Award season is in full swing. Last week The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 91st Academy Awards. Ninety-one years is a long time, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing. More than once the Oscars were almost cancelled and the Academy today is a far cry from what it was when founded.
The Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences is born
In 1927, the film industry was at its peak. The demand for content (like today) was high and studios big and small were cranking out product and making bushels of money. Sound was just around the corner, but at the time the main concern of the bosses at the big studios was the threat of unionization. In a rare show of unity, the heads of the major studios, led by MGM’s Louis B. Mayer got together and created The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an industry-wide “union” that pledged to protect artists’ rights. It was as if the heads of GM, Chrysler and Ford had formed a union to protect their auto workers. Few were swayed to join until a bright mind at the Academy suggested an award ceremony to recognize members for their artistic achievement. Thus was born the Academy Awards and Hollywood talent signed up for membership.
The first Academy Awards banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, 1927
Things didn’t last. When the Depression hit, the Academy, under the direction of the studio heads, proposed a temporary 50% pay cut across the industry, top to bottom to save money and keep the studios alive. Academy members agreed, though the cut didn’t affect executives as much as it did the average studio worker. Three months later, The Academy told Jack Warner that his studio was back in the black and he could restore regular pay. He told the Academy to take a hike as did Universal’s Carl Laemmle when the Academy later asked him to restore pay. The jig was up and soon members began to abandon the Academy for the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild and other burgeoning unions. As for the Oscars, they became a laughing stock. The big studios backed their own stars and made sure actors and other artists from smaller studios were locked out.
Frank Capra
Young director Frank Capra was working for Columbia Pictures (a smaller studio) and like many he became obsessed with winning the golden statuette. He spent several years pursuing it with films like “Lady for a Day” and “The Bitter Tea of General Yen,” films well reviewed and received but ignored by the Academy. With membership dropping, the Academy finally opened it’s rolls in 1934 to include artists from smaller studios. That year Capra hit gold with “It Happened One Night.” A year later, with membership continuing to fall, the Academy appointed Capra as its president in a Hail Mary pass.
Capra came to his job determined to save the Academy, but two years later the awards were in peril. The new unions were out to destroy the Academy and they urged their members not to attend the 1936 Oscar ceremony. Their members complied. To counter the boycott, Capra trotted out D. W. Griffith, a pioneer of film making who hadn’t worked in twenty years and couldn’t buy the proverbial cup of coffee in town. They found him, dusted him off and awarded him with the first “Honorary Oscar.” The stunt didn’t really work and the next year Capra went to the heads of the Academy (who worked for the studio bosses) and managed to convince them to drop the union aspects of the Academy and focus on the Oscars and the publicity (and box office) they generated. The studio heads dropped the union aspects and agreed to continue funding the Academy and its award ceremony. Stars returned and the awards flourished. Well done, Frank.
Larry Olivier and his Oscar
The studios continued to fund the Academy for the rest of the thirties and throughout World War II. But post-war, something happened. In 1947, several British-made films were nominated for Oscars led by Lawrence Olivier’s “Henry V” which garnered five nominations including Best Picture. It didn’t win, but it rankled the studio bosses. They were not funding the Academy to have non-Hollywood product rewarded. It was positively unpatriotic. Then in 1948, David Lean’s British production of “Great Expectations” was also a multiple nominee. In 1949 when Olivier’s version of “Hamlet” won Best Picture, the studio bosses had had enough. They withdrew funding for the Academy.
The first Oscar telecast, 1952
The Academy soldiered on for a few more years, funded by radio broadcast fees and increased dues, but without the support of the studios, many in Hollywood thought the Oscar ceremony was doomed. In 1952, The Academy was broke and Academy officials were going to cancel the awards. Ironically, it was the scourge of Hollywood, television, that rode in and saved the day. Contract studio stars were forbidden to appear on television except for promotional talk show appearances. NBC saw the advantage of broadcasting major movie stars at their most glamorous. They offered one hundred thousand dollars to the Academy for the rights to broadcast the ceremony The Academy jumped at it and the Oscars were saved. Years later ABC took over broadcast duties and to this day is the home of the Oscars.
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