The first Academy Awards ceremony was held in Hollywood on May 16, 1929
with a mere 270 guests. The name Oscar would not used for another few
years. Emil Jannings was the first Best Actor and Janet Gaynor Best Actress.
The first 12 winners (and the 20 films that were given an honorary scroll of commendation) had already been revealed in the Los Angeles Times three
months earlier.
The inaugural awards were the only time in Academy history that the
ceremony wasn’t broadcast in some way; even a year later it was covered
live on radio.
Emil Jannings with his Best Actor statuette.
Douglas Fairbanks presents Janet Gaynor with the
first Academy Award for Best Actress, for her work
in Seventh Heaven.
William C Demille, President Of The Academy Of Motion Picture
Arts And Sciences hands an Oscar to Mary Pickford (with Warner
Baxter and Hans Kraly looking on) at the first ceremony in 1929.
Cool here with an additional note on those first Academy Awards in 1929. In June of 1970 I was just getting started in what I thought at the time was going to be my life”s calling…..a career in the hotel business! I had just moved to L.A. from San Francisco to take a job at the “Mayfair Hotel” on West 7th Street. It was during my “orientation” with my boss (no, not you boss,….it was another boss!) that I learned among other things, that the after awards party of those 1929 Academy Awards was held right there in that very same “Mayfair Hotel”! So much for my little contribution to this day in history 1929!