Did you know…?
The first Academy Awards ceremony took fifteen minutes.
On the evening of May 16, 1929, 270 members of the movie industry gathered in ballroom of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for a private dinner. They had each paid five dollars to attend the event, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. The dinner, a glitzy affair emceed by movie superstar (and then-President of AMPAS) Douglas Fairbanks, was held to honor the films made in 1927 and 1928.
It was the first Academy Awards ceremony.
This first Oscar ceremony barely resembles the lavish spectacles we know today. In fact, this first Oscar event wasn’t even broadcast on radio, and the entire ceremony took a grand total of only fifteen minutes. There also were no surprises about who was going to take home the Oscars—the winners had been notified by telegram three months earlier.
Some other interesting facts about the first Academy Awards:
- Actors and actresses were nominated for more than one movie in a category. Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress awards for three movies: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Street Angel, and Seventh Heaven. Emil Jannings won Best Actor awards for The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. This is the only time in the history of the awards that this happened.
- This was also the only year that two movies won for Best Picture. Best Pictures were split into two awards, one for Unique and Artistic Production, and one for Outstanding Picture. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans won for the former; Wings won for the latter. After this year those two categories would be combined into Best Picture.
- Louis B. Mayer, the head of M-G-M, created the awards not to honor people, but to get them to work harder. He said of the awards: “I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them … If I got them cups and awards they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created.”
Did you also know…?
- Arts & Entertainment
- The first Academy Awards ceremony took fifteen minutes.
- Kevin O’Connell is the unluckiest man in Academy Awards history.
- An unusual book, put forth in 1939, is a composition with a big omission.
- Dr. Seuss wrote one of his most famous books on a dare.
- The difference between Broadway and Off Broadway shows has nothing to do with location.
- For three days in August 1969, Bethel, New York, was one of the biggest cities in the state.
- Bono saved the life of a fan during U2’s performance at Live Aid.
- The longest movie ever made is 87 hours.
- Mae West was arrested for her performance in a Broadway show.
- The largest cast of living creatures for a Hollywood film totaled 22 million.
- Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a cantata about being addicted to coffee.
- The most recorded song in history was originally titled “Scrambled Eggs.”
- The most viewed video on YouTube has been seen more than 280 million times.
- On February 28, 1983, CBS aired the most-watched sitcom episode in television history.
- The longest round of applause lasted one hour and 20 minutes.
- Miss Piggy had a cameo in The Empire Strikes Back.
- There was a seventh Beatle.
- Jackie Kennedy won a Golden Girl.