When did the Academy Awards start? A look at the first Oscar winners
Every year heading into Oscars, the lead-up is chaos as studios seek momentum for their nominated movies, actors are the centerpiece of "For your consideration" campaigns, and pundits predict the big winners all the way up until showtime.
That sort of frazzled energy wasn't a part of the first Academy Awards: The ceremony took place three months after the winners were announced.
Academy president Douglas Fairbanks emceed the event on May 16, 1929, where gold statuettes – designed a year earlier by MGM's art director, Cedric Gibbons – were handed out in 12 competitive categories (plus two special awards) honoring the best films of 1927 and 1928.
With the 97th Academy Awards just a month away on March 2, here's what else movie lovers need to know about the first Oscars:
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Where were the first Oscars held?
Presented at the Blossom Room in Los Angeles' Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the first Academy Awards was more dinner party than today's high-profile spectacle, with 270 in attendance and guest tickets priced at $5 apiece. (In comparison, a movie ticket cost you a quarter.) It was also the only Oscar ceremony that wasn't broadcast in some way: Because of the 1929 banquet's popularity, a local radio station did a live hour-long broadcast at the second Oscars on April 3, 1930.
What movie won best picture at the first Oscars?
"Wings," a drama starring Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen as World War I fighter pilots and Clara Bow as the love interest of both men, won "outstanding picture" (which would ultimately be renamed best picture) as well as best engineering effects. It was also the only silent film to ever win the top category.
"Sunrise," F.W. Murnau's film about a city woman (Margaret Livingston) who tries persuade a farmer (George O'Brien) to murder his wife (Janet Gaynor), tied for the most Oscars (three) with the romance "7th Heaven." Most notably "Sunrise" won best unique and artistic picture, an award that was scrapped a year later when the Oscars winnowed its categories to seven.
Fun fact: You can stream both "Wings" and "Sunrise" on Tubi.
Who won the first best actor and best actress Academy Awards?
In the first year of the Oscars, winners could be honored for single movies, multiple films or a body of work. Janet Gaynor won best actress for her roles in "Sunrise," "7th Heaven" and "Street Angel" – in 1938, she was again nominated in the category for the first "A Star Is Born."
Best actor went to Swiss-German performer Emil Jannings for "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Flesh." Jannings later starred in 1930's "The Blue Angel" with Marlene Dietrich but never acting again in Hollywood after World War II because of his work in Nazi propaganda films.
What other movies won at the first Oscars?
Two best directing Oscars were handed out in 1929 – Lewis Milestone won for the comedy picture "Two Arabian Nights" while Frank Borzage got a trophy for "7th Heaven."
Interestingly, two influential movies of the time received honorary Oscars. The Academy decided to bestow Charlie Chaplin and his 1928 film "The Circus" with one special award for "versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing." And Warner Bros. was feted for producing 1927's "The Jazz Singer," widely considered the first "talkie."
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