Far from the eagerly anticipated

and globally televised event it is

today, the first Academy Awards
ceremony took place out of the public
eye during an Academy banquet at
the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Two
hundred seventy people attended the
May 16, 1929 dinner in the hotel’s
Blossom Room; guest tickets cost $5.
It was a long affair filled with
speeches, but Academy President
Douglas Fairbanks made quick work
of handing out the statuettes.
The first awards were presented on May
16, 1929, at a private brunch at the Hollywood
Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270
people. The post Academy Awards party was
held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest
tickets for that night's ceremony was $5.
Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring
artists, directors and other personalities of the
filmmaking industry of the time for their works
during the 1927–1928 period.

Winners had been announced three

months earlier of their triumphs; however that
was changed in the second ceremony of the
Academy Awards in 1930. Since then and
during the first decade, the results were given
to newspapers for publication at 11 pm on the
night of the awards. This method was used
until the Los Angeles Times announced the
winners before the ceremony began; as a
result, the Academy has used a sealed
envelope to reveal the name of the winners
since 1941. Since 2002, the awards have been
broadcast from the Kodak Theatre.

The first Best Actor awarded was Emil

Jannings, for his performances in The Last
Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to
return to Europe before the ceremony, so the
Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier;
this made him the first Academy Award winner
in history. The honored professionals were
awarded for all the work done in a certain
category for the qualifying period; for
example, Emil Jannings received the award for
two movies in which he starred during that
period. Since the fourth ceremony, the system
changed, and the professionals were honored
for a specific performance in a single film. As
of the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony held in
2010, a total of 2,789 Oscars have been given
for 1,825 awards. A total of 302 actors have
won Oscars in competitive acting categories or
been awarded Honorary or Juvenile Awards.

The 1939 film Beau Geste is the only movie

(non-documentary) that features as many as
four Academy Award winners for Best Actor in
a Leading Role (Gary Cooper, Ray Milland,
Susan Hayward, Broderick Crawford).

At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,

1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category
was introduced; until then, foreign language
films were honored with the Special
Achievement Award.

Oscar Nominations
List 2011

Here are the nominees for the 83rd

Academy Awards.
Actor in a Leading Role Actress in a
Javier Bardem in
Leading Role
"Biutiful"
Annette Bening in "The Kids
Jeff Bridges in "True Grit"
Are All Right"
Jesse Eisenberg in "The
Nicole Kidman in "Rabbit
Social Network"
Hole"
Colin Firth in "The King's
Jennifer Lawrence in
Speech"
"Winter's Bone"
James Franco in "127
Natalie Portman in "Black
Hours"
Swan"
Michelle Williams in "Blue
Valentine"

Writing (Original Visual Effects

Screenplay)
"Alice in Wonderland," Ken
Ralston, David Schaub, Carey
"Another Year," Written by
Villegas and Sean Phillips
Mike Leigh
"Harry Potter and the Deathly
"The Fighter," Screenplay by
Hallows Part 1," Tim Burke, John
Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy
Richardson, Christian Manz and
& Eric Johnson; Story by Keith
Nicolas Aithadi
Dorrington & Paul Tamasy &
"Hereafter," Michael Owens,
Eric Johnson
Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski
"Inception," Written by
and Joe Farrell
Christopher Nolan
"Inception," Paul Franklin, Chris
"The Kids Are All Right,"
Corbould, Andrew Lockley and
Written by Lisa Cholodenko &
Peter Bebb
Stuart Blumberg
"Iron Man 2," Janek Sirrs, Ben
"The King's Speech,"
Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel
Screenplay by David Seidler
Sudick