Oscars Begin in Hollywood: Cinema's Prestige Established
The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, with 270 guests paying $5 per ticket for a banquet dinner. The event lasted fifteen minutes. Wings won Best Picture. Emil Jannings received Best Actor for two films, and Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for three. Winners had been announced three months in advance; the sealed envelope system was not introduced until 1941. The statuettes, designed by Cedric Gibbons, were not yet called "Oscars" (that nickname came later, with disputed origins). The Academy had been founded just two years earlier by Louis B. Mayer, partly as a mechanism to mediate labor disputes and prevent unionization. The ceremony has since grown into a global broadcast watched by hundreds of millions.
May 16, 1929
97 years ago
Key Figures & Places
Hollywood, California
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Academy Awards
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Hollywood
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Hollywood, Los Angeles
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1st Academy Awards
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Academy Awards
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California
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Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
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Emil Jannings
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Academy Award for Best Actor
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Sein letzter Befehl
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Der Weg allen Fleisches (1927)
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