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Journalism of Courage
Standing 13 1/2 inch tall and dressed in gold, the Oscars statuette is one of the most recognised trophies in the world, often photographed receiving an appreciative kiss from its recipients and occupying a place of pride on the mantles and desks of some of the biggest names from the film industry.
Today morning, we saw winners in 24 categories take their Academy Awards home, and now as India prepares to welcome its own – with Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga’s ‘The Elephant Whisperer’ bagging an award for Best Documentary Short Film, and ‘Naatu Naatu’ from SS Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’ winning in the Best Original Song category – we look at what goes into the creation of the famous statuette, what its design denotes, and how it was nicknamed Oscar.
Soon after the establishment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927, the organisation set out to discuss its goals during a dinner at Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, where, among others, it was decided to institute an annual award.
MGM art director Cedric Gibbons famously grabbed a linen napkin to sketch a statuette of a knight standing on a reel of film, holding a crusader’s sword. Thereafter, American sculptor George Maitland Stanley gave a three-dimensional design to the sketch, where the five spokes of the reel stand for the five original branches of the Academy – actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers.
Though the Academy never officially acknowledged it, well-known Mexican actor and filmmaker Emilio “El Indio” Fernández too claimed to have modelled for the statue during his stay in Hollywood in the 1920s.
Standing 13 1/2 inches tall and weighing 81/2 pounds, the first statuettes were made in gold-plated solid bronze, but in the later years, the Academy switched to Britannia metal, a pewter-based alloy. During a metal shortage in World War II, the statuettes were made of painted plaster for three years, which the awardees changed for gold-plated metal later.
Officially named the Academy Award of Merit, the statuette is better known as Oscar, and the nickname was officially adopted by the Academy in 1939.
Though the origins are not known, the most popular belief is that on seeing the trophy for the first time, Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who later became its executive director, remarked that it resembled her Uncle Oscar, and the name resonated. The usage was already widespread, and as early as 1934 Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky used it in an article while writing about Katharine Hepburn’s first Best Actress win.
Originally cast, moulded and polished at CW Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, in 1982, the production was later assigned to RS Owens & Company in Chicago. Since 2016, the statuettes have been produced by Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry, a 105,000-square-foot factory in Rock Tavern, New York. The entire process takes three months, beginning with the creation of a digital Oscar, made using a 3D printer.
The figure is then cast in wax, and once it cools each wax statuette is coated with a ceramic shell and left to cure for weeks, before being fired at 1,600°F. The statuettes are then cast in liquid bronze, cooled, sanded and polished, and then sent to Brooklyn to be electroplated in 24-karat gold by Epner Technology. Though the awards are only given in 24 categories, each year 50 statues are produced, in case there is a tie or multiple winners in any of the categories.
While each trophy reportedly costs over $400 to produce, official regulation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences states that the winners or anyone else cannot sell it in the market. It mandates that any resale requires for it to be first offered back to the Academy for $1.
In ‘Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend’ author Susan Orlean documented the longstanding belief that Rin Tin Tin, a male German Shepherd – rescued from the World War I battlefield by an American soldier – who was a famous Hollywood star in the ‘20s and ‘30s, received most nominating votes for Best Actor during the first round of voting for Best Actor at the inaugural Academy Awards in 1929.
Not in favour of giving a canine the very first Best Actor award, the Academy arguably held another round of voting with only humans, resulting in a win for Emil Jannings, a German actor who later starred in propaganda films for the Nazis in the 1930s.
The person with the most Oscars ever is Walt Disney, who took home 26 in his lifetime. The most awarded woman in Oscar history, meanwhile, is American costume designer Edith Head, who won eight Academy Awards in the Best Costume Design category.
