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(NEXSTAR) – This Sunday, some of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors and filmmakers will be vying to get their hands on a gold-plated Oscar statuette, one of the most prestigious awards in the industry.
But just who is this “Oscar” guy, anyway?
The Academy Award of Merit, as the statuette is officially named, was first presented to honorees at the inaugural Academy Awards in 1929. But it wasn’t until years later that the nickname “Oscar” emerged, and even longer before the Academy embraced the moniker.
The origins of the name “Oscar” are disputed, but one of the most common beliefs, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), concerns Academy librarian Margaret Herrick. Herrick, in the early 1930s, is purported to have claimed that the statuette looked like her “Uncle Oscar” — and the name somehow stuck.
But Herrick’s account changed slightly in later years. As noted by Bruce Davis, a former AMPAS executive director and the author of “The Academy and the Award,” Herrick would later admit she never had an uncle named Oscar, but would sometimes joke about a fictional “Uncle Oscar” with her husband. As the newer story goes, the joke eventually made its way into the Academy’s offices.
Unfortunately, there’s little evidence to confirm either account.
There’s also no evidence to support a claim once made by Oscar-winner Bette Davis, who said she coined the nickname “Oscar” upon winning an Academy Award in 1936 and noticing that the statuette’s golden buttocks reminded her of then-husband Harman Oscar Nelson’s backside. She later retracted the claim in a 1974 biography, after the emergence of other theories concerning pre-1936 references to the nickname “Oscar.”
“A sillier controversy never existed,” the actress, who was also briefly president of AMPAS in 1941, told the biographer.
Sydney Skolsky, a Hollywood gossip columnist, also attempted to take credit for the name. As he once wrote in his 1975 book “Don’t Get Me Wrong — I Love Hollywood,” he first used the term “Oscar” in a 1934 column in an attempt to “erase the phony dignity” surrounding the ceremony, according to Biography.com. But that column reportedly covered the previous evening’s awards ceremony, during which Walt Disney reportedly used the term “Oscar” in his speech, Biography.com reported, citing the official Disney fan club.
A more likely theory, according to Bruce Davis, is that the Oscar was christened “Oscar” by a secretary named Eleanore Lilleberg, who worked in the Academy’s offices. Her duties included “wrangling” and overseeing the statuettes ahead of the early ceremonies, during which time she started referring to them as “Oscars,” Davis contended in his book.
Davis also identified corroborating witnesses in Lester Cowan, a film producer who would frequent the offices, and Lilleberg’s brother Einar, who briefly worked at the headquarters as well.
Einar’s writings, specifically, indicated that Lilleberg nicknamed the golden statuette “Oscar” after a neighborhood figure they both knew in younger years. He was a veteran of the Norwegian army, Einar recounted, who was “known for the way he always stood straight and tall,” Davis wrote.
Davis noted that it was “impossible to say” whether this was the true explanation. But he felt there was more evidence to back up Lilleberg than anyone else.
“Unsought though it was, the credit for originating one of the world’s best-known nicknames should almost certainly belong to her,” Davis wrote.
Today, however, AMPAS makes no mention of Lilleberg or her alleged contributions anywhere on its site, instead admitting that the origin of the award’s nickname isn’t totally clear. Nevertheless, the Academy offers up the story of Herrick and her “Uncle Oscar” as the most “popular” version of events, and leaves Lilleberg — and even Bette Davis’ fixation on the statue’s golden butt — out of the official narrative.
The 96th Academy Awards airs Sunday, March 10 at 7 p.m Eastern and 4 p.m. Pacific.
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