Oscar (Academy Award) (1937)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Merriam-Webster's 11th includes "Oscar."  It says "trademark," but no date 
is given.
   We won't have the LOS ANGELES TIMES for this period for a little while, 
but the Hollywood wire reports in small town newspapers are still worth 
checking.  The best I could find is 1937, checking "Academy Award" and "Oscar" and 
"actor."
    
  
(GOOGLE--FROM "ALL ABOUT OSCAR")
   When the first Academy Awards ceremony took place in 1928, the statuette 
had no official name; it was nicknamed "the Academy statuette," "the golden 
trophy," or "the statue of merit." No one is certain how the nickname Oscar 
became popular, but here are the three most popular stories about its origins: 
   Academy librarian — and eventually Academy executive director — Margaret 
Herrick claimed that the nickname came from her exclamation that the statuette 
looked like her Uncle Oscar. 
   Actress Bette Davis claimed to have commented that the statuette's 
backside reminded her of her husband Harmon Oscar Nelson, and others who heard her 
comment passed on the nickname. However, Davis later relinquished her claim when 
the nickname was found in print dated three years before her 1937 win. 
   Hollywood writer Sidney Skolsky used the name in his column in reference 
to Katherine Hepburn's first Best Actress win. Skolsky said he chose the 
moniker "to negate pretension." (How can someone named Oscar have a big ego?) 
   The Academy didn't officially adopt the name "Oscar" until 1939. Today, 
the name is synonymous with achievement in the movie industry and the gold 
figure is a major icon in popular culture.
    
  
(GOOGLE--FROM IMDB.COM, TAKEN FROM OSCAR.COM AND OSCARS.ORG)
How Oscar received his nickname is not exactly clear. The most popular story 
is that Margaret Herrick, an Academy employee and eventual executive director, 
remarked that the statuette resembled her Uncle Oscar, and the Academy staff 
began to refer to it by that name. Whatever the actual origin of the nickname, 
it was well enough known by 1934 that <A HREF="http://www.imdb.com/Name?Disney,+Walt">Walt Disney</A> supposedly used it during 
an acceptance speech that year. Although journalists used the nickname with 
increasing frequency during the late 1930s, the Academy didn't officially use the 
name Oscar until 1939   
    
  
   12 March 1937, INDIANA EVENING GAZETTE (Indiana, Pennsylvania), pg. 7, 
col. 5:
   Every such statuette is called "Oscar."  An Oscar is a little too heavy 
for a paperweight and much too stiffly formal to qualify as an object d'art.  
However, legitimate possession of an Oscar usually is a very gratifying thing.