Academy Story

One of the first Academy committees was the Awards of Merit. The seven-person committee suggested to the Board that awards be presented in 12 categories. The Academy published its first book in 1928 - Report on Incandescent Illumination, based on a series of Academy-sponsored seminars attended by 150 cinematographers. A second book, Recording Sound for Motion Pictures, was published in 1931, based on a lecture series on sound techniques.

In June, the Academy rented a suite of offices at 7046 Hollywood Boulevard to give more space for the increased staff. The Academy's operations remained there until 1935, when the offices moved to the Taft Building and the library went to North Gordon Street.

The first Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress Academy Awards are presented for performances in films of 1936. The honors went to Walter Brennan for "Come and Get it" and Gale Sondergaard for "Anthony Adverse." The Academy Players Directory was published, including photos of actors and the name of their agent or industry contact. The directory was published by the Academy until 2006, when it was sold to a private company.

The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award was presented for the first time at the ceremony held in 1938. The honor went to Darryl F. Zanuck. For the first time, the Oscar ceremony was delayed when massive flooding in Los Angeles pushed the date back one week. By 1938 the Academy's Research Council, a forerunner of today's Science and Technology Council, had 36 technical committees working to address issues related to sound recording and reproduction, projection, lighting, film preservation and cinematography.

For the first time the Oscar ceremony is held at the famously popular Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. It would be hosted there through 1946.

The Academy purchased the Marquis Theater building at 9038 Melrose Avenue as its new headquarters. The building had a 950-seat theater (the site of the 1948 Academy Awards) and space for staff offices and the ever-growing library holdings.

The first special award to honor a foreign language motion picture was given in 1947 to the Italian film “Shoe-Shine.” Seven more special awards were presented before Foreign Language Film became an annual category in 1956.

The first televised Oscar ceremony enabled millions throughout the United States and Canada to watch the proceedings.

The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was established and Y. Frank Freeman was its first recipient.

The Special Effects category was divided into Sound Effects and Special Visual Effects.

For the first time, the Oscars were telecast in color.

Grants were awarded to film-related organizations and colleges for internships, film festivals and other projects, following the establishment of a scholarship program for film students in the mid 1960s. The Oscar ceremony was postponed from April 8 to April 10 out of respect for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had been assassinated a few days earlier, and whose funeral was held on April 9.

The Oscars were broadcast internationally for the first time; now the show reaches movie fans in over 200 countries. The ceremony was the first major event held at the new Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles County Music Center.

The Academy began the National Film Information Service to offer access to library materials for historians, students and others outside Los Angeles.

Several named public lecture programs were developed, beginning with the Marvin Borowsky Lecture, which was established in 1974 in honor of the late screenwriter and university professor. Over the years, five more lecture series have been added, in the names of Marc Davis, John Huston, Jack Oakie, George Pal and George Stevens, and each having a focus related to its namesake. Guest speakers for the various lectures have run the gamut from Jerry Lewis to Carl Sagan.

The Academy dedicated its new headquarters at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills on December 8. The Academy's scope of public programming expanded to make full use of the facility’s state-of-the-art theater and large lobby. A series called Film Classics Revisited launched the next decade featuring discussions with the cast and crew, a successful format that became the norm. There were also many tributes to screen legends, from Groucho Marx to Mickey Mouse, with exhibitions presented in the main lobby. Public events grew more expansive each year, with a wider range of film screenings and exhibitions, and new seminars on specific aspects of filmmaking.

In 1981 the Awards were once again postponed, this time for 24 hours because of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

Makeup became an annual category, with Rick Baker winning for his work on “An American Werewolf in London.” The Gordon E. Sawyer Award, recognizing technological contributions to the industry, was established.

The first Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting were awarded, with the competition expanding three years after to include writers across the U.S. (with the number of entries jumping to 1,400). It quickly grew into a prestigious international screenwriting competition.

Due to the growing holdings of the library and film archive, they moved to a new location – a 40,000 square-foot building at the corner of La Cienega and Olympic boulevards that had once housed a Beverly Hills water treatment facility. The building was officially dedicated in January 1991 and, in 2002, was renamed the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in honor of the Academy's first president.

After the Film Festival Grants Program began the previous year, the Academy Film Scholars Program was launched with two $25,000 grants awarded annually to support the creation of new works of film scholarship by established scholars, writers, historians and researchers.

The Academy’s film archive moved to a new facility, the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study at 1313 Vine Street. The complex was built in the 1940s as the Don Lee-Mutual Broadcasting building, and sound stages were converted into vaults to house the archive's holdings. The Center now houses the Science and Technology Council and other departments and has a 286-seat theater. The Animated Feature Film Award was established, with “Shrek” winning for films released in 2001. The ceremony took place at the new Kodak Theatre, built with input from the Academy. The Oscars are still held at the same location, now known as the Dolby Theatre.

The Academy Board of Governors created the Science and Technology Council, which served to reestablish the Academy's role as an industry-wide center for motion picture technology initiatives. U.S. forces invaded Iraq on the Thursday before the telecast. The show went on as scheduled, but the red carpet was limited to the area immediately in front of the theater entrance, the red carpet bleachers were eliminated and the majority of the world’s press was disinvited. The next year, the red carpet was back in full force.