The Academy Awards
The first Academy Awards were presented on on May 26, 1929, when Roscoe Bartlett was three years old. The ceremony was at a hotel in Hollywood over dinner with 250 people in attendance. Perhaps because the winners had been announced previously, the whole ceremony only lasted about 15 minutes. There was no television or radio broadcast of the event. Wings was awarded Best Picture; it was a silent film starring Clara Bow , the "It" girl.
As a teenager, Clara Bow had worked at a hot dog stand on Coney Island for Nathan Handwerker, who later founded Nathan's Franks. About this time, she was raped by her father. Clara's mother was a schizophrenic and a part-time prostitute, and tried to kill Clara in her sleep. Clara herself suffered from the disease and that was probably the reason she was willing to have such public sexual affairs. When her mental illness was diagnosed in 1949, she was subjected to electric shock treatments and confined to various sanitariums. She died in obscurity 43 years ago.
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