Wednesday, 16 May 2012

No business like show business


The first Academy Awards were presented on 16th May 1929, at a private brunch at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post Academy Awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honouring artists, directors and other personalities of the filmmaking industry of the time for their works during the 1927–1928 period.
Winners were announced three months before the ceremony. The recipients included Emil Jannings, the first person to receive an Academy Award, for Best Actor for the films The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command; Janet Gaynor for Best Actress, for Seventh Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans; Frank Borzage for Best Director, Drama for Seventh Heaven and Lewis Milestone for Best Director, Comedy for Two Arabian Knights; and the film Wings, the most expensive film of its time, became the Best Picture recipient. Charlie Chaplin and Warner Brothers each received an Honorary Award. Originally, Chaplin was a Best Actor, Best Writer and Best Director, Comedy nominee for the film The Circus, but was removed from the list, and was honoured with the award; while the company received the award for pioneering talking pictures. Awards also would favour big films' producers—Fox Films Corporation, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Radio-Keith-Orpheum and Warner Brothers Production. Three categories (for Best Engineering Effects, Best Title Writing and Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production) disappeared after the ceremony budiness

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