Posted on Mar 9, 2023
The first Oscars lasted 15 minutes — plus other surprises from 95 years of awards
279
24
4
10
10
0
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/09/ [login to see] /oscars-academy-award-scandal-slap
You read that right – just 15 minutes. The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 1929, in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. At the end of a private black-tie banquet, leading man Douglas Fairbanks announced the first ever winners of the golden statuettes.
All the recipients that year were silent movies, except one: The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson. The top prize in 1929 went to Wings, an airplane film similar to one of this year's best picture nominees, Top Gun: Maverick.
The following year, the Academy Award for Outstanding Production went to a war movie, All Quiet on the Western Front (a remake of that film is also a contender this year). Newsreel footage from 1930 captured the head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, solemnly congratulating the movie's producer Carl Laemmle, saying, "Sorry I didn't win it, Mr. Laemmle. I know of no one I'd rather have beat me than you.
You read that right – just 15 minutes. The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 1929, in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. At the end of a private black-tie banquet, leading man Douglas Fairbanks announced the first ever winners of the golden statuettes.
All the recipients that year were silent movies, except one: The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson. The top prize in 1929 went to Wings, an airplane film similar to one of this year's best picture nominees, Top Gun: Maverick.
The following year, the Academy Award for Outstanding Production went to a war movie, All Quiet on the Western Front (a remake of that film is also a contender this year). Newsreel footage from 1930 captured the head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, solemnly congratulating the movie's producer Carl Laemmle, saying, "Sorry I didn't win it, Mr. Laemmle. I know of no one I'd rather have beat me than you.
The first Oscars lasted 15 minutes — plus other surprises from 95 years of awards
Posted from npr.org
Movies
Awards
Hollywood
American History
Posted 1 y ago
Responses: 4
4
4
0
PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Last year, the winners were overshadowed by a confrontation with best actor nominee Will Smith, who strode onstage and smacked presenter Chris Rock after he had made a joke about Smith's wife's hair.
After delivering the slap seen and heard around the world, Smith sat down in his seat and roared expletives at Rock. Smith won the best actor award for starring in King Richard, but the Academy punished him by banning him from its events for 10 years.
Schulman says anything can happen during a live event, "Whether it's a burst of anger with the slap or just something really moving, someone living their dream." He says so much of the Oscars "are wrapped in this kind of celebrity, like 'you-like-me' absurdity, and then boom! Something happens that shocks your system a little bit."
..."Last year, the winners were overshadowed by a confrontation with best actor nominee Will Smith, who strode onstage and smacked presenter Chris Rock after he had made a joke about Smith's wife's hair.
After delivering the slap seen and heard around the world, Smith sat down in his seat and roared expletives at Rock. Smith won the best actor award for starring in King Richard, but the Academy punished him by banning him from its events for 10 years.
Schulman says anything can happen during a live event, "Whether it's a burst of anger with the slap or just something really moving, someone living their dream." He says so much of the Oscars "are wrapped in this kind of celebrity, like 'you-like-me' absurdity, and then boom! Something happens that shocks your system a little bit."
(4)
(0)
4
4
0
PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
(4)
(0)
My theory on declining viewership of the Oscars. It's not because of the ideology, lack of diversity, or obscure films that nobody except critics have heard of being nominated (although all three of those are major factors).
The main reason as I see it is THEY WON'T SHUT UP and keep going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.
Oh, also, they are too long.
The main reason as I see it is THEY WON'T SHUT UP and keep going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.
Oh, also, they are too long.
(3)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google