Who was the first person to turn down an Oscar?
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science was formed in 1927 by Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM. Initially designed to give the blossoming film industry a respectable image and discuss labour disputes, the organisation began to consider handing out awards the following year. In 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony occurred at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, hosted by the actor and filmmaker Douglas Fairbanks.
Only 270 people attended the first event, which lasted a mere 15 minutes. The winners, including Wings, 7th Heaven and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, were announced before the ceremony, which was essentially a private dinner. However, the following year, the Oscars were broadcasted on the radio before moving to television in 1953. The Academy Awards is the industry’s oldest and most prestigious entertainment ceremony. Winning an Oscar is the ultimate goal for many actors and filmmakers, who believe that taking home a coveted gold statuette is the ultimate symbol of success.
Other industry figures haven’t been so bothered about pocketing a prize. After all, some of cinema’s most critically lauded filmmakers and actors have never received an Oscar. For example, Stanley Kubrick’s only win at the Academy Awards was ‘Best Special Visual Effects’ for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Despite receiving numerous nominations for ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Picture’ over his career, he was never successful. Of course, with that, the ceremony has famously favoured certain ‘Oscar bait’ movies in their nominations, usually picking biopics, historical dramas and war epics for ‘Best Picture’ and neglecting many other stellar releases.
Over the years, a select few individuals have declined their Academy Award wins in protest against the ceremony, most famously Marlon Brando. The legendary actor won ‘Best Actor’ for his role in The Godfather, playing the powerful patriarch Vito Corleone. He had previously accepted the ‘Best Actor’ award in 1954 for his performance in On The Waterfront. However, almost 20 years later, Brando’s opinions had changed, and he refused to attend the ceremony, instead sending Native American actor and activist Sacheen Littlefeather on stage on his behalf.
Littlefeather explained that Brando “very regretfully” couldn’t accept the award because of Hollywood’s harmful depictions of Native Americans, using the speech to shine a light on the occupation of Wounded Knee. Brando later stated on The Dick Cavett Show: “I don’t think that people generally realise what the motion picture industry has done to the American Indian and, as a matter of fact, all ethnicities, all minorities, all non-whites.”
However, Brando was not the first person to decline an Academy Award. At the 8th Academy Awards in 1936, screenwriter and director Dudley Nichols received a ‘Best Writing Screenplay’ nomination for penning John Ford’s The Informer. The film was based on the 1925 novel of the same name by Liam O’Flaherty, set during the 1922 Irish War of Independence. Ford’s film was nominated in six categories and won four awards, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Actor’ for Victor McLaglen, ‘Best Score’ for Max Steiner, and ‘Best Writing Screenplay’.
Nichols was a respected writer during the Golden Age of Hollywood, beginning his career as a reporter for New York World. By 1929, he began working in Hollywood, becoming one of the most acclaimed screenwriters of the 1930s and 1940s. The writer penned hugely successful films such as Bringing Up Baby, Gunga Din, Stagecoach, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Pinky, among many others. Although he frequently collaborated with Ford, he also worked with big names such as Jean Renoir, George Cukor and Fritz Lang.
So, why did Nichols turn down his Academy Award? The screenwriter refused the reward in an attempt to boycott the Academy because of their lack of acknowledgement towards the Screen Writers’ Guild, an organisation designed to protect screenwriting. Despite Nichols’ boycott, the Academy attempted to mail him the statuette on two separate occasions, resulting in Nichols sending it back to them.
Luckily, Nichols’ methods worked, and in 1938, The National Labor Relations Board recognised the Screen Writers’ Guild as an official organisation for writers in the film industry. Now that it had received the recognition it deserved, Nichols accepted his accolade at the Academy Awards that same year. The writer ended up becoming the president of the Screen Writers’ Guild and received three more Oscar nominations during his career.
