The Academy Awards - Learn about the history of the Oscars
The Academy Awards "Oscar" ceremony is an amazing combination of recognition, glitz and glamor - a night not to be missed by movie fans all around the world.
History of the Academy Awards
The first ever Academy Awards was a very quiet affair,
which took place at an Academy banquet held at the Hollywood
Roosevelt Hotel, on May 16, 1929.
Two hundred and seventy guests paid just $5 to attend the
dinner in the hotel’s Blossom Room and as today, it was a
long drawn event.
Academy President Douglas Fairbanks handed out the Oscar
Statues with enthusiasm and the recipients received them
gracefully, although there were no surprises as the results
had already been announced three months earlier!
The following year's ceremony was different, this time the
Academy kept the results secret from the recipients right
until awards night. Unbelievably, a list of winners was
given to the newspapers in advance, to allow for publication
at 11 p.m.
This system continued up until 1940 when the Los Angeles
Times broke the agreement and went ahead and published the
winners names before the ceremony. After that, the Academy
adopted the sealed envelope system, which is used today.
The First Oscar Statue
At the first ceremony fifteen oscar statuettes were awarded
with Emil Jannings winning the first Best Actor award,
making him the first person ever to receive an oscar statue.
It was also the one and only awards ceremony that wasn't
broadcast. From the following year onwards, "the Oscars"
have been broadcast every single year.
The Academy Awards were held at banquets in the Ambassador
and Biltmore hotels until 1942, when they were moved to
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
The Academy Awards Go International
The first Oscar ceremony televised in 1953 was watched by millions of viewers in the USA and Canada. In 1966 the glittering spectacle came to life in color and since 1996 the Academy Awards have been broadcast to more than 200 countries worldwide.