Oscar: Do you know why the gold figurines have this name?
In 2013, the movie gala night was renamed - what was once the Annual Academy Awards simply became The Oscars, a fact that shows us the importance that small statuettes have gained over time. But do you know where the name "Oscar" comes from?
The idea to create the award that would be presented annually to the best productions came from MGM director Cedric Gibbons. He imagined a statue depicting a warrior with a sword on a roll of film. The sculptor George Stanley was responsible for executing the project. Another detail is that the five divisions that make up the roll are a reference to the five parts that make up the Academy: screenwriters, directors, actors, producers and technicians.
The first story
The most common story about the name of the award is that it was given by Margaret Herrick, who was a librarian and would become the future director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is said that when Herrick first saw the statuette in 1931, she commented that the figure resembled her uncle Oscar.
According to Emanuel Levy, author of the book " All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards ", then columnist Sidney Skolsky was present just as Margaret Herrick would have seen the statuette and commented on her uncle. He would later have written in one of his columns that "officials had happily baptized his famous 'Oscar' statuette."
Another explanation
There are those who believe that the famous name was actually invented by Sidney Skolsky himself. To support this theory, they rely on the memoir released by the columnist in 1975. There Skolsky explains that he first used the name "Oscar" in reference to a classic vaudeville joke - which said "Want a cigarette, Oscar?" - in an attempt to make fun of the Academy awards.
As the joke was successful, the use of the name with respect to the figurine was also accepted, despite carrying a certain negativity. From then on, Skolsky recounts in his memoirs that he used “Oscar” whenever he talked about the prize in his columns, which helped to spread and popularize the name.
And to prove that the columnist was not lying (or at least to make his story more truthful), a September 1939 Time magazine article read: “This week Sidney Skolsky joined the growing group of writers that editor George Backer is gathering for their New York Post. Hollywood believes the editor has made the right choice, as Skolsky is one of the best columnists in the business (he coined the term "Oscar" for Academy awards) and is by far the most popular ... "
One more theory
Even with all this evidence, there are still those who doubt that the columnist really was responsible for coining the name of the prize. Many argue that Walt Disney - in his 1934 “Three Little Pigs” thank-you speech (the same year that Skolsky first covered the ceremony) - would have referred to the statuette as “the Oscars”, which he supposedly already had. It was an established nickname within the industry.
In fact, the name was commonly used as a joking nickname for Academy awards (as Skolsky had pointed out), but this theory holds that Disney would have been the first to use the name publicly in a positive sense.
Maybe Margaret Herrick really commented that the figure looked like her uncle. Or maybe Sidney Skolsky was responsible for the nickname - and if he didn't create it, it certainly contributed a lot to popularize it. The fact is that no one knows for sure the origin of the name "Oscar", but it seems that knowing these fun backstage stories of the biggest movie award is worth more than unraveling the real origin of the name.
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