No one knows why the statuette "Oscar" was named Oscar. Here are a few suggestions

Initially, the Academy Award called "Academy Award of Merit." It is known that the official name of the new golden knight was first performed at the awards ceremony 1934 from the mouth of Walt Disney, and that the nickname "Oscar" stuck to him for some time before that. But who first had the idea to christen the Oscar statuette Today we can not say no.

Applicants for the role of godparents typed more than a dozen. One of the most popular legends associated with the name of the Academy librarian Margaret Herrick. It is said that when he saw the statue in 1931, she clapped her hands and exclaimed: "Why, it's the spitting image of Uncle Oscar!" At this stage there were journalists Sidney Skolsky, who immediately wrote in his column that "employees Academy fondly called its golden Knight Oscar ».



However, later it turned out that no "Uncle" Margaret was not at all, and of all her relatives wore only a name cousin Oscar Pierce. Whatever it was, soon the woman made a spectacular career, turning from a simple librarian in the executive secretary of the Academy.

No evidence that Skolsky ever wrote or said about the above story does not exist. However, the first documented mention of the name "Oscar" of the Prize Academy actually written by this journalist. In 1934, the year Skolsky wrote an article about Katharine Hepburn, which quoted the famous phrase of vaudeville: "Oscar, do not want a cigar?»



Another contender for the role of "godmother" was the actress Bette Davis, nominated for an Academy Award ten times. She assured that the first to call the Golden Knights "Oscar" in honor of her first husband Oscar Nelson. Later, however, she compared the dates and recognized the primacy of Skolsky.



According to another legend, among the filmmakers began calling the award "Oscar" almost from the beginning, but then it bore the nickname derogatory. At the ceremony, 1934 Walt Disney used this name, when he received the award for "Three pigs" and since then, from a purely professional slang it has gradually become a common name.

via factroom.ru