Presenting Academy Award to self (need answer fast)

General Questions
#1

(yes, “need answer fast”, as I’m preparing a sheet of Oscar trivia and it’s scheduled to go to print in a few hours (I know with this group, I’ll probably get a quick answer anyways, but covering the bases.))

I heard somewhere that the person who announced the nominees (and winner) of a particular Academy Award was also a nominee himself - who turned out to win the award, thereby presenting an Oscar to himself! (The rules were changed after to not have a nominee be a presenter in his or her own category). Anyoen remember who that is?

#2

Fastest way if you are on a deadline is to call the Academy.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Telephone: (310) 247-3000

#3

Irving Berlin.After this, the rules were changed to make it impossible for someone to present to themselves.

#4

A quick check of his Wikipedia page doesn’t show him having won any Oscars, but I do believe it was that era.

#5

Saint Cad’s link was to the Academy’s official site, but if you’re still skeptical, the IMDb confirms it.

#6

Yup missed that. (Wikipedia having incomplete information? Say it isn’t so!), I think that’s what I was thinking of.

(And doing some Googling around on this had me stumble across a general “questions answered” site (like Yahoo Answers) and my word, people have some idiotic questions! Just from that site alone:

[ul]
[li]Who was the first person to land on the moon?[/li]
[li]Who was the first person to commit suicide?[/li]
[li]Who was the first black person ever?[/li][/ul])

#7

The Wiki page for the 15th Academy Awards lists him getting it for “White Christmas”, as best original song.

#8

Yahoo Answers is one of the silliest websites out there.
Maybe not deliberately, but the responses are almost always amusing.

#9

But links to the official Oscar site apparently doesn’t prove anything. I’ve provided the link to the official page at least a dozen times but even when they see it(scroll to Documentary (Short)), they still insist Al Gore won an Oscar and the page is wrong.

#10

Well? Who was it, then…?

#11

According to a theory once popular in justifying racism, it was Ham, the son of Noah.

#12

Glad you asked, the actual answer at the site I have to applaud (almost Yahoo Answers worthy):

Gotta love an answer like that!

#13

Brilliant! :smiley:

#14

Correct.

And from that we have God’s curse upon the Hamites.

Fundamentalist Christians (and others) cite this as justification for slavery and other racial edicts.

Landover Baptist is pretty big on God’s curse upon the Hamites.

#15

There’s the story about Isaac Asimov, who many many years ago was a habitual host of the Nebula science fiction writer awards banquet because of his lively personality and speaking ability. He wrote that every year they would ask him to host, and he would think “Drat! No award for me.” One year they asked someone else to host. the fellow had to withdraw, so the organizers asked Asimov to fill in again.

When he was announcing one award where he was nominated, he went on and on about “well, we know it’s not me…” and how underappreciated he was, until he opened the envelope to find he was the winner. He was flabergasted.

Apparently the organizers had discussed it and said “if anyone can present an award to himself, Isaac can!”

Of course, the Oscars today are no doubt so heavily scripted that you can’t have that sort of spontaneous hilarity. Too bad. The funniest and livelest guy on the show the other night was Kirk Douglas.

#16

According to the book “Inside Oscar,” Berlin presented the award by announcing, “This goes to a nice guy. I’ve known him all my life.”

#17

As obvious a butt of jokes as Yahoo answers is, reading that last one quite literally made me spit-choke on the water I was drinking.

#18

I’ve been guilty of trolling Yahoo answers in the past. Especially the categorized questions.

#19

The first black person to win an Academy Award was Hattie McDaniel.

#20

That was in 1939. Shirley Temple won her Academy Award in 1935, but didn’t become Black until 10 years later.