So Once And For All (We Hope), Bruce Davis Understands Why They Call It ‘Oscar’

If you’re curious about the history of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (for its first fifty years at least), you’ll have no reason to read Bruce Davis’ next book. Academy and Award.

City Hall Brawl: Davis, former CEO of the academy, gained access to confidential files. The true story of Beth Davis’ presidency (oddly, less turbulent than the famous drama Queen is known for). And these footnotes! In Note 15, Davis describes an ancient hoax perpetrated by legions of elderly residents of the Motion Picture Home who obeyed the Academy Award vote. With the help of Price Waterhouse and his own membership department, he discovered that less than a dozen members had received letters at home and three had not voted for at least five years.

I love the details. Davis has it.

But the best part for me is the 20-page study on a topic that has never been properly explained. Or why does the academy call movie awards Oscars?

You may think you know the answer. But Davis says you probably won’t.

As he said, starting with the Brandeis University press-thought galleries, the top three contenders chose the statue now commonly known as the Oscar statue.

The first of these was Betty Davis, mentioned in the 1962 book. lonely lifeHe said he was inspired by 1936 when he got his little gold man. Dangerous, Thinking About It: “My husband’s axis was his rearview. Ever since “O” Harmon O. Nelson had an Oscar, the Oscar has been there ever since.”

The story came to light when it became clear that the term had been in use for at least two years at the time. at Whitney Stines main godPublished in 1974, Davis gave up. “I will categorically reject any claim that I am the only person the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has named in your honor.”

The second contender, according to Davis, was Margaret Herrick, known as Margaret Gladhill, who was described by Terry Ramsey as a statue in the 1947/48 film Almanac on the first working day of the Academy library in 1931. It’s my uncle Óscar,” he said, listening to a “close commentator” who took the joke and fled the next day.

But, as Davis, who generally had great respect for Herrick, sadly explained, he failed to get either Uncle Oscar, or another cousin who seemed successful in the Texas wheat trade, the big Oscar record, nor the newspaper involved. clip Anecdote. In fact, Davis appeared. Los Angeles Auditor In a clip from 1938, “How’s your Uncle Oscar?” with Herik’s then-husband Donald Gladhill.

Hmm. This was never the case for critic Sidney Skolski in his 1970 memoirs. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hollywood In 1934, under pressure from the term, he first did this in the office, probably to the chief, “Would you like a cigarette, Oscar?” He wrote that he used it to mock vaudeville comedians who asked.

But Davis found the clip. New York Daily News March 16, 1934. And in it Skolski simply writes: “the profession calls these statues ‘Oscars’. The term was thus already relevant by its own admission.

Davis argues that the true story unfolds in a different way. As sometimes vaguely reported, an Eleanor Lilleberg worked as a secretary and office assistant at the start of the academy’s history. Davis concludes that these accounts correctly suggest that Lilleberg, who was in charge of caring for the statues before the ceremony, jokingly called them “Oscars” just before Herrick used the term. However, the Norwegian and Swedish King of Lilleberg II. Said to be inspired by Oscar, these ambiguous stories are not surprising. Unfortunately, King Oscar, known for his paintings on Sardinian canvases, does not look like a statue.

Davis went to a small museum in Green Valley, California, named after Eleanor Tree Carving and dedicated to her beloved sister, Einar. In her unfinished autobiography, Einar explained that Eleanor was given the name “Oscar” by a Norwegian Army veteran they knew in Chicago. Like statues she always “stands tall and tall”.

It may be inappropriate, but Davis found a 1944 newspaper interview with a colleague and one with oral history that supports Eleanor Lilleberg’s theory. “Although undesirable, the origin of one of the world’s most famous nicknames must almost certainly belong to him,” he wrote.

You’ll have to read the book to find out more, much more.