It is well-known that Oscars are awarded by the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences. It is a professional honorary organization
composed of over 6,000 motion picture artists and craftsmen and women.
The Academy was organized in May, 1927, as a nonprofit corporation
chartered under the laws of California.
A popular story has been that an Academy librarian and eventual
executive director, Margaret Herrick, thought the statuette resembled
her Uncle Oscar and said so, and that as a result the Academy staff
began referring to it as Oscar. No hard evidence exists to support that
tale, but in any case, by the sixth Awards Presentation in 1934,
Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky used the name in his column in
reference to Katharine Hepburn's first Best Actress win. The Academy
itself didn't use the nickname officially until 1939.
The Oscar is a tin and copper statuette of a naked man holding a
sword and standing on a reel of film. The award weighs 8 1/2 pounds and
is plated with gold. Since the list of winners is kept secret until the
telecast, the awards handed out on television are blanks. The Academy
reclaims the statuettes the morning after the telecast and has them
engraved before they are shipped back to the anxious recipients. The
personalized engraving is on a small plaque attached to the pedestal on
which Oscar stands. The engraving includes the year, the award category
and the name of the recipient. Each statuette is also engraved with a
serial number on the back of its base.
Since its conception, the Oscar statuette has met exacting
uniform standards - with a few notable exceptions. In the 1930s,
juvenile players received miniature replicas of the statuette;
ventriloquist Edgar Bergen was presented with a wooden statuette with a
moveable mouth; and Walt Disney was honored with one full-size and seven
miniature statuettes on behalf of his animated feature Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs. Between 1942 and 1944, in support of the war effort,
Oscars were made of plaster. After the War, winners turned in the
temporary awards for golden Oscar statuettes.
Watching the Oscar telecast has become the equivalent of a
secular religious experience for many. The Oscars occur every year at
the same time and there are strict rules and regulations and hundreds of
commandments. The Oscar itself has become a sacred icon within the
industry.
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