The Oscars are upon us again. Will Leonardo DiCaprio finally take home the coveted statuette for his role in the dreary “The Revenant” or will “Brooklyn” steal the limelight, as I suspect it will?
Regardless, the burning question for Namedropper is the identity of Oscar. Who was Oscar?
Officially, the statuette is called the Academy Award of Merit, but everyone in Hollywood has known it as Oscar since at least 1934. The Academy itself adopted the nickname in 1939. The most likely story is that when the Academy’s librarian, Margaret Herrick, first saw the statuette, she said it looked like her Uncle Oscar. There were other claims to the name at the time – including the rumor that Bette Davis had named it after her first husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson – but whatever its uncertain provenance, it was to stick as firmly as superglue.
The BBC goes into the history of the awards and the story of Oscar here.
3 thoughts on “Who was Oscar?”
Or like Elmer’s Glue? Which begs the question: Who was Elmer?
Sent from my iPhone
According the their website, Elmer was the name of cow, hence the cow’s face in the logo. Who knew?
How about Burt’s Bees? Did he have any?