How did the Academy Awards begin?

The Academy Awards came out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a professional organization incorporated in May 1927 and led by MGM production chief Louis B. Mayer. The first awards were handed out on May 16, 1929, at a banquet in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. They honored films released between August 1927 and mid-1928. [1] [2] [3]

After a 1926 union agreement between studios and technicians, Mayer sought to strengthen the studios' position in future negotiations. In January 1927 he and two colleagues invited more than thirty industry executives to a banquet and proposed the organization. California granted it a nonprofit charter in May 1927, and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. became its first president. The Academy's own history says it was founded by 36 figures from the film community, including Mayer, Mary Pickford and Fairbanks. According to the EBSCO account, 231 people joined at a fee of $100. [4] [5]

ABC News, citing Scott Eyman's biography of Mayer, reports that Mayer described the awards as a way to manage creative workers, saying that if he gave them cups and awards they would work hard to produce what he wanted. The Academy was also intended to handle labor disputes without involving unions and to bring the five branches of the industry (actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers) under one roof. [6]

In July 1928 the awards committee announced twelve categories, including actor, actress, dramatic and comedy director, cinematography and art direction. Almost one thousand nominations came in, and the ten leading candidates in each category were trimmed to three by boards of judges representing five disciplines. A Central Board of Judges, joined by Mayer, then made the final selections. The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture, was ruled ineligible for the top picture award because it was seen as unfair competition for silent films, though Warner Bros. received a special award for it. [4]

Sculptor George Stanley was paid $500 to cast the bronze statuette, finished in 24-karat gold plate, later known as the Oscar. [4]

About 270 guests attended, and tickets cost $5. There was no radio or television broadcast, and the winners had been announced months earlier, in mid-February 1929. Fairbanks presented the statuettes. The evening opened with a demonstration of a Western Electric projection device for talking pictures. Wings won the outstanding picture award, and Sunrise won for artistic production. Janet Gaynor and Emil Jannings won best actress and best actor. Frank Borzage won for dramatic direction and Lewis Milestone for comedy direction. [3] [6] [4] [2]

EBSCO reports that Sunrise beat King Vidor's The Crowd partly because of Mayer's support. His own studio, MGM, had made The Crowd, but he thought it too bleak to represent the industry. [4]