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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.05.12 16:36l 61 Lines 2807 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - May 16
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May 16, 1929:
First Academy Awards ceremony
On this day in 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences hands out its first awards, at a dinner party for around
250 people held in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in
Hollywood, California.
The brainchild of Louis B. Mayer, head of the powerful MGM film
studio, the Academy was organized in May 1927 as a non-profit
organization dedicated to the advancement and improvement of the
film industry. Its first president and the host of the May 1929
ceremony was the actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Unlike today, the
winners of the first Oscars--as the coveted gold-plated
statuettes later became known--were announced before the awards
ceremony itself.
At the time of the first Oscar ceremony, sound had just been
introduced into film. The Warner Bros. movie The Jazz Singer--one
of the first "talkies"--was not allowed to compete for Best
Picture because the Academy decided it was unfair to let movies
with sound compete with silent films. The first official Best
Picture winner (and the only silent film to win Best Picture) was
Wings, directed by William Wellman. The most expensive movie of
its time, with a budget of $2 million, the movie told the story
of two World War I pilots who fall for the same woman. Another
film, F.W. Murnau's epic Sunrise, was considered a dual winner
for the best film of the year. German actor Emil Jannings won the
Best Actor honor for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of
All Flesh, while 22-year-old Janet Gaynor was the only female
winner. After receiving three out of the five Best Actress nods,
she won for all three roles, in Seventh Heaven, Street Angel and
Sunrise.
A special honorary award was presented to Charlie Chaplin.
Originally a nominee for Best Actor, Best Writer and Best Comedy
Director for The Circus, Chaplin was removed from these
categories so he could receive the special award, a change that
some attributed to his unpopularity in Hollywood. It was the last
Oscar the Hollywood maverick would receive until another honorary
award in 1971.
The Academy officially began using the nickname Oscar for its
awards in 1939; a popular but unconfirmed story about the source
of the name holds that Academy executive director Margaret
Herrick remarked that the statuette looked like her Uncle Oscar.
Since 1942, the results of the secret ballot voting have been
announced during the live-broadcast Academy Awards ceremony using
the sealed-envelope system. The suspense--not to mention the
red-carpet arrival of nominees and other stars wearing their most
beautiful or outrageous evening wear--continues to draw
international attention to the film industry's biggest night of
the year.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
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