Oscar Award

The Oscar Awards alias The Academy Awards are given by the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is considered as the world’s prestigious and most coveted annual awards which consist of 24 awards which are given for the best directors, actors, writers, and technicians in the entertainment industry.

Basic Facts About the Oscar Statute

  • Official Name – Academy Award Merit.
  • Model for the Statue – Emilio "El Indio" Fernández (Mexican Actor).
  • Sculpted By – George Stanley.
  • Design Sketch – Cedric Gibbons.
  • Dimensions – 34cm in length & weighs 8.5 pounds .
  • Shape – Knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword. standing on a reel of film with five spokes.*
  • Composition – Gold-plated bronze on a black metal base.
  • Manufacturer – R. S. Owens and Company, Chicago (since 1982).
  • Officially Named as Oscar – 1939.
  • Venue – Dolby Theatre (formerly known as Kodak Theatre, since 2002).
  • "Red carpet" – 500 feet length.

Oscar Awards

  • First Oscar awards presented – May 16, 1929, Downstairs Blossom Ballroom, Hollywood.
  • No. of Winners for the 1st Academy Awards – 12.
  • First Radio Broadcast – 1930.
  • First Television Broadcast –  1953.
  • First Worldwide Broadcast –  1969.
  • Shortest Oscar telecast – 1959 (100 minutes).
  • First Person to receive the statuette of Oscar – Emil Jannings (Best Actor, Films: "The Last Command" &"The Way of All Flesh", 1929).
  • First Black actor to win an Oscar – Sidney Poitier (1963).
  • First Black actress to win an Oscar – Hattie McDaniel (Best Supporting Actress, Film: "Gone with the Wind," 1940).
  • First Black actress to win Oscar for Best Actress – Halle Berry.
  • First Muslim actor to win an Oscar – Riz Ahmed (The Long Goodbye, 2022).
  • First Deaf actor to win an Oscar – Troy Kotsur (CODA, 2022).
  • First Deaf actress to win an Oscar – Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God, 1987).
  • First Woman to win the Oscar for Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow (Film: "The Hurt Locker").
  • First woman of color to win Best Director Oscar – Chloé Zhao (Film: "Nomadland"; 2021).
  • First Foreign Film to be nominated for Best Picture –  Grand Illusion .
  • First non-English language film to win the Best Picture award –  Parasite (South Korean film, Director: Bong Joon-ho).
  • Youngest Oscar winner – Tatum O’Neal (10 years old, Best supporting actress, Film: “Paper Moon” 1973).
  • Oldest Actor to win an Oscar Award – Anthony Hopkins (2021, 83 years old; The Father).
  • Oldest Actress to win an Oscar – Jessica Tandy (1990, 81 years old).
  • Only Nobel Laureate to win an Oscar – George Bernard Shaw (1938, Pygmalion).
  • Most expensive movie ever to win an Oscar –  Avatar (approx: $280 million).
  • Most Best Original Screenplay nominations – Woody Allen (won 2 out of 14 nominations).
  • Overall record holder for Oscar nominations regardless of category – Walt Disney (nominations - 59, wins - 26 excluding four honorary awards).
  • Record for hosting the maximum no. of Academy Awards – Bob Hope (14 times).
  • Record for total Oscar wins in one year – 11.
  • Record holders for the most nominations in one year –  All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997) (with 14 nominations).
  • Record of most Oscars ever won by a single film – 3 Films - Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997) & The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
  • Only 3 films that won all Top 5 Oscar categories (Best Film, Actor, Actress, Director & Writing) –  “It Happened One Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest & The Silence of the Lambs.”
  • Only actors to win posthumous Oscars in acting – Peter Finch (Network) & Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight).


Best Picture

  • First Best Picture winner –  Wings (Director: William Wellman).
  • First Comedy to win Best Picture – It Happened One Night (1934).
  • First Biopic to win Best Picture – The Great Ziegfeld (1936).
  • First Sequel to be nominated for Best Picture – The Bells of St. Mary's (1945).
  • First Sequel to win Best Picture – The Godfather Part II (1974).
  • First Science-fiction film to be nominated for Best Picture –  A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971).
  • First & only traditional animated film to be nominated for Best Picture –  Beauty and the Beast (1991).
  • Longest Picture to win Best Picture award – “Gone with the Wind” (234 minutes).
  • First independent film to be nominated for Best Picture – Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985).
  • The only remake of a feature film (Infernal Affairs) to win Best Picture – The Departed (2006).


Best Actor

  • Oldest Best Actor winner –  Anthony Hopkins (2021, 83 years old; The Father).
  • Youngest actor to win Best Actor award – Adrien Brody (29 years old, Film: The Pianist, 2002).
  • Most Best Actor nominations (9) –  Spencer Tracy & Laurence Olivier (won 2 & 1 respectively).
  • Most Best Actor Oscars were won by – Daniel Day-Lewis (3 times out of six nominations, for My Left Foot (1989), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Lincoln (2012).


Best Actress

  • Most Best Actress Oscars (4) – Katharine Hepburn (Films - Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981)).
  • Most Best Actress nominations – Meryl Streep (16 times).
  • Oldest Best Actress winner – Jessica Tandy (80 years old, Film - Driving Miss Daisy, 1989).

The Academy Award has been postponed a no. of times. First, in 1938, because of the massive flooding in Los Angeles and in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Another time it was postponed was in 1981, after an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

SideNotes:

  • Five spokes* – Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians
  • Green Oscar – Whitley Awards (UK) for wildlife conservation in Asia, Africa & Latin America.