The first Oscars ever: The story behind Hollywood’s biggest night
Inside the first Academy Awards: winners, surprises, and how it all began a long, long time ago...
The 97th Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 2, continuing the long-standing tradition of honoring excellence in film. Hosted at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California, the ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. ET, recognizing the best productions of the past year.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been celebrating cinematic achievements since its inaugural awards on May 16, 1929. The organization itself was founded in 1927, spearheaded by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) president Louis B. Mayer.
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In 1928, one of its first committees, the Awards of Merit committee, proposed a structure for the ceremony, recommending 12 award categories to recognize outstanding contributions to the industry.
Before the days of digital effects and camera cranes, William A. Wellman pulled off this incredible tracking shot in WINGS (1927). It won the first ever Best Pictire Oscar. pic.twitter.com/EmBycT0hqX
— All The Right Movies (@ATRightMovies) November 14, 2022
The first ever Oscars ceremony
That first ceremony in 1929 was entirely different from the galas usually organized in Hollywood. The awards were presented during a banquet at the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, with 270 guests. In fact, the winners were already known at that first edition as they had been announced three months earlier.
The following year, the rules changed, and the names were announced during the ceremony, with a list shared with the media for publication after the event. However, the tradition was broken a decade later when the Los Angeles Times published the names ahead of time. Since then and until now, the system of sealed envelopes has been used.
Who won each category at the first Oscars?
The first edition of the Oscars recognized 12 categories. Below is a list of the awards presented that night:
- Outstanding Picture (now Best Picture): "Wings"
- Best Unique and Artistic Picture: "Sunrise"
- Best Director (comedy): Lewis Milestone for "Two Arabian Knights"
- Best Director (drama): Frank Borzage for "Seventh Heaven"
- Best Actor: Emil Jannings for "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Flesh"
- Best Actress: Janet Gaynor for "Seventh Heaven," "Street Angel," and "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans"
- Best Original Story: Ben Hecht for "Underworld"
- Best Adapted Screenplay: Benjamin Glazer for "Seventh Heaven" based on the play by Austin Strong
- Best Art Direction: William Cameron Menzies for "The Dove" and "Tempest"
- Best Cinematography: Charles Rosher and Karl Struss for "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans"
- Best Engineering Effects (now Best Visual Effects): Roy Pomeroy for "Wings"
- Best Title Writing: Joseph Farnham for "The Fair Co-Ed," "Laugh, Clown, Laugh," and "Telling the World"
In addition to the twelve categories, the Academy bestowed a special recognition upon Warner Bros and Charles Chaplin.