[Ads-l] Oscar origin supplement

[Peter Reitan]

Last summer there was a spate of posts about a slight antedating of "Oscar," as the Academy Award statuette, and possible explanations of the origin of the name.  Fred Shapiro found a two-day antedating of an early Sid Skolsky reference first identified by Barry Popik.

I don't remember seeing the story about Walt Disney's supposed contribution to popularizing the name.  I did see the story last summer on a Disney company website, but it looked self-serving, I hadn't seen it anywhere else, and I didn't take the time to track down the source of the story.
https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/award-winning-walt

I recently found the source for the story in a 1972 memoir by a two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter, Frances Marion (1931, for The Big House, and 1932, for The Champ).  She died one year after he memoir was published.

Her recollection was that Walt Disney lovingly referred to the statue he received for the Three Little Pigs as "Oscar" on stage at the awards' banquet in March 1934.  She remembers that before this happened, "those who had never won" one disparagingly referred to the statues as "Oscar."  After Walt endorsed the name, other people started using the name without the negative connotation.

Frances Marion, Off With Their Heads: A Serio-comic Tale of Hollywood, New York, Macmillan, 1972, pages 242-243.

[Begin excerpt]
As 1935 dawned, the American producers began to draw more talent from England. . . . Perhaps it was one of the reasons why some of the glitter had worn off this former gala event, and those who had never won the gold-plated honor now referred to it disparagingly as the “Oscar.” . . . [page 242] Up went a roar of approval for Walt Disney, and momentarily all the petty ills of human nature seemed to vanish as he smiled upon the audience.  Who could be envious of this young man who had again brought our childhood back to us with his Three Little Pigs?  When Walt referred to the “Oscar,” that name took on a different meaning, now that we had heard it spoken with sincere appreciation.”
[End Excerpt]

Her story is consistent with the suggestion in the earliest Sid Skolsky reference, that the word was in use in the industry before he used it.  It doesn't explain the meaning of the word, and it was written down nearly 40 years after the fact, but she doesn't appear to have been a shill for Disney, so perhaps there's something to it?

It makes me wonder, though, why didn't anyone else remember it and write it down in the intervening decades when people were already wondering about it?

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