bronze. They were also made of plaster during World War II due to metal shortage. And finally they are now made of 24-karat gold.
Oscar statuettes made up of bronze.
- The Academy Awards’ venues Over the years the Academy awards have been hosted at various venues. These include the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theatre , the Dolby Theatre , the Ambassador Hotel and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
- Price of the first Academy Award Ceremony’s ticket The first Academy Awards’ ceremony ticket costed peanuts. It was just $5.
- Announcement of Oscar winners In the 1940’s, Oscar winners were declared prior to the ceremony and many arrived at the ceremony knowing they’d won. Hence in the following years the winners’ names are announced only during the ceremony by opening sealed envelopes.
Sealed Oscar envelope
- Other interesting facts:
- Cate Blanchett was the first actress to win an Academy Award for playing another Academy Award winner for her role as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator.
- Linda Hunt was the only actress to win an Oscar for playing a member of the opposite sex under Best Supporting Actress category for “The Year of Living Dangerously.”
Linda Hunt in “The year of living dangerously”
- The only woman to have won three Oscars in a single year was Fran Walsh.
- The only movie to win every award for which it was nominated was “The Return of the King” .
- The first woman to win the Oscar as Best director was Kathryn Bigelow for “The Hurt Locker”.
- Oscar Hammerstein II is the only person named Oscar to ever win an Oscar.
- Italy is the only country to have won most number of awards under this category. So far it has 10 statuettes to its credit.
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