And I thought I had bad hair days. :P

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

The first Oscars

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was established in May 1927 as a non-profit corporation to promote the art of movie making. In the first year, the Academy had 36 members, with Douglas Fairbanks Sr as president. The first Academy Awards, now better known as the Oscars, were presented at a private dinner in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, with less than 250 persons attending. Today, the Academy has over 6 000 honorary members – the Oscar Awards are viewed by more than a billion people on television.

The first television broadcast of the Oscars took place in 1953 – on black and white TV, telecasted throughout the US and Canada. Telecasting in color begun in 1966, and since 1969, the Oscars have been telecast throughout the world. By the mid-1990s it was telecast in over 100 countries.

Emil Jannings - photo (c) www.silent-movies.com
Emil Jannings

Janet Gaynor - photo (c) www.silent-movies.com
Janet Gaynor

Photos with kind permission of silent-movies.com – the premier web destination for Silent Movie facts.

The first Oscars

At the first Acadamy Awards, held in May 1929, Best Director awards went to Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Knights and Frank Borzage for 7th Heaven. The first award for Actor in a Leading Role went to Emil Jannings for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. The first Best Actress award was won Janet Gaynor for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise. The first Best Picture award went to WINGS. All those films were screened in 1927. Those were the days of the silent movies, thus WINGS was the only silent to have won a Best Picture Oscar. It also featured Gary Cooper in a minor role. Swiss-born Jannings grew up in Germany and had a heavy German accent which, with the advent of sound in movies, basically put an end to his Hollywood movie career.

The most popular night in the world

The Academy Award ceremony basically was a non-public affair in 1927 and 1928. But it had created such public interest that the Oscar Presentation Night was introduced in 1929. Until 1954 the Oscars were presented mostly on a Thursday. From 1955 to 1958, they were presented on a Wednesday. From 1959 until 1998 the Oscars were, with a few exceptions, presented on a Monday night. Only since 1999 did the Awards ceremony take place on a Sunday (in March). In total up to 2005, the famous statuettes have been handed out on 32 Monday nights, 21 Thursday nights, 8 Wednesdays, 6 Tuesdays, 2 Fridays, once on a Saturday (1948), and four times on a Sunday.

In 1930, the Academy Awards were held twice: on 3 April and on 5 November. No ceremony was held in 1933. Since 1940 people have been kept on the edge of their seats with the familiar phrase “The envelope please.”

The Envelope Please

The record for most acting nominations without a single win is shared by Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton with seven. The most nominated actors for Best Actor and Best Supporting Roles are Jack Nicholson (11), Laurence Olivier (10), and Spencer Tracy (9). No male performer has yet won three Best Actor awards.

Only one actress has won the Best Actress award four times: Katharine Hepburn is the only actress to have won the Best Actress award four times, for Morning Glory (1932/3), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981). In 1968 Katherine Hepburn was tied with and Barbra Streisand for the Best Actress award.

Anthony Quinn’s performance as painter Paul Gaugin in Lust for Life (1956) is the shortest ever to win a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He was on screen for only 8 minutes. Judi Dench made the an equally short performance, winning Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Elizabeth I in “Shakespeare in Love” (1999). More Oscar factoids

In 1997 James Cameron’s Titanic received 11 Oscars, sharing the record of the most Oscars awards for a single film with William Wyler’s Ben Hur (1959). The closest runner-up is West Side Story with 10 Oscars in 1961.

Family matters

The Hustons are the only family to produce three generations of Oscar winners: Walter Huston was named Best Supporting Actor in 1948 for his role in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; John Huston was awarded Best Director/Adapted Screenplay for the same movie, and Anjelica Huston received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Prizzi’s Honor, 1985.

Only two married couples won Oscars for acting roles: Laurence Olivier (Hamlet, 1948) and Vivian Leigh (A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951); and Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces of Eve, 1957) and Paul Newman (The Color of Money, 1986). The only sisters to have won Oscars are Joan Fontaine (Suspicion, 1941) and Olivia de Havilland (To Each His Own, 1946, and The Heiress, 1949).

No thank you!

In 1970 George C. Scott refused the Oscar for his award-winning performance in Patton. In 1972 Marlon Brando refused the Oscars for his award-winning role in The Godfather. They weren’t the first, though. In 1935 a writer named Dudley Nichols refused to accept the Oscar for his movie The Informer because the Writers Guild was on strike against the movie studios at the time.

Double the honor

Eight actors have won an Oscar twice: Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931/2) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); Spencer Tracy for Captain Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938); Gary Cooper for Sergeant York (1941) and High Noon (1952); Marlon Brando for On The Waterfront (1954) and The Godfather (1972); Jack Nicholson for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and As Good As It Gets (1997); Dustin Hoffman for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Rain Man (1988); Tom Hanks for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994); Daniel Day-Lewis for My Left Foot (1990) and There Will Be Blood (2008).

Many actresses have won the Best Actress Oscar twice: Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937); Bette Davis for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938); Vivien Leigh for Gone With The Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Olivia de Havilland for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949); Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966); Glenda Jackson for Women in Love (1970) and A Touch of Class (1973); Jane Fonda for Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978); Sally Field for Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984); Meryl Streep for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie’s Choice (1982); Jodie Foster for The Accused (1988) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

More movies made in Bollywood than Hollywood

Each year, more movies are produced in India, where the moving image industry is referred to as Bollywood, than in Hollywood. About 1000 movies are released annually in India, about twice the output of Hollywood. The “B” in Bollywood refers to Bombai (renamed Mumbai).

Bollywood movies often are quite long; 3 hours or more of dancing and singing around love as the main plot – although kissing is almost never shown on screen. Everyday, some 14 million Indian people queu for a movie, with more than 4 billion movie tickets sold annually, compared to 3 billion for Hollywood movies worldwide.

Indian comic actress Manorama has played the most leading roles of any performer in movie history. She began her career in 1958 and in 1985 had appeared in her 1,000th movie.

Before Bollywood

The first movie screened publicly was “La Sortie des Ouvriers de l’Usine Lumire” which was presented by Auguste and Louis Lumiere in Paris in 1895. The first movie to use sound was “The Jazz Singer,” released in 1927: the first words, spoken by Al Jolson, were: “Wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothing yet.”

The big movies

According to the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), in 1996 the average Hollywood film cost $35.3 million to make and another $17.7 million to market. Disney’s “The Lion King” cost $45 million to make and employed a total of 800 animators. Bollywood flicks are produced at average $2m.

The most expensive film ever made as at year 2000, was James Cameron’s “Titanic.” It cost $200 million, but also was the most successful, in the sense that it won 11 Academy Awards, equaling “Ben Hur” of 1959.

The top five moneymaking films of all time, as by 2010, are: Avatar (2009) [$1.850 billion], Titanic (1997) [$1.835 billion], The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) [$1.129 billion], Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) [$1.060 billion], and The Dark Knight (2008) [$1 billion]. They are followed by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) [$972m]. When adjusted for inflation, Gone With The Wind remains one of the highest grossing [$1.4 billion and growing], followed by Star Wars and Sound of Music, according to boxofficemojo.

Note that they all are family-type movies. In fact, movies with strong sexual or violence content usually bomb at the box office. According to the American Family Association, the average cost to produce a movie in 1996 was $40 million. Sex films grossed on average only $700 000. Movies with strong Christian or family content on average grossed over $37 million. The figures have since changed, but not the facts.

Director James Cameron is responsible for directing the two most expensive movies: Avatar (£234 million production plus $150 million promotional budget) and Titanic ($200 million production plus $20 million promotional budget).

“Frankly my dear…”

Gone With The Wind has been the best-attended film since its release in 1939. Without a doubt the most famous line in the movie is when Rhett Butler tells Scarlet O’Hara, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” According to Cuss Control, a book by James O’Connor, director David Selznick was fined heavy for that curse word: $5,000. A lot of money in those days. The movie is based on the book by Margaret Mitchell. It was the only book she wrote.

The biggest movie promotion deal is the $2 billion agreement between George Lucas – the director of the “Star Wars” trilogy – and Pepsi for exclusive worldwide use of the film’s characters.

50% of Hollywood movies never achieve a cinema release. Those that do, make 5 times more from DVD sales than cinema takings.

The longest movie ever

The longest movie in the world according to Guinness World Records is The Cure for Insomnia, directed by John Henry Timmis IV. Released in 1987, the running time is 5220 minutes (87 hours) and has no plot. Instead, it consists of poet L. D. Groban reciting his 4,080-page poem “A Cure for Insomnia” over the course of three and a half days. The movie is inter-spliced with clips from porno and heavy metal music videos.
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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

Peter Graves has died today, He was 84 years old and died of Natural causes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Graves_%28actor%29

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Peter Graves has died today, He was 84 years old and died of Natural causes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Graves_%28actor%29

RIP Peter Graves!! AKA as Jim Phelps

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

Peter Graves has died today, He was 84 years old and died of Natural causes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Graves_%28actor%29

RIP Peter Graves!! AKA as Jim Phelps

Yep, Mr Graves died 4 days short of His 84th Birthday, But at least He died in the same month, So He's close. He lost His wife this Year too.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's