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Academy Awards

The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in filmmaking. It is regarded as the most famous and prestigious awards in the entertainment industry. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in the cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit," although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar." The statuette depicts a knight holding a sword rendered in the Art Deco style.

The Award was originally sculpted by George Stanley from a design sketch by Cedric Gibbons. AMPAS first presented it in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in what would become known as the 1st Academy Awards. The Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast by radio in 1930 and was televised for the first time in 1953. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and is now televised live around the world. It is also the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards; its equivalents - the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music - are modeled after the Academy Awards. Collectively, they are widely cited as the most famous and prestigious competitive awards in the field of entertainment.


The Oscar statuette stands on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians.

The statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze. Within a few years, the bronze was abandoned in favor of Britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy which is then plated in copper, nickle silver, and finally 24-karat gold. Due to a shortage of metal in World War II, the Oscars were made with painted plaster for three years. Following the war, the Academy invited the recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base.

The Academy officially adapted the name "Oscar" for the trophies in 1939. However, the origin of the nickname is disputed.

One biography of Bette Davis, who was a president of the Academy in 1941, claims she named the award after her first husband, band leader Harmond Oscar Nelson. A frequently mentioned originator is Margaret Herrick, the Academy executive secretary, who, when she first saw the award in 1931, reminded her of "Uncle Oscar," a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce.

To prevent information identifying the Oscar winners from leaking ahead of the ceremonies, Oscar statuettes presented at the ceremony have blank baseplates. Until 2010, winners returned their statuettes to the Academy and had to wait several weeks to have their names inscribed on their respective Oscars. Since 2010, winners have had the option of having engraved nameplates applied to their statuettes at an inscription-processing station at the Governor's Ball, a party held immediately after the Oscar ceremony. The R.S. Owens Company has engraved nameplates made before the ceremony, bearing the name of every potential winner. The nameplates for the non-winning nominees are later recycled.

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This post is sponsored by Smart Communications.

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