The 1939 Academy Awards

Starter of this subject: kurt
Last post in this subject: 1/16/2003
Messages in this subject: 1

kurt	1/16/2003 1 replies

I OUGHT to know the answer to this, but I don't.

Were the 1939 Academy Awards (aka the "Gone With The Wind" Oscars ceremony of 1940) broadcast? And has a recording of this survived?

The film clips I know about. I'm looking for a recording of the complete radio broadcast, if one exists.

The only recordings I've found for Academy Award presentations on radio are from 1943 and later.

Jim Hilliker

1/18/2003
0 replies

If the 1939 Academy Awards were broadcast over the radio, it was likely only on local radio in the Los Angeles/Southern California area, but not the entire ceremony/awards presentation as we know it today; likely only a portion of the top awards.

I wouldn't know if any recording has survived, if one was made from the 1939 Oscars on radio.

The very first time the Academy Awards were presented on radio was on April 13, 1930, the second year of the Oscars! This was only on Los Angeles/Hollywood radio station KNX, and they only broadcast one hour of the Academy Awards ceremony that year, live
from 10:30 to 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time.

In those early years, the Academy Awards were presented during a banquet at a Hollywood hotel, so the time handing out awards was likely not very long, and at the end of the dinner.

The next year, in 1931, a portion of the Academy Awards were heard over Los Angeles radio station KHJ, which also sent the broadcast over the Don Lee-Columbia (CBS) West Coast network, so
part of the 1931 Oscars were heard on the Pacific Coast.

It's surprising to me that the ENTIRE Academy Awards Show, such as we know it today, was not heard on a network coast-to-coast
radio broadcast from start to finish, until 1943! That year, the Oscars were handed out at Grauman's Chinese Theater and network radio covered the event for the first time and broadcast it to American GIs in the war zones.

So, since network radio didn't cover an entire Academy Awards Show until 1943, that's probably why you haven't found any recordings of it prior to 1943. Possibly, parts of the Academy Awards may have been heard in 1939 in L.A. and maybe the West Coast, but I just don't know if such a broadcast was recorded.

I wonder if the reason the Oscars weren't on radio from beginning to end until 1943 was the same concern today, that it's quite late on the east coast by the time the last awards are handed out in Hollywood!