No, neither Bette Davis nor the Academy’s Margaret Herrick came up with the nickname Oscar. Davis writes that “almost no one outside their industry was thinking of movies as an art form” and awards were on the back burner of the new organization. Davis writes that the idea of awards was raised at meetings, but everybody seemed to avoid it. On Feb. 20, 1929, Report Door ran a list of winners at the first Academy Awards — on page 7. The nickname began to “seep out into the Hollywood community between 1930 and 1933,” writes Davis.
Continue reading...
