Motion pictures – tainted by scandals, demands for censorship, union unrest, and in the midst of a transition to “talkies” – faced a turning point in 1927. It was during that year that producer Louis B. Mayer, director Fred Niblo, and actor Conrad Nagel suggested that an organization be formed to oversee the film industry. Responding to their idea, a group of thirty-two industry elites, including Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd, Jack L. Warner, Beth Meredyth, and Cecil B. DeMille, met and formed The International Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (International soon being dropped from the title).

Academy Award and Oscar History Begins

As part of their mission, the newly formed Academy, with Fairbanks as its head, sought to publicize and reward the most artistic examples of filmmaking, thus instituting what became known as the Academy Awards. Art director Cedric Gibbons and sculptor George Stanley were commissioned to create a statuette to be presented to various individual winners. Their creation was basically the same familiar figure known today: the gold-plated figure of a man holding a sword standing on a reel of film. The reel has five spokes representing the five branches of the movie industry – producers, actors, directors, writers, and technicians. Not unofficially or officially known as the Oscar until several years later, the 13”, 8 ½ lb. statuettes were called the Award of Merit.