Why Is an Academy Award Called an “Oscar”?
One of Hollywood’s most famous figures stands at just 13.5 inches tall, weighs only 8.5 pounds, and goes by just one name: Oscar. The famous golden statuette is awarded annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is one of the highest honors in the film industry. Like a lot of old Hollywood lore, there have been competing stories through the years about how the little gold statuette — officially named the Academy Award of Merit — got its human nickname. Here are some prevailing theories on how this prized statuette came to be known as “Oscar.”
The Birth of the Little Gold Man
The first Academy Awards ceremony took place in May 1929 in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and introduced the gold-plated, solid-bronze statuette that has been an iconic Hollywood image ever since. Motion picture art director Cedric Gibbons designed it, and sculptor George Stanley brought to life the knight holding a crusader's sword, standing on a reel of film. The film reel’s five spokes represent the original five branches of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: actors, directors, producers, technicians, and writers.
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Why Do We Call it an “Oscar”?
Although the Academy Awards and its traditional statuette have been around since 1929, the Oscar name wasn’t officially adopted by the academy until 1939. The exact origin of the nickname, however, is fairly murky. One widely circulated legend attributes the moniker to the academy’s first librarian and eventual executive director, Margaret Herrick. According to the story, in 1931, Herrick saw one of the statuettes on an executive's desk and said it reminded her of her Uncle Oscar. A newspaper reporter who happened to be nearby overheard Herrick, and the nickname stuck. (There are some inconsistencies in the story, however; Herrick later claimed the name Oscar came from an inside joke with her husband). Another popular, though unlikely, theory is that the actress Bette Davis said in a 1936 Academy Awards acceptance speech that the statuette’s backside resembled that of her then-husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson. And yet another oft-repeated legend is that Hollywood gossip columnist Sidney Skolsky coined the term when he used it in a 1934 story about Katharine Hepburn’s first Academy Award for Best Actress.
The Award for Naming the Oscar Goes to…
According to Bruce Davis, who spent 20 years as the academy’s executive director, the Oscar nickname began to make its way through the Hollywood community sometime between 1930 and 1933 — predating Bette Davis and Sidney Skolsky’s use of the term. Davis suggests someone else entirely deserves credit for inventing the Oscar alias: a woman named Eleanore Lilleberg. Lilleberg was an academy secretary and office assistant during the award's early days, and part of her duties included managing the statuettes before the ceremony. Stories have occasionally surfaced that she jokingly called the award “Oscar,” which Davis claims is the true origin of the name. While researching his book The Academy and the Award, he came across an autobiography by Lilleberg’s brother, California artist Einar Lilleberg, at the tiny Lilleberg Museum in Green Valley, California. Einar’s text claimed that his sister referred to the awards as “Oscar” in honor of a Norwegian army veteran she knew in their hometown of Chicago. Einar described the veteran as, like the famous statuette, always "standing straight and tall."
How the Academy Awards Became “the Oscars”
Since 1939, 10 years after the first Academy Awards, the AMPAS has accepted and used “the Oscars” name as the official shorthand for its annual ceremony. In 2013, for the 85th annual Academy Awards, the show dropped the lengthy original title and simply went with “the Oscars.” Neil Meron, who co-produced the 2013, 2014, and 2015 ceremonies, said the rebrand was an attempt to modernize the show. “We're not calling it the 85th annual Academy Awards, which keeps it mired somewhat in a musty way,” he said. "It'll be like the Grammys. The Grammys don't get a number, and neither will the Oscars." The colloquial new name remains in use to this day.
