How the Oscars got started—and all the flops that almost did it in
nypost.com“Oscar Wars” (HarperCollins), Michael Schulman reports on nearly a century of history and ignominy: from SAG boycotts, blacklists, bankruptcy and corruption to streakers, sex pests, racism and high embarrassment — not to mention certain slap-happy actors.“What are the Academy Awards, anyway?” he writes. “They’re an industry party—like a convention of landscapers, but with better outfits.
They’re the closest thing America has to royalty … They’re a marketing ploy propping up a multibillion-dollar business … They’re an orgy of self-congratulation by rich and famous people who think too highly of themselves …“If there’s a common thread running through the decades of Oscar wars, it’s power: who has it, who’s straining to keep it, who’s invading the golden citadel to snatch it.”Just in time for the 2023 Academy Awards — airing Sunday, March 12, at 8 p.m.
on ABC —here is a look at the skeletons deep inside Oscars’ closet. Three days before the 8th Academy Awards in 1936 , the talent guilds instructed their members, including primo players like Gary Cooper, to stay home.The Academy had been losing the long war against labor for years.
Membership was down from 600 to 40, and the Academy was on the verge of bankruptcy.To stay alive, the Academy needed someone suspicious of labor but idealistic enough to project its imagined virtues — someone like Frank “Mr.
Read more on nypost.com
