What is the reason behind the name “Oscars” for the Academy Awards? Discover the origins of this nickname for the 2024 ceremony.
conference they use the Enter function
When speakers take the stage at the conference, they utilize the Enter command to open envelopes.2024 Academy Awards and announce who the Oscar
If they decide to use a nickname, it will be one that has been in existence for nearly as long as the award has been.
The Academy Award of Merit, commonly known as the statuette awarded to winners, was designed by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons. His sketch of a knight with a sword in front of a film reel was chosen by the Academy for the creation of the statue. The process to bring this idea to life began in 1928.
The origin of the nickname “Oscar” for the Academy Award of Merit is disputed, but one theory suggests that it was coined by Margaret Herrick, a former Academy librarian and executive director. She reportedly thought that the statuette resembled her Uncle Oscar, leading Academy staff to adopt the nickname.
According to Foster Hirsch, the author of “Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties,” there is another theory that he finds more believable. He mentioned that some people believe that the term “Oscar” came from Sidney Skolsky, a Hollywood columnist who was present at the 1934 Academy Awards ceremony.
The initial documented mention of the Academy Award being referred to as an Oscar was in Skolsky’s column that year, in regards to Katharine Hepburn’s first win for best actress.
According to Hirsch, Skolsky believed that the ceremonies were overly grand and egocentric and he aimed to diminish them in his newspaper column. As a result, Skolsky nicknamed the statuette “Oscar” as a nod to Oscar Hammerstein I, a theater owner who was often teased by the vaudeville community.
“So it was actually a sort of disrespectful or even snide attribution,” Hirsch said of the nickname. “It was meant to deflate the pomposity of the Academy Award of Merit.”
A less probable hypothesis, suggested by Hirsch, speculates that Bette Davis may have been the creator of the term “Oscar”. In 1936, she won the prize for her performance in “Dangerous” and allegedly commented that the statue’s back reminded her of her spouse leaving the shower. Her husband’s middle name was Oscar.
Hirsch contended that the theory lacks evidence, as there are previous instances of the moniker Oscar being employed.
Robert Osborne writes about the precursor to the Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Robert Osborne, host of TCM and a historian of cinema, discusses the origin of the Academy Awards in his book “75 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards,” shedding light on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.Robert Osborne
The name Oscar became popular and used, despite the unknown origin.
Osborne reported that it was being enthusiastically embraced by journalists, fans, and members of the Hollywood community. They were having trouble using the long names for the Academy’s top award, such as “the Academy’s gold statue” or “the Academy Award statuette,” or even worse, “the trophy.”
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Source: cbsnews.com