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The Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, have played a very important role in film history for over 70 years. In the beginning, it was started in the United States, in Los Angeles. But over the years, its influence extended overseas to different continents. Once a small elite club made up of less than 40 members, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is now one of the most important organizations in the filming industry; and its annual Oscars ceremony, the high light of every year, has also become one of the most significant world events nowadays.
The Formation of the “Academy? It all started in Hollywood, with a very important man called Louis B. Mayer, the president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1926. During a dinner meeting, Mayer and three studio acolytes: Conrad Nagel, Fred Beetson and Fred Niblo, thought of an idea to improve the artistic standards of films and promote the filming industry. They planned to set up an elite club with members who have made achievements and special contributions to the industry, such as actors, directors and producers. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was established in 1972, in the beginning, there were only about 33 members, and actor Sr. Douglas Fairbanks was the first president of the organization. On the 4th of May 1927, the Academy became a legal corporation, it organized a dinner party at the Biltmore Hotel, 231 guests joined the Academy that night. By then, the concept of awards was still not brought to light.
The Awards Committee
Later, the idea of presenting “awards of merit for distinctive achievements?occurred to Fairbanks, a Committee for the Awards of Merit comprising of 7 people was then formed. In July of 1928, the Committee created a voting system for choosing the award winners every year. The members of the Academy were from five different branches- actors, directors, writers, producers and technicians. According to the voting system, each member from each branch would cast one nominating vote in his or her branch, then the votes would be counted and the nominations would be determined. The results would then be handed to a Central Board of Judges, comprising of one representative form each branch. Together, the five representatives would decide who the winners of the Academy Awards would be. In that year, films released in Los Angeles between 1st of August 1927 and 31st of July 1928 were eligible for nomination for the Academy Awards of Merit.
The Oscar Statuette
The duty of designing the trophies of the Academy Awards went to Cedric Gibbons, the chief art director in of MGM. Gibbons?design was a naked man, who was supposed to be a knight, with his sword pointing downwards, standing on a reel of film with 5 holes, representing the 5 branches of the Academy. Artist George Stanley sculpted Gibbons design in clay, then Alex Smith of the California Bronze Foundry cast the statuette in tin and copper and plated it with 24-karat gold. The first Academy Award Statuette was born, it was 13 ?inches tall and 8 ?pounds in weight. The statuette was formally called the Academy Award of Merit, later, it adopted a nickname—Oscar. And the Academy has used this nickname officially since 1939. The reason why the Academy Award of Merit was called Oscar was still unclear, many people believed that Margaret Herrick, passing executive director of the Academy, once said that the award statuette resembled her Uncle Oscar, therefore, Academy staffs started using this nickname.
The First Academy Awards
The world’s first Academy Awards ceremony took place on the 16th of May 1929, in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, it was held in the form of a private banquet, opened only to Academy members and award winners. 250 guests attended the banquet, and each of them paid $10 for the ticket.
On that night, 15 Academy Awards of Merit were handed out to winners of 13 categories. The categories back then were much different from the ones we have nowadays, there were also much less categories compared to the 23 categories now. In 1929, the Best Picture Award was split into two categories, the Production Award and the Artistic Quality of Production Award. There were only 2 Awards for acting, Best Actor and Best Actress, the supporting actors and actresses were neglected. The awards for directing were the Director Award and the Comedy Direction Award. The award for Screen Writing was split into 3: Adaptation, Original Story and Title Writing. There were also awards for Cinematography, Engineering Effects and Interior Decoration, in which 2 films captured together. 2 Special Awards given, one to Charles Chaplin for writing, directing, acting and producing The Circus, and another to Warner Brothers for producing The Jazz Singer. (The Special award was given to The Jazz Singer because it was a talking film, the Academy decided that it would be unfair for silent pictures to compete with it. So The Jazz Singer was not qualified for the two production awards, however, the Academy decided to give it a Special Award.) Nominees who didn’t capture the Academy Awards were given honourable mention and were awarded with scrolls.
The ceremony didn’t last long, Douglas Fairbanks presented all the awards in only 5 minute. In fact, the ceremony wasn’t exciting to anybody at all, it lacked the glamour and the secrecy that Oscar ceremonies have nowadays, since the list of award winners were given out 3 months prior the ceremony, it was printed on the Academy Bulletin on 18th of February. That night, the award winners already knew that they have won, all they had to do was to walk up the stage and take that golden trophy, and none of them gave speeches except Darryl F. Zanuck of Warner Brothers who received the Special Award.
The first Academy Awards wasn’t considered as such a big event, it came and went without much discussion. But who, at that time, would know that this dinner party kind of thing called the Academy Awards would take up 73 years and beyond of history?
1927-1928
In 1927, Louis B. Mayer, president of MGM, brought about the idea of setting up an organisation to promote the filming industry. On the 4th of May 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was officially established as a legal corporation. Later, Douglas Fairbanks, the first president of the Academy had the idea of presenting awards to people in the industry who have made distinguish achievements. Through the next two years, much was accomplished in the Academy. A Committee for the Awards of Merit was set up, preparations were being made for the first Academy Awards ceremony.
1929
On the 16th of May 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony was held in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Emil Jannings, winner of the Best Actor Award, received the first Academy Award of Merit ever, however, he didn’t attend the ceremony since he was back home in Germany. 14 other award statuettes were given out during ceremony, all to men except for the Best Actress, Janet Gaynor.
1930
This year’s Academy Awards ceremony was broadcast over radio for the first time, and the ceremonies had been broadcast ever since. The number of award categories were reduced to 7, and for the first time in history, none of the award winning films won more than one award. In November of the same year, the third Academy Awards ceremony was also held.
1931
The results of this year’s Academy Awards were not given in advance, they were given to newspapers only, on the day of the ceremony before the banquet for publication in the 11 p.m. edition.
1932
This year, Wallace Beery and Fredric March shared the honour of being Best Actor.
1936
It was the 8th Academy Awards, and Dudley Nichols who wrote The Informer, winner of Best Screenplay, became the first man in history to decline an Oscar.
1937
Titles for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress were added in the 9th Academy Awards, however, the winners Walter Brennan and Gale Sondergaard received plagues instead of statuettes.
1938
It was the first time that the Academy Awards ceremony was postponed, due to destructive flooding in Los Angeles caused by heavy rain, the ceremony was delayed one week. This year, Luise Rainer, winner of Best Actress of the previous year, became the first person to win a second award by capturing the Best Actress Award again.
1940-1941
As usual, the list of award winners were given prior the ceremony to the newspapers for publication in the late edition, however, the Los Angeles Times revealed the secret by publishing the results in their 8:45p.m. edition. Therefore starting from the next year, the results were kept secret in a sealed envelope until the presenter announced the winner. This system is still being used in ceremonies today.
1942-1943
The United States was in war after the Pearl Harbour incident on the 7th of December 1941, award ceremonies were toned down, instead of a banquet, it was called a “dinner? During wartime, the Oscar statuettes were made out of plaster instead of Bronze.
1944
Due to the war shortage and increasing number of guests, award ceremonies have switched from banquets to theatre settings since the 16th Academy Awards in 1944. The ceremony was held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and the ceremonies have stayed there for another two years. Also, starting from that year, winners of Best Supporting Actor and Actress no longer receive plagues, they get statuettes like everybody else.
1947
The Oscars moved to the Shrine Civil Auditorium in Los Angeles and were held there for 2 years.
1949
The awards ceremony was held at the Academy Theatre in Hollywood.
1950
The Oscars moved to the RKO Pantages Theatre and stayed there for 3 years.
1953
For the first time, the Oscars were broadcast on television over NBC, it was the 25th Academy Awards. The venue of the ceremony was divided between 2 places, the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood and the NBC International Theatre in New York, and the ceremonies were held this way until 1958.
1958
The entire ceremony was held at the RKO Pantages Theatre again from 1958 to 1960.
1961
The venue of the awards ceremony this year was moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and the ceremonies have been held there for another 7 years.
1966
The Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast in colour in 1966.
1968
For the second time, the awards ceremony was postponed, this time due to the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. The ceremony was rescheduled from 8th of April to 10th of April out of respect for him.
1969
Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand made history by capturing the Best Actress Award together, the most incredible thing was, they had exactly the same number of votes, 3030. This year, the Oscars was moved to a new venue, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Centre of Los Angeles County, and the ceremonies have been held there until 1988.
1971
George C. Scott refused his Oscar for Best Actor, thus making himself one of the only 3 people who declined their Academy Awards in history.
1973
This year, Marlon Brando won the Best Actor Award for playing in The Godfather, however, he refused to receive the award due to his strong objection for the treatment of Native Americans in films.
1981
This year’s awards ceremony was postponed for one day due to the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.
1988
The event was moved to the Shrine Civil Auditorium. Since then, the venues of the ceremonies have moved back and forth between the Shrine Civil Auditorium and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Centre of Los Angeles County.
1992
Walt Disney picture Beauty and the Beast became the first cartoon nominated for Best Picture.
1998
Titanic captured 11 Academy Awards this year, just enough to meet the record held by Ben Hur (1959).
2000
The 72nd Academy Awards was struck by disaster, the Oscars were stolen on the way to the Academy. Luckily, they were retrieved a week before the ceremony, they found them in the trash.
2001
It was the latest Oscars, the 73rd one. Below are the list of this year's winners.
2001 73rd Oscars (http://www.oscars.com)
BEST PICTURE
GLADIATOR
Douglas Wick
David Franzoni
Branko Lustig
ACTOR -- LEADING
Russell Crowe
GLADIATOR
ACTOR -- SUPPORTING
Benicio Del Toro
TRAFFIC
ACTRESS -- LEADING
Julia Roberts
ERIN BROCKOVICH
ACTRESS -- SUPPORTING
Marcia Gay Harden
POLLOCK
ART DIRECTION
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Tim Yip
CINEMATOGRAPHY
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Peter Pau
COSTUME DESIGN
GLADIATOR
Janty Yates
DIRECTING
TRAFFIC
Steven Soderbergh
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
BIG MAMA
Tracy Seretean
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS: STORIES OF THE
KINDERTRANSPORT
Mark Jonathan Harris
Deborah Oppenheimer
FILM EDITING
TRAFFIC
Stephen Mirrione
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Ang Lee
MAKEUP
DR. SEUSS' HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS
Rick Baker
Gail Ryan
MUSIC (SCORE)
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
Tan Dun
MUSIC (SONG)
WONDER BOYS
"Things Have Changed"
Bob Dylan
SHORT -- LIVE ACTION
QUIERO SER
(I WANT TO BE...)
Florian Gallenberger
SHORT -- ANIMATED
FATHER AND DAUGHTER
Michael Dudok de Wit
SOUND
GLADIATOR
Scott Millan
Bob Beemer
Ken Weston
SOUND EDITING
U-571
Jon Johnson
VISUAL EFFECTS
GLADIATOR
John Nelson
Neil Corbould
Tim Burke
Rob Harvey
WRITING (ADAPTED)
TRAFFIC
Stephen Gaghan
WRITING (ORIGINAL)
ALMOST FAMOUS
Cameron Crowe