First Academy Awards
The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
May 16, 1929
Hollywood's First Awards Night
The first Academy Awards ceremony took place on May 16, 1929, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. The event was a small, private dinner hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which had been founded just two years earlier. About 270 people attended, and the ceremony lasted only 15 minutes. The winners had actually been announced three months earlier, so there was no suspense. Emil Jannings, a German-Austrian actor, was the first person ever to receive an Academy Award for Best Actor. He had to leave for Europe before the ceremony, so he was given his award early — making him the first winner in Academy history.
Wings Takes the Top Prize
The film "Wings," a spectacular silent war epic about World War I fighter pilots, won the award for Outstanding Picture, which is the equivalent of today's Best Picture. It was a massive, expensive production that featured real aerial combat photography and was considered a technical marvel of its time. The ceremony also recognized films spanning two years of Hollywood production, 1927 and 1928, because it was the first time the awards had ever been given. In those early years, the award was presented as a simple gold statuette — the same shape and design that the Academy still uses today, more than 90 years later.
From Dinner Party to Global Event
What began as a small industry dinner has grown into one of the most watched television events in the world. The Oscars moved to radio broadcast in 1930 and to television in 1953. Today, the ceremony is watched by tens of millions of people in countries around the globe. The gold statuette — nicknamed "Oscar," a name whose exact origin is disputed — has become the most recognized award in the entertainment world. Winning an Academy Award can launch careers, resurrect them, or define them permanently. Few institutions in American popular culture have shown the same staying power as the ceremony that began with a 15-minute dinner in 1929.