The “Oscar” – the golden statuette
handed out annually since 1929 by the American Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and
Sciences to reward outstanding artistic and scientific achievement in motion
pictures – is arguably one of the most recognizable images in American
pop-culture. And yet, despite the glare
of the spotlight through nearly nine decades of interest in the subject, the
origin of the familiar name is still unknown.
The Academy itself does not seem to
know.[i] Its website merely notes that the
origins “aren’t clear.” They do,
however, briefly mention one popular story involving a long-time Executive
Secretary of the Academy, Margaret Herrick, who is rumored to have said upon
first seeing the statuettes that they reminded her of her “Uncle Oscar.” They also suggest that the name was “widely
known enough” by 1934 that a Hollywood columnist used the name in print in
1934.
The earliest known example of “Oscar”
in print is from Sidney Skolsky’s report of the sixth-annual Academy Awards
ceremonies held in 1934. Skolsky had
been an entertainment columnist for the New York Daily News since 1929, working
out of New York and concentrating, for the most part, on Broadway, but also
covering Hollywood news from a distance.
But in July 1933, Skolsky moved out to Hollywood to cover the growing
industry up close and personal.
In March of 1934, he attended his
first Academy Awards ceremony in person.
His column the next day includes the earliest known example of “Oscar”
in print.
Films Crown
Hepburn, Laughton Year’s Best
By Sidney
Skolsky.
Hollywood, March 16. – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences made its annual awards for the outstanding achievements in the motion
picture field at their banquet in the Ambassador Hotel this evening.
These awards mean to Hollywood what the Pulitzer prize means
to the dramatists and novelists. It is
the picture people’s main incentive to strive for an “artistic achievement” in
an industry where their worth is judged by box office figures.
At tonight’s banquet the winners, while movieland looked on
and applauded, were presented with bronze statues. To the profession
these statues are called Oscars.
Daily News
(New York), March 17, 1934, page 3.
Despite his initial suggestion that
the name was already known in “the profession,” Skolsky later took credit for
coining the name himself, motivated, he claims, by a desire to take some starch
out of a pompous, stuffy affair.
“It happened the year Katharine Hepburn won the Award for
‘Morning Glory’ and Laughton won for ‘King Henry VIII.’” Skolsky enlightened
us. “Everyone kept writing and prattling
about the gold statuette and the gleaming
statuette and everyone invested the entire Award with too much dignity .
. . So I decided to give the statuette a simpler name, and also one that would
kid it good-naturedly. I thought of the
most unlikely name, Oscar, and referred to it as such. The name caught on.”
Modern Screen,
Volume 23, Number 6, November 1941, page 85.
Years later, Skolsky added more
detail to the story. He explained why he
initially avoided taking credit for the name – to avoid criticism if people
were offended. He suggested an
additional motivation to coin the name – journalistic efficiency, he didn’t
like referring to it as “the gold statuette” over and over. And he added an additional detail about the
specific motivation to use the name “Oscar” – “a pit orchestra leader named
Oscar.”
I remember clearly that I named Oscar. I swear on a stack of Oscars my story is
true. I had been transferred by the New
York Daily News to Hollywood. Covering
my first Academy Awards banquet and still regarding myself as a Broadwayite, I
though Hollywood was taking their awards too seriously. In particular, I couldn’t tolerate speaker
after speaker referring to the Award as “the gold statuette.” It continued for hours: “The gold statuette
for the best performance by an actress to Katharine Hepburn for Morning Glory. The gold statuette for the best performance
by an actor to Charles Laughton for
Henry VIII. The gold statuette for the
best motion picture to Cavalcade.”
After the Awards, I rushed to Western Union to file my
story. I decided to give the readers as
little of the “gold statuette” as possible.
I tried to think of a comedy name, in a hurry. A name that would remove some of the
pompousness from the entire affair. I
remembered a pit orchestra leader named Oscar.
The vaudevillians got laughs when they’d call him Oscar. I’d do it.
But I better be a little careful; poking fun at Hollywood’s most
important event my first time at bat. I
covered myself by writing that “to the profession these statues are called
Oscars.” They weren’t going to catch me
with my gold statuette down.
. . . If anyone can
produce a clipping in which the gold statuette is called Oscar before the year
1934, I’ll deliver Marlon Brando to her personally.
Modern Screen, Volume 50, Number 4, April, 1956, page 80.
No one ever claimed the reward.
Two decades later, Skolsky provided
additional details which explained why the audience laughed when the
vaudevillians called the orchestra leader Oscar.
In his book Don’t Get Me Wrong—I Love Hollywood
(1975), Skolsky wrote:
I needed the magic name fast. But
fast! I remembered the vaudeville shows I’d seen. The comedians having fun with
the orchestra leader in the pit would say, “Will you have a cigar, Oscar?” The
orchestra leader reached for it; the comedians backed away, making a comical
remark. The audience laughed at Oscar. I started hitting the keys. “Katharine
Hepburn won the Oscar for her performance as Eva Lovelace in Morning Glory, her third Hollywood film.” I felt better. I was having fun. I filed
and forgot.
Sidney Skolsky’s basic story didn’t
change with each retelling, but it is curious that he added details with
each retelling, instead of giving a full account in the first place. He swore on a stack of Oscars and offered a
tongue-in-cheek reward for evidence of earlier use. Tongue-in-cheek or not, no one claimed the
reward and no one in the six decades since has come up with contemporary evidence
disproving his claim.
But that’s not to say there aren’t
other stories, written years after 1934, suggesting that Skolsky’s original
claim was true and the name was known in the profession before he wrote his
first Academy Award column in 1934.
Walt Disney
Walt Disney did not coin the name,
“Oscar,” but may have restored the shine of an otherwise simple, undignified
name. Nearly four decades after the
fact, Frances Marion, an early two-time Academy Award winning screenwriter
(1931 best screenplay, The Big House;
1932 best story, The Champ), wrote
that Walt Disney, who received the award for Best Animated Short for The Three Little Pigs at the same March
1934 awards ceremony Skolsky attended, referred to his golden statuette as
“Oscar” in his acceptance speech that night.
As 1935 dawned, the American producers began to draw more
talent from England. . . . Perhaps it was one of the reasons why some of the
glitter had worn off this former gala event, and those who had never won the
gold-plated honor now referred to it disparagingly as
the “Oscar.” . . .
Up went a roar of approval for Walt Disney, and momentarily
all the petty ills of human nature seemed to vanish as he smiled upon the
audience. Who could be envious of this
young man who had again brought our childhood back to us with his Three Little Pigs? When Walt referred to
the “Oscar,” that name took on a different meaning, now that we had
heard it spoken with sincere appreciation.”
Frances Marion, Off With Their Heads: A Serio-comic Tale of Hollywood, New York,
Macmillan, 1972, pages 242-243.
If her recollection were correct,
Sidney Skolsky’s claim would be in jeopardy.
It’s possible, however, that Marion may have misremembered the ceremony
at which she recalls Disney having called his golden statuette “Oscar.” Walt Disney won a lot of Osacars. Walt Disney received an Academy Award every
year from 1932 through 1940, took the year off in 1941 and won two more in 1942
and 1943.
Assuming she’s right, or taking
Sidney Skolsky’s first “Oscar” reference on its face, someone else must have
coined the name. The leading candidate
is Margaret Herrick. She was certainly
in a position to name the statuette. But
her story is problematic, changing over the years on various details. At first she said the name came from a silly
expression, “Uncle Oscar,” she and her husband would say to each other. Later, she said the statue looked like an
actual uncle named Oscar. Later still, the
uncle became a first cousin, once removed.
The changes are curious, given that Herrick’s long-standing association
with the Academy as librarian and later Executive Secretary of the Academy put
her in position to control the story.
Herrick’s story first appeared at the
same time reports surfaced of the Academy’s resistance to others using the name,
suggesting, perhaps, that the Academy created the story in an effort to reclaim
or control an increasingly valuable trademark.
Margaret (Gledhill) Herrick
Margaret Buck was born in Spokane,
Washington in 1902. In 1930, she lived with
her parents in Yakima, Washington,[ii]
where she was head librarian for the city’s library. She came from a long line of strong and
successful men and women, so perhaps it’s not surprising that she would rise to
the top of such an influential organization, even if she had to start at the
bottom, without pay, supporting her husband’s career.
Her great-grandfather, Chauncey
Kellogg, wrote the first and last drafts of the Wisconsin state constitution
before statehood in 1848. His daughter Francena
(Margaret’s grandmother) was in the first graduating class of Lawrence
University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and joined its faculty after graduation in
1857. Margaret’s grandfather, Norman
Buck, may have been one of Francena’s students; he graduated from Lawrence in
1859, after which they were engaged.[iii]
His law school and the Civil War got
in the way and their engagement stretched out to six years. Norman served as an officer in the Union Army
and Francena was a wartime nurse in Tennessee and Washington DC. They moved to Minnesota after the war, where
Norman became a prosecuting attorney for Winona County, where he is said to have been a “member of the
party . . . that captured a couple of the bold, bad James boys [(Jesse James’
gang)] after they had penetrated as far north as Northfield, Minnesota.”[iv]
 |
| Margaret Herrick with her father,
Nathan K. Buck, at the 100th anniversary of Lawrence University’s
first graduating class. |
The Bucks eventually left Minnesota
for Lewiston, Idaho and later Spokane, Washington, with Norman serving as a
Judge in both cities. His son, Nathaniel
Buck (Margaret’s father), followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming an
attorney and eventually a judge in Yakima, Washington.
In about 1931, Margaret Buck of
Yakima married Donald Gledhill of Hollywood.
Donald had been working as an assistant to Lester Cowan, the Executive
Secretary of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, since early 1929,
after having worked for newspapers in Denver, Colorado and San Jose,
California. He arrived at about the same
time the Academy handed out its first awards in May 1929, but it’s not clear
whether he arrived just before or just after the affair.
The new Mrs. Gledhill put her library
experience to good use as the Academy’s first part-time librarian in about
1931, a job that soon became full-time but remained unpaid.
Both Don and Margaret Gledhill seem
to have had some experience or interest in photography, or at least acquired
those skills after they started working at the Academy. Donald, for example, wrote technical articles about
cameras and film for industry magazines.
And in 1939, the two of them developed an early micro-fiche-style camera
system for reducing the storage space of library card-catalogues and books, to
be read through a slide viewer.
 |
Bakersfield Californian, April 24, 1939, page 14.
|
Margaret Gledhill did not confine her
volunteer efforts to the Academy. She
was the “state chairman of motion pictures” for the American Association of
University Women and lectured and advocated for the use of educational films in
the classroom. If you are of a certain
age and recall the hypnotic clickity-clack of a flickering projector in the
back of a darkened classroom, she may have played a role in making it possible
for you to take a nap in class now and then.
Don Gledhill was promoted to
Executive Secretary of the Academy in 1933, continuing in that position until his
induction into the Army Signal Corps in January 1943.
 |
| Don Gledhill informing Bette Davis of
her election as President of the Adacemy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1941,
page 5. |
With her husband off at war, and with
her intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Academy, she stepped into
his shoes and out of his shadow as the “temporary” Executive Secretary in his
absence. And with her husband off at
war, they would divorce, she remarried, temporary became permanent, and Mrs.
Margaret Herrick became Executive Secretary of the Academy, a position she held
until her retirement in 1971. The
Academy’s library bears her name – the
Margaret Herrick Library. Some now
credit her with giving the Oscar its name, but it wasn’t always that way.
In 1936, two years after Sidney
Skolsky first used the name “Oscar” in print, Betty Davis famously referred to
her award for Jezebel as “Oscar”
during the post-awards interviews, sparking the long-lasting rumor that she
coined the name that evening. It didn’t
hurt that her husband’s middle name was Oscar.
Oscar – the name bestowed by Hollywood’s irreverent upon the
gold-plated brass statuettes awarded by the movie academy for achievement –
went to Bette with an unexpressed apology from filmland. . . . [She should have
won a year earlier]
“Oscar”, the name given the gold-plated little statue the
movie academy gives for the year’s best film acting, now decorates the home of
Mr. and Mrs. Harmon O. Nelson, where Bette Davis manages the meals.
The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey), March 17, 1936, page 5.
Contemporary accounts of the event did
not suggest that she named the award for her husband. Later accounts, however, filled the narrative
void, while mixing up other facts.
Bette Davis called her Academy statuette “Oscar” at the
presentation because that’s hubby “Ham” Nelson’s middle name. Sid Skolsky picked it up and made much of it
in his column, and now everyone calls the little jiggers “Oscar.”
“Cinemacaroni,” Robert Tobey, International Photographer, Volume 8,
Number 3, April 1936, page 32.
The myth persisted.
 |
Motion Picture Daily, February 27, 1939, page 11.
|
But despite Bette Davis’ recent,
widely reported public use of the name, the name itself was still commonly seen
as “irreverent.”
 |
Reno Gazette-Journal, March 6, 1937, page 9.
|
Nevertheless, and despite the
Academy’s best efforts and better judgment, the name stuck. Interest in the name and its origins was on
the rise in 1939 – much to the chagrin of the Academy.
For reasons not apparent, persons and press within and
outside the motion picture industry disclosed at the time of last week’s awards
presentation much more than the usual curiosity in the reason why the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts’ awards statuettes are called “Oscars.”
. . . Academy awards officials this year were quite perturbed
by the continuance of the use of the word “Oscar” but couldn’t do anything
about it.
Motion Picture Herald, Volume 134, Number 9, March 4, 1939, page 47.
To set the record straight or perhaps
to reclaim and control an increasingly valuable name, an “authentic source”
released a new story placing Academy insiders in the middle of the action. The name started as a pet expression playfully
exchanged between the Gledhills, and was soon adopted by the “whole staff”.
One authentic source says that it started in a bit of
badinage between Donald Gledhill, Academy executive secretary, and his wife.
According to this story, Mrs. Gledhill and Don would exchange flippant remarks, such as “How’s your Uncle Oscar?”
One time, Mrs. Gledhill visited Don at his Academy office,
and he asked, “How’s your Uncle Oscar?”
Mrs. Gledhill, the story continues, hesitated for a bit, and
then pointed to one of the Academy statuettes: “There’s Uncle Oscar now. Why
don’t you ask him?”
An Academy staff member happened to be in the room, and soon the whole staff took up the word. It spread, until now virtually everyone in
Hollywood knows the name refers to the statuette.
Motion Picture Herald, Volume 134, Number 9, March 4, 1939, page 47.
A similar story a few years later
repeated most of the same details, but got the date wrong by at least a couple
years.
First to use the name Oscar was Mrs. Donald Gledhill, wife of
the academy’s executive secretary.
She and her husband kidded each other with the expression
“How’s your Uncle Oscar?” Visiting her
husband’s office one day in 1936, Mrs. Gledhill saw one of the statuettes on
his desk. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “so
that’s your Uncle Oscar!” Officials of
the academy took up the name. Bette’s
press agent heard about it and credited it to the actress.
Ithaca Journal
(Ithaca, New York), February 11, 1943, page 14.
Another version of the same story
appeared a few years later with a timeline that made more sense, but this time
the statue looked like an actual uncle named Oscar, instead of being just a
flippant, kidding expression. And
instead of staff members overhearing the name and taking it up, it was a
newspaper columnist.
In 1931, Donald Gledhill, executive secretary of the Academy,
brought his new bride to the office for the first time, and showed her a gold
statuette on his desk. Mrs. Gledhill,
who now serves as secretary while her husband fights for Uncle Sam as a
captain, studied the statuette carefully.
She noted its square jaw and sharp, mannish features.
“Reminds me of my Uncle Oscar,” she remarked. Outside the door sat a newspaper columnist,
waiting for a friend. Overhearing the
reference to Oscar, he published a single line in his column next day:
“Academy employes have affectionately dubbed their famous
gold statuette – Oscar.”
Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona), April 9, 1944, page 30.
If a newspaper columnist did use the
word the next day, no one has been able to find it.
A later version of the story shared
the same timeline, but changed the uncle to a first cousin once-removed.
Back in 1931 when Mrs. Herrick was first introduced to the
statuette, she took a quick look and then, in a flurry of surprise, remarked,
“He reminds me of my Uncle Oscar”.
As a matter of record, Uncle Oscar Pierce wasn’t actually
Mrs. Herrick’s uncle at all, but a first cousin of Mrs. Herrick’s mother.
Motion Picture Herald, Volume 168, Number 10, September 6, 1947, page 29.
By 1947, the Academy reportedly
adopted the actual “Uncle Oscar” story as its “official” version of events. This version supports the suggestion that
“Oscar” was first used facetiously.
Who is Oscar – and why?
It’s the name attached to the golden statuette, of course, that is
annually awarded to Academy champions. . . .
Officially, the Academy itself attributes its origin to
Margaret Herrick, executive secretary, who, in 1931, is credited with having
said of a statuette, “Oh, he reminds me of my Uncle Oscar.”
. . . In the early days Oscar was a facetious term; today it
has acquired far more dignity. Anyway,
Oscar it is, until a better nickname is found.
Los Angeles Times, January 12, 1947, page 27.
Mrs. Herrick was still telling the
story in 1956, this time with more genealogical information to identify the
“uncle” who purportedly inspired the name.
This version adds the detail that she named it on her first day as the
Academy’s librarian in 1931.
The golden figure was still without a name that day in 1931
when Mrs. Margaret Herrick, present executive secretary of the Academy,
reported for her first day’s work as librarian.
A copy of the statuette stood on an executive’s desk and she was
formally introduced to it as the foremost member of the organization.
She regarded it a moment.
“He reminds me,” she observed, “of my Uncle Oscar.”
Nearby sat a newspaper columnist and the next day his
syndicated copy contained the line “Employes have affectionately dubbed their
famous statuette ‘Oscar.’” From that day
on he has been Oscar.
Mrs. Herrick’s “Uncle Oscar,” is not her uncle at all, but is
in fact a second cousin. This man who so
vicariously came into fame around the world is Oscar Pierce, of a wealthy
Western pioneer family, formerly living in Texas. He did well in wheat and fruit and some years
ago retired in California. The
relationship is through first cousinship to Ada Morie, now Mrs. N. K. Buck of
Yakima, Wash., mother of Mrs. Herrick of the Academy.
Mrs. Herrick disclaims any marked resemblance between Oscar
and Uncle Oscar, and admits now her history-making words were voiced in utter
whimsy. Lots of history is made that
way.
The Times
(Shreveport, Louisiana), March 16, 1956, page 18.
Margaret Herrick’s account of the
naming raises several questions. If it
is true, as some versions of the story claim, that a reporter, gossip columnist
or syndicated columnist overheard the name and wrote about it the next day,
where is the evidence of that first article? And if others picked it up after that article
in 1931, why did it not appear in print for three more years? Which version of the story would be more
reliable, the earliest version (1939) in which “Uncle Oscar” was just an inside
joke of sorts between her and her husband, or later versions, in which “Uncle
Oscar” is said to be an actual human?
Furthermore, if the Gledhills are in the perfect position to control the
story and ensure its accuracy, why did it change over time? A cynic (or any rational person) might consider
it suspicious that the Academy first circulated a story about their own
officials coining the name at the same time they reportedly resisted its
use by others. Might they have been
trying to manufacture a case for first use of an emerging, valuable trademark?
If we accept the earliest version of
events, that it was a pet phrase and not an actual person, it raises the
question of whether there was some pop-culture source of “Uncle Oscar” that
might have contributed to it becoming a funny pet expression used by the
Gledhills.
I looked for one – and I found a
candidate; a candidate which is in all likelihood unrelated, but which presents
a tantalizingly seductive, striking and uncanny coincidence that almost makes
me want to believe.
The cast of characters in Frank
Willard’s syndicated comic strip, Moon Mullins, included a character named
“Uncle Oscar” and his niece (Moon Mullins’ sister) “Emmy”. “Uncle Oscar” and “Emmy” appeared together
in Moon Mullins from 1925 through 1933.
 |
Los Angeles Times, February 13, 1928, page 10.
|
 |
Daily News
(New York), September 28, 1933, page 47.
|
“Uncle Oscar” and “Emmy.” What are the chances? I guess in hindsight the chances are 100%,
but that’s not to say there is an actual causal connection. Still, it’s an interesting coincidence, but
not unprecedented. In another cosmic coincidence, the original
image that served as the model for Mad Magazine’s iconic Alfred E. Neuman was
taken from a poster advertising a play entitled, “The New Boy”; Neuman (New
Man) – “New Boy”; almost certainly unrelated, but still a head-scratcher. See my earlier piece, The Real Alfred
E.
For the record, “Emmy” is said to come from “Immy,”
in reference to the Image-Orthicon tube, an important technical innovation in
television.[v] With Oscar then a well-established name, the
television academy set out intentionally to find a name for their own statuette. Their statuette was a woman, calling for a
woman’s name.
In 1948 Charles Brown, then president of the fledgling
academy, named a committee to select award-winners for that year. He also asked for suggestions as to what the
symbol would be called and what it would look like.
Many people thought “Iconoscope” (for image orthicon tube)
would be an impressive title . . . but it was pointed out that folks would
invariably shorten that to “Ike” a name reserved for Dwight Eisenhower.
“Tilly” (would you believe . . . for television?) was another
favorite in the race. But in the end
“Emmy”, a derivative of “Immy” (a nickname for the image orthicon tube) was
chosen. The name was suggested by
pioneer television engineer Harry Lubcke (president of the academy in
1949-1950).
Fort Lauderdale News (Fort Lauderdale, Florida), May 22, 1970, page 40F.
The name was associated with the
statue even before it was awarded.
Actress Adele Mara holds the “Emmy,” television’s version of
the movies’ “Oscar.” The statuette will
be awarded at Los Angeles tonight to the most outstanding television program at
the first annual awards dinner of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Press and Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, New York), January 25, 1949, page 21.
Moon Mullins
would have been a more interesting story.
Sadly, without similarly detailed
account of how “Oscar” got its name, we are left to sift through the various,
competing stories and unanswered questions.
Other Oscars
If we consider the Herrick story
unreliable and the Skolsky story true, it raises further questions. If we buy his first version of the story,
that he merely selected a simple, undignified name, then why “Oscar”? Oscar Hammerstein was already a famous,
successful, distinguished writer. There
were plenty of other distinguished Oscars around. What was so undignified about Oscar?
If we buy his second version of the
story, that he remembered a pit orchestra conductor named Oscar, who was that
conductor?
If we discount Herrick’s story and
take Skolsky’s original Oscar article at face value (that the name was already
in use in the profession), then are there any other likely candidates?
Oscar Baum
Oscar Baum was a movie palace and
Vaudeville orchestra conductor who regularly performed in the largest movie
houses in Hollywood and Los Angeles during the period in which “Oscar” was
coined. If Sidney Skolsky did, in fact,
remember a pit orchestra conductor named Oscar, he might easily have seen Oscar
Baum perform in Hollywood or Los Angeles.
He might even have seen him in New York before moving out to Hollywood. There’s no direct evidence that Oscar Baum is
THE Oscar, but his story is interesting in its own right and illustrates a lost
corner of pop-culture. And perhaps he is
THE Oscar, even if we may never know for certain.
Before motion pictures, Vaudeville
houses provided nightly entertainment.
The shows would typically include singers, acrobats, comedians, skits
and a play. The first motion pictures
were typically shown as one act of many in a full evening of otherwise live Vaudeville
entertainment. Over time, as film became
main draw, many theaters continued providing live, Vaudeville entertainment
before or after the show. People were accustomed
to seeing live performances and did not have television sit-coms or a music
listening devices to go home to, so they might as well hang out at the theater
and sit through a film and then enjoy all of the old jokes or a new skit or a
song and dance.
Before synchronized sound
reproduction in movies, many silent movie theaters provided mood music or sound
effects to accompany the films. In small
towns, the music might be a piano, automated player piano or organ. In larger towns, the music might come from a
“Fotoplayer,” an elaborate combination player piano/organ/sound effects
device. A larger theater in a large city
might provide a full orchestra; or if a Vaudeville troupe were in town with
their own band or orchestra, they might provide the musical accompaniment.
Combination film/Vaudeville
entertainments continued even after sound film started to dominate the
industry. Some of the larger movie
houses in the bigger cities even provided full orchestral musical accompaniment
to augment sound motion pictures with higher quality and richer sound than could
be achieved by early sound playback techniques.
This was the world in which Oscar Baum’s career took off.
Oscar Baum started his career in
Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. He
had been a decent violinist of some local note, but he found his true calling
in writing, arranging and conducting music for large motion picture palaces.
His talents secured an invitation to
work at Paramount theaters in New York City, where he spent less than a year
before being transferred to the Paramount theaters in Hollywood in late-1930.
 |
| Oscar Baum’s L. A. debut. Los
Angeles Times, December 4, 1930, page 29. |
 |
Los Angeles Times, December 12, 1930.
|
Throughout the early and mid-1930s,
Oscar Baum performed at various times at Publix, Paramount, Grauman’s Chinese,
and Warner Brothers’ Theaters in Los Angeles and Hollywood, including several
Grand Openings of major films at Grauman’s Chinese[vi]
and at least one appearance on film, “leading an orchestra in a sequence of the
picture,” Footlight Parade, starring
James Cagney and Joan Blondell. At times
he arranged and staged original “Prologues,” musical reviews performed before a
feature movie; at times he gave directed live orchestras supplementing the soundtrack
of a sound film; at other times he performed through a six-act Vaudeville show
before or after a feature film; and sometimes did all three on the same bill.
PARAMOUNT
PUTT-PUTT
(Reviewed Feb. 12)
Oscar Baum still welding a graceful baton. When he slices the air with that stick of
his’n you hear music.
Inside Facts of Stage and Screen,
February 21, 1931, page 10.
ON THE STAGE
Spectacular
in Thrilla and Beauty, “DAMES and DOUGHBOYS”
With
Bobby
Gilbert
And a gala
cast of other artists.
OSCAR BAUM
Los Angeles Times, September 25, 1931, page 11.
WARNER BROS. (DOWNTOWN)
. . . Six acts vaudeville, Oscar Baum and his orchestra.
Motion Picture Daily, November 16, 1934, page 13.
WARNER BROS. DOWNTOWN –
. . . 6 acts Vaudeville, Oscar Baum and orchestra.
Motion Picture Daily, January 4, 1935, page 12.
Selecting an orchestra director of nation-wide reputation to
feature his return as producer to the Chinese Theater, Sid Grauman named Oscar
Baum, formerly of the Paramount Theater, New York, to wield the baton with a
largely augmented orchestra.
Baum directs the music of the elaborate prologue of “Hell
Divers,” the current attraction at the theater.
He has had symphony orchestra experience, being a violinist of
note. He has directed orchestras for a
number of years, including the organization at the Minnesota Theater,
Minneapolis, one of the largest theaters in the Middle West. From there he went to the Paramount Theater,
New York, playing there and at the Brooklyn Paramount alternately. He brings a wide experience of showmanship
with him to the Chinese and his experience will be in line with the spectacular
events which feature this house.
Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1932, part III, page 15.
If, as Sidney Skolsky suggests, a pit
orchestra conductor named “Oscar” inspired the name of the Academy Award
statuette, Oscar Baum is as good (or better) a candidate as any.
And to top it all off, the only
photograph of Oscar Baum in action I could dig up shows him wielding an
over-sized conductor’s baton, perhaps reminiscent of the long sword held by an
Oscar statuette.
Coincidence or clue?
The “Have a Cigar” Bit
The 1975 version of Sidney Skolsky’s “Oscar”
origin story refers to comedians saying, “Will you have a cigar, Oscar?” to an
orchestra leader who reached for it, they backed away, and the audience laughed
at Oscar. As noted above, there was, in
fact, an orchestra leader named Oscar who worked with Vaudeville comedians.
There was also at one time a
Vaudeville or Burlesque routine referred to as the, “’Have a cigar’ bit”; a bit
that involved the musical director. Might
this be the act, or an earlier version of a similar act, that Skolsky
remembered, if in fact he coined the expression as he claims.
Brief references to the “’have a
cigar’ bit” appear in reviews of two different Burlesque acts in The New York Clipper in 1921.
Johnny Kane sang “Save Your Daylight” with the chorus and did
it well.
In the “Have a Cigar” bit given by
Jordan, Kane and the musical director they put it over well.
New York Clipper, June 15, 1921, page 16.
The “husband” bit was performed by Barrett, Mitchell,
Blodgett, Johnson and the misses Hamilton and Stewart.
The “have a cigar” bit was the
next. Barrett, Blodgett and the musical
director were in it.
New York Clipper, March 16, 1921, page 27.
Sidney Skolsky may well have seen a
version of the “Have a Cigar” bit somewhere along the way, and given the
reputation of Burlesque and Vaudeville performers for recycling all of the old
jokes and bits, it’s not impossible to imagine that Sidney Skolsky might have
seen Oscar Baum in just such an act before writing about his first Academy
Awards ceremony.
Coincidence or clue?
Oscar the Microphone Dummy
The advent of sound and further
technical improvements in sound recording and reproduction spelled trouble for
the careers of movie palace musicians like Oscar Baum. But the advent of sound and technical
improvements in sound recording and reproduction gave birth to another “Oscar”
who may or may not have something to do with inspiring the name “Oscar” for the Academy Award.
Oscar – Term for
“electrical oscillations.”
Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1929, part III, page 26.[vii]
In New Jersey, scientists trying to
perfect high fidelity sound transmission developed a sound-recording device
shaped like a human head for use in early experiments to provide “surround
sound”, naturalistic sound reproduction.
By placing microphones where the ears were, they hoped to record and
reproduce sound as it would sound naturally to a human listener. Inspired, presumably, by the new technical
jargon for electrical oscillations, “Oscar,” they named their sound recording
dummy “Oscar.”
A wax dummy serves as critic during the orchestra rehearsals
of Leopold Stokowski, famous conductor.
Named “Oscar,” it sits through a performance at the Philadelphia Academy
of Music with an impassive expression on its molded face. But its ears never miss a note, for they are
twin microphones connected to an amplifying system and earphones. By listening in, engineers can determine the
best arrangement of the orchestra for radio broadcasting purposes.
Popular Science,
April 1932, page 48.
The technology, developed by Dr.
Henry Fletcher of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, made its public debut in a
series of three demonstrations in 1933 and 1934. Leopold Stokowski, director of the
Philadelphia Orchestra, participated in the first two exhibitions; the first at
the Philadelphia Academy of Music, and the second before the National academy
of Sciences in Constitution Hall in Washington DC.
 |
Pittsburgh Press, April 13, 1933, page 23.
|
On both occasions a great hall full of people was treated to
music from an invisible orchestra and an invisible singer. These, while being eagerly listened to in the
auditorium of the academy, were in a soundproof room in another part of the
building; and at the second test they
again were in the Philadelphia Academy while their program was being enjoyed
and applauded in Washington.
Baltimore Sun, May
7, 1933, magazine section, page 7.
A third demonstration, for a
“terrified audience” at the winter convention of the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers in New York City, displayed power of stereo-phonic sound.
 |
Keyport Enterprise (Keyport, New Jersey), March 8, 1934, page 7.
|
Three dimensional sound has been accomplished with such a
sense of reality that an audience in New York felt spooky during a
demonstration.
This “stereo-phonic” exhibition contained all the elements
that have made magic and wizardry so popular among certain types of people, but
was the more terrifying because it was known to be of a truly scientific
nature. . . .
Such things as throwing the noise of an airplane over the
heads of the audience, having a trumpeter play before the audience, leave and
the music continue from the spot he recently occupied, a play given by a full
cast in absentia, the voices moving about as if the bodies were there and the
other things equally as fantastic, from our old point of view, were
demonstrated.
Star Gazette
(Elmira, New York), January 30, 1934, page 8.
Ten years later, they were still
using the same “Oscar” dummy to make more and better advancements in sound.
Asbury Park Press, (Asbury Park, New Jersey), May 10, 1942, page 12.
The full-length “Oscar” dummy
actually looks a bit like an Academy Award; broad shoulders, narrow hips, tapering down to small feet on a wide base.
 |
Asbury Park Press, (Asbury Park, New Jersey), May 10, 1942, page 12.
|
Coincidence or clue?
Without more evidence, I would rate
this possibility as unlikely. It’s not
impossible, however. The Academy of
Motion Pictures Arts and “Sciences” was always interested in technological
advancements in film and sound, and some members would likely have been aware
of the experiments in New Jersey and demonstrations along the East Coast.
But the first commercial film in stereo would
not be released until Walt Disney’s Fantasia in 1940, in which Leopold
Stokowski put all of his hard work and experimentation to practical use. In 1934, stereophonic sound and the dummy
used to perfect it may have been more of a niche technology, not generally
familiar to most of the recipients of Academy Awards or members of the Academy.
There was one other Oscar, however,
who was generally familiar with many, if not most, of the early Academy Award
winners.
Oscar Smith
A little man who shined, Oscar Smith
bore a physical and metaphorical resemblance to the “Little Oscar” who shined
at Academy Award ceremonies. This headline about the actual Academy Awards might easily have been written about him - if he had been invited.
 |
Escanaba Daily Press (Escanaba, Michigan), March 11, 1937, page 8.
|
Everyone who was anyone in Hollywood
knew Oscar Smith, and he knew them.
The man in Hollywood who knows the greatest number of picture
people is Oscar Smith . . . .
Daily Republican (Rushville, Indiana), October 23, 1928, page 6.
In Hollywood Oscar Smith is more than a name; he's an
institution.
The Tampa Times,
April 14, 1929, page 19
Unless you've met Oscar, you don't know your Hollywood.
Indianapolis Star, August 29, 1934,
page 5.
Many of the earliest Academy Award
nominees and winners met with Oscar on a regular basis.
Hollywood has a unique academy of motion picture acting. It has but one regular student, and yet it
boasts a faculty embracing the greatest names and minds of the film
industry. The academy is a shoe shining
stand at the Paramount studios and Oscar Smith, Negro bootblack and contract
player, is the lone student.
Resident members of the faculty include Ernest Lubitsch, Emil
Jannings, William Wellman, George Bancroft, Josef von Sternberg, Adolph Menjou,
Victor Fleming, Richard Dix, Charles “Buddy” Rogers and other stars, directors
and featured players under contract to Paramount. Associate professors include such “greats” of
the screen as Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert, Theodore
Roberts, Ronald Colman and Wallace Reid.
Classes at the shoe stand school of motion picture technique are held
every day except those when Oscar works before the cameras.
Detroit Free Press, March 17, 1929, Part 4, page 1.
Several of these “faculty” members
were associated with or won early Academy Awards. Emil Jannings won the first award for Best
Actor; Josef von Sternberg, who directed a film for which Jannings won his
award, was nominated as Best Director in 1930 and 1932; Ernst Lubitsch was
nominated for Best Picture in 1929 and 1930; Adoph Menjou starred in a Best
Picture nominated film in 1929 and was nominated for Best Actor in 1931;
William Wellman directed the first Best Picture winning film, Wings; George Bancroft was nominated for
Best Actor in 1929; Richard Dix was nominated Best Actor in 1930; Charles “Buddy”
Rogers starred in the first Best Picture winning file.
A Paramount production, The Patriot, won the Academy Award for
Best Writing in 1930. Although those
writers were not specifically mentioned by name in any article connecting them
with Oscar Smith, writers at Paramount were known to stop by Oscar’s shoe
shine stand on a regular basis. A new
writer on the Paramount lot described the ritual in an article about his first
few days on the job.
To dash in at once and begin writing would be too crude. There is a ritual to be complied with. You first get your shoes shined at
Oscar’s. He is the negro bootblack who
has the stand near the gate, and you mount the chair to look around, listen and
get in tune with the spirit of the place.
Oscar shine, jests and capers. He sells soft drinks, candy and tobacco. His stand is the clearing-house of the
studio, the forum, the market-place. You
hear all that is going on, and what will happen tomorrow. Steady shoe-shine clients never have to buy
newspapers. Paul Gerard Smith, the
scenarist, sits here daily to pick up the newest slang. The dark corpulent man with black goggles in
your adjoining chair looks asleep, but he listens to the sounds and whistling
about him. He is Mack Gordon, who wrote
“Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?”
“I Write for the Movies,” Idwal
Jones, Oakland Tribune (Oakland,
California), December 8, 1935, Screen & Radio Weekly, page 8.
Of the two writers mentioned by name
in the article, Paul Gerard Smith was a prolific writer of B-movies with no
nominations or awards, but Mack Gordon would be nominated for eleven Academy
Awards in his career, although none during the first several years.
I can imagine any one of the winners sitting down at Oscar's stand the next mrning saying something like, "Hey Oscar, look what they gave me last night. It's about your size, and 'shines' like you - ha, ha, ha" (or something to that effect).
To be clear, there is no direct
evidence suggesting Oscar Smith inspired the naming of the “Oscar”
statuette. I ran across his name and
story while casting about for possible inspirations for the name that would have
been known in and around Hollywood at the time “Oscar” got its name. The gold / "shine" pun gives a
possible impetus for the connection or association, as does his short stature -
like the statue, he is a small Oscar who "shines". And regardless of whether or not his name is
associated, his story is interesting enough in its own right that it deserves
to be told, so why not here.
Oscar Smith was born in Topeka,
Kansas and moved to Phoenix, Arizona with his parents after finishing grammar
school. A pronounced stutterer, he claims not to have been able
to speak at all until he was sixteen years old.
In Phoenix, he shined shoes for five years before moving to Los Angeles,
where he became the head porter at Cooksie’s Barber Shop.
It was at Cooksie’s where he got his
start in show business. In about 1919, Wallace Reid, the early film star and matinee idol, came into Cooksies for a haircut and a shine, and left with a new personal valet - Oscar Smith. Smith worked for Reid until his untimely death
in 1923 at the age of 31. Before he died, Reid reportedly made arrangements
with studio executives to give Oscar the shoe-shine concession on the Paramount
lot. Oscar Smith would eventually leverage
that position, its contacts and opportunities into several more careers as an
actor, talent agent, real estate developer and nightclub owner, all while
keeping his day job as Paramount’s official bootblack.
Oscar Smith’s name appeared in film
magazines and the entertainment columns of newspapers hundreds of times from as
early as 1923.
Mr. Oscar Smith, of the Famous Lasky Players, is appearing twice daily at Grauman's Egyptian theater in person. In the prologue of the "Ten Commandments," which was just released by the Lasky Famous Players, as one of Cecil DeMille's production.
Pittsburgh Courier, December 15, 1923, page 14.
He appeared in bit parts in several
films before getting his big break in 1927, in Manpower and Beau Sabreur,
alongside Richard Dix.
Introducing Oscar Smith.
Everyone in Hollywood knows Oscar, “the cute kid,” the
colored lad who was once Wally Reid’s valet and who in the last five years as
the official bootblack on the Paramount lot has shined the shoes of practically
every star in pictures.
But who knows Oscar Smith?
Well, Oscar Smith graduated from bootblack to actor and has
an important role in Richard Dix’ latest picture, “Manpower,” with his name on
the cast sheet and everything.
Dix is credited with the discovery of Oscar. In “Manpower” a colored man was wanted for
comedy relief and Richard suggested the bootblack.
Now Oscaqr s to have the chance of his life. He has been cast as the heroic Senegaliese soldier,
Djikki, in “Beau Sabreur,” a melodrama of the Sahara by the author of “Beau
Gest,” which Paramount is producing.
Photoplay,
volume 32, number 4, September 1927, page 57.
His silent film roles disguised his
severe speech impediment. But that didn’t
stop him from taking on even more roles with the advent of talkies. The “comic” possibilities of his stuttering
may have been even more valuable with sound.
In 1929, he played a small, but popular part, as a stuttering hotel
concierge in the whodunit, The
Canary Murder Case, which won him a studio contract, one of the few
black actors under contract in the studio contract system at the time.
Judge for yourself whether it’s funny or not on
YouTube.
Even Sidney Skolsky wrote about Oscar
Smith in his column. Four months before he first
wrote about “Oscar” as the Academy Award statuette, Skolsky shared an anecdote about a
film blooper.
[I]n “Too Much Harmony” Bing Crosby’s name is Eddie Bronson. Yet in the dressing room on the opening night
his colored valet calls him Mr. Crosby.
The lowdown on this is that the colored valet was played by
Oscar Smith, the bootblack on the Paramount lot. Oscar is rushed away from his stand to play
bits like this in pictures. He wasn’t
handed any script to study the part. He’s
accustomed to calling Bing Mister Crosby on the lot and he did it in the flicker
from the force of habit.
Daily News,
November 16, 1933, page 46.
I can easily imagine Sidney Skolsky, a few months later, searching for a name that would deflate the pompous afair and hitting on a an inside joke - a little man who shines - industry insiders might recognize but outsiders might just find silly.
 |
Pittsburgh Courier, March 7, 1936, page 17.
|
In addition to acting, Oscar Smith
developed a side business as a talent agent.
In 1932, he entered into a partnership with a character actor known as
Stepinfetchit to arrange black
extras to the studios. Stepinfetchit was the bootblack at MGM studios and is regarded as the first adult black actor to sign a Hollywood contract, second overall to Matthew "Stymie" Beard of Little Rascals fame.
Oscar Smith, head bootblack at the Paramount lot, and Harold “Slickum”
Garrison, similar factotum at MGM studio, have formed a partnership to provide
colored people as extras for the movies. . . .
They plan to collect a commission from each extra they provide, and their
plan is agreeable to the film casting directors, for it will save them
work. Oscar and Slickum have visions of
growing rich in the next year if the tropical African pictures hold out.
Chicago Tribune,
December 26, 1932, page 27.
Oscar was still in the extras business a few
years later when he was mentioned in an article about the business of providing
all types of specialty extras to the studios.
Hollywood, Cal., Oct. 8. – (U. P.) – This is a happy land,
where casting directors don’t get grey hairs worrying about their racial acting
problems; where a five minute telephone conversation will bring enough
Igorotes, Zulus, Brahman Hindus or Nubian slaves to pack the coliseum or to
double for the Afghan army.
In the twenty years that Hollywood has been the world’s film
capital, Los Angeles, its parent, has drawn peoples of every nationality, race
and color, not all of whom came because of the climate.
So it iscomparatively simple to round up strange types. Istead of going to the Central Casting
Bureau, which handles only Caucasians, the casting director has at his
fingertips the names and telephone numbers of the specialists.
Jimmy Spencer, for instance, has several hundred distinct
South Seas types under personal contact.
Jimmy is a native Kanaka from Molokai, and when stories with setting in
Tahiti, Hawaii, Philippines, or the Malay Archipelago are filmed, Jimmy
supplies the talent.
Tom Gubbings specializes in Chinese types -0 anything from
coolie to mandarin, from any of the thirty-five distinctly different Chinese
provinces. He has 7,000 at his beck and
call.
Oscar Smith, the perennial bootblack of the Paramount lot,
and former valet to Wallace Reid, is generalissimo of the Negro section.
Eddie Das, a high-cast Hindu, knows every East Indian in
California, some 1,200, and recently furnished several different casts and
several hundred Hindus for “Lives of a Bengal Lancer.”
Nick Koblinski lives in the Los Angeles Russian colony, where
the inhabitants still wear the old country beards and costumes. . . .
Then there are Bob Miles, who supplies the cowboys and stunt
men; Charlie Borah, former Southern California track star, who furnishes the
typical college types, and Charlie Cook, the man who can put is finger on any
type of circus freak.
The Indianapolis Star, October 9, 1934, page 8.
Oscar Smith also provided personal
management for at least one successful character actor, Willie Best, sometimes
known as “Sleep’n’Eat.” “Sleep’n’Eat’s”
signature character was a comically slow-talking, slow moving, lazy man,
similar to Stepin Fetchit’s signature character, the “laziest man in the world.”
 |
Pittsburgh Courier, March 24, 1934, page 18.
|
Despite playing a character now viewed
as perpetuating a negative black stereotype, Stepinfetchit parlayed his act
into a small fortune as one of the first black millionaire in Hollywood.[viii] Oscar Smith appears to have achieved similar
levels of professional and monetary success.
Smith and Fetchit also achieved particular notariety and respect in the local black community in Los Angeles. Sidney Skolsky reported that Fetchit
and Smith made competing claims to the title, the “King of Central Avenue.”[ix] Oscar Smith was also referred to, on
occasion, as the “Mayor of the Central Avenue District,” but was apparently
challenged for that spot by Bing Crosby’s chauffeur.
 |
Journal Star
(Lincoln, Nebraska), May 19, 1936, page 16.
|
Despite the sometimes caricatured portrayals
of him and other similarly situated actors in the press, Oscar Smith appears to
have been a well-respected figure in Hollywood at large as well, as demonstrated by his studio
and several stars helping him stage a benefit ball.
Paramount Studio recently aided Smith in putting over his
first annual movie ball. They furnished
him with huge arc-lights and many luminaries.
Pittsburgh Courier, September 8, 1934, page 19.
Oscar Smith, Paramount’s actor-bootblack, certainly showed
Los Angeles’ colored section how to put on a real movie affair a few nights
ago, when he staged the Colored Motion Picture Benefit Ball. The huge studio lights, plus Oscar’s personal
appearance in a loud checkedred suit, drew such a crowd that extra police had
to be detailed to that section to keep order.
Oscar really put on a show, too, with Carole Lombard, Molly O’Day,
Judith Allen, Katherine DeMille, Roscoe Karns, and Libby Taylor all present.
Pensacola News Journal, August 8, 1934, page 4.
Oscar Smith also dabbled in real estate. As early as 1929, he reportedly owned valuable real-estate developments.
An article from 1940 discusses some of those holdings in more detail. Val Verda was a mostly black-owned and
frequented resort near Santa Clarita north of Los Angeles.[x]
Genial Oscar Smith, dean of all Negro Hollywood movie studio
employees is leaving no stone unturned to make his hobby, the Hi-Hat Café and
Guest House at beautiful Val Verde Park, year-around sepia pleasure resort,
located 45 miles from Los Angeles, the finest race enterprise of its kind in
the country.
The Pittsburgh Courier, October 12, 1940, page 23.
 |
| Sign for Oscar Smith’s Hi-Hat Café. Image captured from Things that Aren’t Here Anymore, a documentary about landmarks in
Los Angeles that aren’t here anymore, produced and aired on Los Angeles Public
Television station KCET. |
When oil was discovered at Val Verde,
Oscar Smith and other black property owners stood to profit – although I do not
know whether those wells were ever drilled, and if so, how valuable they were.
 |
Pittsburgh Courier, November 2, 1940, page 10.
|
But whether or not those investments
panned out, Oscar Smith remained at Paramount Studios into the 1940s.
 |
Oscar Smith with Eva Gabor and
Frances Farmer. Des Moines Register,
June 15, 1941, Magazine section, page 8.
|
Smiling Oscar Smith, Paramount player, takes charge of the
Crosby boys as they pay a visit to the studio to watch their famous dad work on
the set of “Dixie.” . . . Oscar also
will appear in the new Paramount production which stars Bing Crosby, Dorothy
Lamour and Marjorie Reynolds.
The Pittsburgh Courier, November 28, 1942, page 21.
But was he the inspiration for the
name, “Oscar”? I don’t know, but his
granddaughter, Isis McKenzie, has apparently heard "enough stories going around Hollywood that leaves her with a smile on her face and pride in her heart." Perhaps there is something to the story after all.
Her great grandfather, Oscar Smith, was a famous actor in the
1920-40s, who also became the first African American actor to be signed to
Paramount Pictures in the 1930s. She was told he was also the one time Mayor of
Val Verde, CA. Also in her grandmother’s
personal effects was a trunk full of pictures of her grandmother with Bing
Crosby and Cab Calloway, who were huge stars during that era. But what really
piqued her interest was the rumor going around about how the film industry’s
most coveted trophy, the Oscar®, came to be named after her great grandfather.
McKenzie can’t actually verify that fact with certainty, but
there are enough stories going around Hollywood that leaves her with a smile on
her face and pride in her heart.
Coincidence or clue?
[ii]
The 1930 US Census lists here living at home, in Yakima, with her maiden name.
[iii] Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin),
June 3, 1957, page 4.
[iv] Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin),
June 8, 1957, page 12.
[vii]
Barry Popik, of
the
Big Apple online etymologyical
dictionary was the first person to identify this sense of “Oscar” in The
Motion Picture Almanac (1931), speculating that it might be a clue to the
origin of “Oscar” as applied to the academy award.
Ben Zimmer, language writer for the Wall
Street Journal, identified this earlier example from 1929.Garson O'Toole (the
QuoteInvestigator) uncovered the "Oscar" recording dummy and shared it on the American Dialect Society's discussion board in June, 2018.
[ix] “Hollywood
Characters,” Sidney Skolsky,
Daily News,
May 25, 1935, page 24.
