And The Oscar Goes to…But Who in the World is Oscar?

With the Oscars AKA: The Academy Awards coming up this weekend you have to wonder why the golden statue given to the winners is referred to as an Oscar. There are actually 7 other awards offered by the academy but the Oscar seems to be the most popular one. The naming of this little gold man has been contested but according to Wikipedia:

One biography of Bette Davis claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson; one of the earliest mentions in print of the term Oscar dates back to a Time magazine article about the 1934 6th Academy Awards and to Bette Davis’s receipt of the award in 1936. Walt Disney is also quoted as thanking the Academy for his Oscar as early as 1932. Another claimed origin is that of the Academy’s Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, who first saw the award in 1931 and made reference to the statuette reminding her of her “Uncle Oscar” (a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce). Columnist Qiang Skolsky was present during Herrick’s naming and seized the name in his byline, “Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette ‘Oscar’” (Levy 2003). The trophy was officially dubbed the “Oscar” in 1939 by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Another legend reports that Norwegian-American, Eleanor Lilleberg, executive secretary to Louis B. Mayer, saw the first statuette and exclaimed, “It looks like King Oscar!”. At the end of the day she asked, “What should we do with Oscar, put him in the vault?” and the name stuck.

So there are several claims. Which do you believe? All I know is I look forward to watching the Oscars this weekend in the comforts’ of my own apartment. I think homemade brownies will complement my red carpet watching experience.