Stanley Rubin (second from the right) holds his Emmy award
for "The Necklace" at the first Emmy Awards, Los Angeles.
The first Emmy Awards ceremony was held on January 25, 1949
at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The awards recognize excellence
in television (which in the 1940s was a novel medium).
Hollywood’s first television academy had been founded three
years earlier by Sid Cassyd, a former film editor for Frank Capra
who later worked as a grip at Paramount Studios and an
entertainment journalist.
At a time when only about 50,000 American households had TV
sets, Cassyd saw the need for an organization that would foster productive discussion of the fledgling entertainment medium.
The academy’s membership grew quickly, despite the lack of
support from the Hollywood motion-picture establishment,
which perhaps understandably felt threatened by TV and its
potential to keep audiences entertained at home (and away
from the theaters).
