The first Academy Awards were given out in 1929, based on voting by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. What was a private dinner to host the awards ceremony has now become a public spectacle viewed by millions of people each year in a televised show that goes on for longer than three hours.
There are dozens of Oscar categories. Some are obscure and include Scientific and Technical Awards given for complex work like “miniature high-performance DPA lavalier microphones.”
However, the categories the American public knows best are those for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Director and Best Picture.
Some technical awards have been given to people in their eighties, but the major awards generally go to people much younger. Tatum O’Neal was 10 years old when she won Best Supporting Actress for the film “Paper Moon,” which makes her the youngest actor to win one of the major awards.
“Paper Moon” was released in 1973. It was directed by the recently deceased and widely regard director Peter Bogdanovich. He also directed “The Last Picture Show” (1971), which received eight Oscar nominations.
“Paper Moon” was set in the Great Depression. It was among the few movies in the past half-century that was shot in black and white. The film also starred Ryan O’Neal, Tatum’s father. Tatum won a Golden Globe for “Most Promising Newcomer – Female” as well.
At the far end of the spectrum, last year, at 83, Anthony Hopkins won the Best Actor Award for his role in “The Father,” a film in which the main character is in the early stages of dementia. Now known as Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE, he began working in Hollywood in the late 1960s. Director Richard Attenborough called Hopkins “the greatest actor of his generation.” In 1991, he won his other Oscar as Best Actor portraying psychopath Hannibal Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Click here to read more about the oldest Oscar winner of all time.
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