Academy Juvenile Award
Encyclopedia
The Academy Juvenile Award, also known as the Juvenile Oscar, was a Special
Honorary
Academy Award bestowed at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
to specifically recognize juvenile performers under the age of eighteen for their "outstanding contributions to screen entertainment".
The trophy itself was a miniature Oscar statuette which stood approximately 7 inches tall. The honor was first awarded by the Academy in 1935 to 6-year-old Shirley Temple
for her work in 1934. The Award continued to be presented intermittently over the next 25 years until 1961, when 12-year-old Hayley Mills
became the last recipient to be awarded the child-size statuette for her role in Pollyanna
.
for Juvenile actors. The very first child actor to be nominated for an Oscar was 9-year-old Jackie Cooper
who was nominated as Best Actor
in 1931 for his work in the film Skippy
, but lost that year to Lionel Barrymore
. Perhaps recognizing that children could expect little chance of winning against their adult counterparts in the competitive Best Actor
/Actress
categories, and with no category for Best Supporting Actor
/Actress
having yet been established, the Academy saw the need to establish an Honorary "Special Award" specifically created to recognize juveniles under the age of eighteen for their work in film.
On February 27, 1935, the 7th Annual Academy Awards
honoring achievements in film for the year 1934, became the first Oscar ceremony to award the Special Juvenile Award. Playfully dubbed the "Oscarette" by Bob Hope
in 1945, the statuette itself was a miniaturized Oscar, depicting an Art Deco
image of a knight
holding a crusader's sword
and standing on a reel
of film. Standing approximately ½ the size of its full-sized counterpart, this rare child-sized trophy remained the prototype for the statuette throughout the history of the Award with only relatively small modifications to its base over time.
After first being presented in 1935, the Special Juvenile Award continued to be presented intermittently to a total of 12 young actors over the next 25 years, however, several juvenile actors were instead nominated in the competitive Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories during this time; most notably, 14-year-old Bonita Granville
as Best Supporting Actress of 1936 for These Three
, 11-year-old Brandon De Wilde
as Best Supporting Actor of 1953 for Shane, 17-year-old Sal Mineo
as Best Supporting Actor of 1955 for Rebel Without a Cause
, and 11-year-old Patty McCormack
as Best Supporting Actress of 1956 for The Bad Seed
, all of whom lost to their adult counterparts in their respective categories.
Presented on April 17, 1961, the 33rd Annual Academy Awards
honoring achievements in film for the year 1960 would be the last Oscar ceremony to present the Honorary Juvenile Award. The following year, 16 year-old Patty Duke
starred in The Miracle Worker
and in 1963, was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the film, becoming the youngest actress at the time to ever win an Academy Award of merit and, for the first time, proving that a child could win in a competitive category. From this point onward, child actors were recognized in the same categories as their adult counterparts, or not at all.
recognized Shirley Temple
with the Academy's first Juvenile Award to honor "her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934." Beginning her film career at the age of three, in 1934 Temple had attained child stardom in such films as Stand Up and Cheer!
, Little Miss Marker
, Baby Take a Bow
and Bight Eyes. Just six years old on the night she accepted her Honorary statuette, Temple became the youngest recipient ever to be honored by the Academy, a distinction she still holds to this day.
The 11th Annual Academy Awards
recognized both Deanna Durbin
and Mickey Rooney
with the Juvenile Award honoring "their significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth". By 1938, 16-year-old Durbin was a rising star as the singing ingenue in such films as Mad About Music
and That Certain Age
, and Rooney had risen to fame in the Andy Hardy
comedies and received critical acclaim for his dramatic turn in Boys Town. 18-years-old on the night he accepted the accolade, Rooney would be the eldest recipient ever to be honored with the Academy's Juvenile Award.
The 12th Annual Academy Awards
recognized Judy Garland
with the Juvenile Award honoring "her outstanding performance as a screen juvenile during the past year." In 1939, 16-year-old Garland had become one of Hollywood's brightest young starlets, appearing that year in the MGM
musicals Babes in Arms
and The Wizard of Oz
. Although she would be nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress of 1954, and again as Best Supporting Actress of 1961, the Juvenile Award would be the only honor Garland would receive from the Academy.
recognized Margaret O'Brien
with the Juvenile Award honoring her as "outstanding child actress of 1944". That year, 7-year-old O'Brien had become one of the most popular child actresses of her day, starring in the films The Canterville Ghost
, Music for Millions
, and Meet Me In St. Louis
alongside former Juvenile Award Honoree Judy Garland. Hosting the Annual ceremony that year was Bob Hope
who endearingly dubbed the Juvenile Award the "Oscarette" upon presenting O'Brien with her miniature Oscar.
The 18th Annual Academy Awards
recognized Peggy Ann Garner
with the Juvenile Award honoring her as "outstanding child actress of 1945". Beginning her prolific film career at the age of six, in 1945, 13-year-old Garner appeared in Nob Hill
and Junior Miss
, as well as receiving critical acclaim for her dramatic role as Francie Nolan, a girl living in the Brooklyn slums with her devoted mother and alcoholic father in the 20th Century Fox
drama, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
.
The 19th Annual Academy Awards
recognized Claude Jarman, Jr. with the Juvenile Award honoring him as "outstanding child actor of 1946". 13-years-old in 1946, Jarman was honored with the Juvenile Oscar for his screen debut as Jody in Warner Brothers' family drama, The Yearling. Although the Academy didn't officially begin to present the Juvenile Award for a child's work in a specific film until two years later, The Yearling was Jarman's first and only film released in 1946.
The 21st Annual Academy Awards
recognized Ivan Jandl with the Juvenile Award honoring him for "the outstanding juvenile performance of 1948, as 'Karel Malik' in "The Search
". Born in Czechoslovakia
, and beginning his relatively brief film career in 1948 at the age of eleven, Jandl was the first foreign child actor to be honored with the Juvenile Oscar. Unable to travel to the United States
to attend the ceremony, Jandl's statuette was instead presented to him in his native Prague
.
The 22nd Annual Academy Awards
recognized Bobby Driscoll
with the Juvenile Award honoring him as "the outstanding juvenile actor of 1949". That year, 12-year-old Driscoll had starred in the Disney
tear-jerker So Dear to My Heart
, as well as garnering critical acclaim for his dramatic performance in the RKO
melodrama The Window
. Demonstrating the prestige the Honorary Juvenile Award held for Hollywood child stars of the time, on the night of the ceremony, Driscoll nervously accepted his miniature statuette saying, "I don't ever think I've been so thrilled in my life".
recognized both Jon Whiteley
and Vincent Winter
with the Juvenile Award honoring their "outstanding juvenile performance(s) in "The Little Kidnappers
". Perhaps best known to audiences in their native Scotland
, in 1953, Whiteley, age 8, and Winter, age 6, played Harry and Davy respectively, two boys living with their grandfather in Nova Scotia who, forbidden by their grandfather to have a dog, "kidnap" an unattended baby and care for the child as their own in the British produced family drama.
The 33nd Annual Academy Awards
recognized Hayley Mills
with what would be the last Juvenile Award, honoring her performance in Pollyanna
as "the most outstanding juvenile performance during 1960". Making her acting debut at the age of twelve alongside her father John Mills
in the 1959 crime thriller Tiger Bay
, in 1960, 13-year-old Mills made her Disney
debut as the titular Pollyanna which also earned her a BAFTA Award
nomination that same year as "Best British Actress".
had reportedly lost her award over the years, and in June 1958 contacted the Academy to obtain a replacement at her own expense. The Academy obliged, but asked Garland to sign its well known right of first refusal
agreement covering the duplicate Oscar as well as her original, should it ever turn up. The agreement, in effect, states that Oscar recipients or their heirs who want to sell their statuettes must first offer the Academy the chance to buy the Oscar back for the sum of $10. (An amount which was subsequently dropped to $1 in the 1980s.)
After her death in 1969, many of Garland's personal effects came into the possession of her former husband, Sidney Luft
who attempted to sell a miniature Oscar statuette at a Christie's
auction in 1993. Upon learning of the impending auction, the Academy quickly filed a legal injunction to halt the sale of the Award and, after some research, determined that the statuette in question was Garland's 1958 replacement Oscar, using photographs that showed the original 1940 statuette's unique base differed from the one being put up for auction. The courts ruled in the Academy's favor in 1995 and ordered Luft to return the 1958 statuette to the Academy; prompting Luft to instead turn the award over to daughter Lorna Luft
who had expressed a desire to keep it in the family.
In 2000, a second statuette was put up for auction, which the Academy determined this time to be Garland's long-lost "original" 1940 Oscar. After once again tracing the auction back to Sidney Luft, the Academy again took legal action to halt the sale claiming the 1940 statuette fell under the terms of the agreement Garland had signed in 1958. The Academy again won its lawsuit in 2002 and Luft was ordered to turn the 1940 statuette over to the Academy. In February, 2010, Garland's original 1940 Juvenile Oscar was put on display to the public at an exhibit held by the Academy in New York City called "Meet The Oscars". As of 2011, its 1958 replacement is believed to still be in the possession of Garland's youngest daughter, Lorna.
awards were always kept in a special room. One day in 1954, the family's maid asked to take O'Brien's Juvenile Oscar and two other awards home with her to polish, as she had done in the past. After three days, the maid failed to return to work, prompting O'Brien's mother to discharge her, requesting that the awards be returned. Not long after, O'Brien's mother, who had been sick with a heart condition, suffered a relapse and died. In mourning, 17 year-old O'Brien forgot about the maid and the Oscar until several months later when she tried to contact her, only to find that the maid had moved and had left no forwarding address.
Several years later, upon learning that the original had been stolen, the Academy promptly supplied O'Brien with a replacement Oscar, but O'Brien still held onto hope that she might one day recover her original Award. In the years that followed, O'Brien attended memorabilia shows and searched antique shops, hoping she might find the original statuette, until one day in 1995 when Bruce Davis, then executive director of the Academy
, was alerted that a miniature statuette bearing O'Brien's name had surfaced in a catalogue for an upcoming memorabilia auction. Davis contacted a mutual friend of his and O'Brien's, who in turn phoned O'Brien to tell her the long-lost Oscar had been found.
Memorabilia collectors Steve Neimand and Mark Nash were attending a flea market in 1995 when Neimand spotted a small Oscar with Margaret O'Brien's name inscribed upon it. The two men decided to split the $500 asking price hoping to resell it at a profit and lent it to a photographer to shoot for an upcoming auction catalogue. This led to Bruce Davis' discovery that the statuette had resurfaced and, upon learning of the award's history, Nash and Neimand agreed to return the Oscar to O'Brien. On February 7, 1995, almost fifty years after she'd first received it, the Academy held a special ceremony in Beverly Hills to return the stolen award to O’Brien. Upon being reunited with her Juvenile Oscar, Margaret O'Brien told the attending journalists:
Academy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
Honorary
Academy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
Academy Award bestowed at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
to specifically recognize juvenile performers under the age of eighteen for their "outstanding contributions to screen entertainment".
The trophy itself was a miniature Oscar statuette which stood approximately 7 inches tall. The honor was first awarded by the Academy in 1935 to 6-year-old Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
for her work in 1934. The Award continued to be presented intermittently over the next 25 years until 1961, when 12-year-old Hayley Mills
Hayley Mills
Hayley Mills is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Tiger Bay , the Academy Juvenile Award...
became the last recipient to be awarded the child-size statuette for her role in Pollyanna
Pollyanna (1960 film)
Pollyanna is a Walt Disney Productions feature film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. Based upon the novel Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, the film was written and directed by David...
.
History
First presented on May 16, 1929, the Academy Awards did not originally present a Special AwardAcademy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
for Juvenile actors. The very first child actor to be nominated for an Oscar was 9-year-old Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...
who was nominated as Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
in 1931 for his work in the film Skippy
Skippy (1931 film)
Skippy is a film that was released in 1931. It was one of the first films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Don Marquis, Norman Z. McLeod, and Sam Mintz was based on the comic strip Skippy by Percy Crosby...
, but lost that year to Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
. Perhaps recognizing that children could expect little chance of winning against their adult counterparts in the competitive Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
/Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
categories, and with no category for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
/Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
having yet been established, the Academy saw the need to establish an Honorary "Special Award" specifically created to recognize juveniles under the age of eighteen for their work in film.
On February 27, 1935, the 7th Annual Academy Awards
7th Academy Awards
The 7th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1934, were held on February 27, 1935 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by Irvin S...
honoring achievements in film for the year 1934, became the first Oscar ceremony to award the Special Juvenile Award. Playfully dubbed the "Oscarette" by Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
in 1945, the statuette itself was a miniaturized Oscar, depicting an Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
image of a knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
holding a crusader's sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
and standing on a reel
Reel
A reel is an object around which lengths of another material are wound for storage. Generally a reel has a cylindrical core and walls on the sides to retain the material wound around the core...
of film. Standing approximately ½ the size of its full-sized counterpart, this rare child-sized trophy remained the prototype for the statuette throughout the history of the Award with only relatively small modifications to its base over time.
After first being presented in 1935, the Special Juvenile Award continued to be presented intermittently to a total of 12 young actors over the next 25 years, however, several juvenile actors were instead nominated in the competitive Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories during this time; most notably, 14-year-old Bonita Granville
Bonita Granville
Bonita Granville was an American film actress and television producer.-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Granville was the daughter of stage actors, and made her film debut at the age of nine in Westward Passage...
as Best Supporting Actress of 1936 for These Three
These Three
These Three is a 1936 American drama film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Lillian Hellman is based on her 1934 play The Children's Hour....
, 11-year-old Brandon De Wilde
Brandon De Wilde
Andre Brandon deWilde was an American theatre and film actor. He was born into a theatrical family in Brooklyn. Debuting on Broadway at the age of 7, De Wilde became a national phenomenon by the time he completed his 492 performances for The Member of the Wedding and was considered a child...
as Best Supporting Actor of 1953 for Shane, 17-year-old Sal Mineo
Sal Mineo
Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. , was an American film and theatre actor, best known for his performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause...
as Best Supporting Actor of 1955 for Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
, and 11-year-old Patty McCormack
Patty McCormack
Patty McCormack is an American actress with a career in theater, films and television.She achieved success as a child actress, and received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Bad Seed...
as Best Supporting Actress of 1956 for The Bad Seed
The Bad Seed (film)
The Bad Seed is a 1956 American horror-thrillerfilm directed by Mervyn LeRoy. It is based upon a play by Maxwell Anderson, which in turn is based upon William March's 1954 novel The Bad Seed. The play was adapted by John Lee Mahin for the screenplay of the film...
, all of whom lost to their adult counterparts in their respective categories.
Presented on April 17, 1961, the 33rd Annual Academy Awards
33rd Academy Awards
The 33rd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1960, were held on April 17, 1961 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California...
honoring achievements in film for the year 1960 would be the last Oscar ceremony to present the Honorary Juvenile Award. The following year, 16 year-old Patty Duke
Patty Duke
Anna Marie "Patty" Duke is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely...
starred in The Miracle Worker
The Miracle Worker (1962 film)
The Miracle Worker is a 1962 American biographical film directed by Arthur Penn. The screenplay by William Gibson is based on his 1959 play of the same title, which originated as a 1957 broadcast of the television anthology series Playhouse 90...
and in 1963, was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the film, becoming the youngest actress at the time to ever win an Academy Award of merit and, for the first time, proving that a child could win in a competitive category. From this point onward, child actors were recognized in the same categories as their adult counterparts, or not at all.
1930s
The 7th Annual Academy Awards7th Academy Awards
The 7th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1934, were held on February 27, 1935 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by Irvin S...
recognized Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
with the Academy's first Juvenile Award to honor "her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934." Beginning her film career at the age of three, in 1934 Temple had attained child stardom in such films as Stand Up and Cheer!
Stand Up and Cheer!
Stand Up and Cheer! is a 1934 American musical film directed by Hamilton MacFadden. The screenplay by Lew Brown and Ralph Spence was based upon a story idea by Will Rogers and Philip Klein. The film is about efforts undertaken during the Great Depression to boost the morale of the country...
, Little Miss Marker
Little Miss Marker
Little Miss Marker is a 1934 American drama film directed by Alexander Hall. The screenplay was written by William R. Lipman, Sam Hellman, and Gladys Hellman after a short story by Damon Runyon. The film stars Shirley Temple, Adolphe Menjou, and Dorothy Dell in a story about a little girl held...
, Baby Take a Bow
Baby Take a Bow
Baby Take a Bow is a 1934 American comedy drama film directed by Harry Lachman. The screenplay by Philip Klein and Edward E. Paramore Jr. is based on the play Square Crooks by James P. Judge. Temple plays the child of an ex-con trying to better life for himself and his family. The film was a...
and Bight Eyes. Just six years old on the night she accepted her Honorary statuette, Temple became the youngest recipient ever to be honored by the Academy, a distinction she still holds to this day.
The 11th Annual Academy Awards
11th Academy Awards
The 11th Academy Awards were held on February 23, 1939 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. It was the first Academy Awards show without any official host, as well as the first to have a foreign language film nominated for Best Picture.This was the first of only two times in Oscar...
recognized both Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....
and Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
with the Juvenile Award honoring "their significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth". By 1938, 16-year-old Durbin was a rising star as the singing ingenue in such films as Mad About Music
Mad About Music
Mad About Music is a 1938 musical film about a girl at an exclusive boarding school who invents an exciting father. When her schoolmates doubt his existence, she has to produce him...
and That Certain Age
That Certain Age
That Certain Age is a 1938 Universal musical film directed by Edward Ludwig and written by Billy Wilder.-Plot:Alice Fullerton is the 15-year-old daughter of newspaper publisher Bill. She becomes involved with a group of boy scouts, who is led by Ken Warren. Ken wants to put on a show to raise money...
, and Rooney had risen to fame in the Andy Hardy
Andy Hardy
Andy Hardy was a fictional character played by Mickey Rooney in an MGM film series from 1937 to 1958. Spanning over 20 years, the 16 movies were based on characters in the play Skidding by Aurania Rouverol....
comedies and received critical acclaim for his dramatic turn in Boys Town. 18-years-old on the night he accepted the accolade, Rooney would be the eldest recipient ever to be honored with the Academy's Juvenile Award.
The 12th Annual Academy Awards
12th Academy Awards
The 12th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1939, was held on February 29, 1940, at a banquet in the Coconut Grove at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was hosted by Bob Hope ....
recognized Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
with the Juvenile Award honoring "her outstanding performance as a screen juvenile during the past year." In 1939, 16-year-old Garland had become one of Hollywood's brightest young starlets, appearing that year in the MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
musicals Babes in Arms
Babes in Arms (film)
Babes in Arms is the 1939 film version of the 1937 Broadway musical of the same name. The film version stars Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Charles Winninger, Guy Kibbee, June Preisser, Grace Hayes and Betty Jaynes.-Production:...
and The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
. Although she would be nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress of 1954, and again as Best Supporting Actress of 1961, the Juvenile Award would be the only honor Garland would receive from the Academy.
1940s
The 17th Annual Academy Awards17th Academy Awards
The 17th Academy Awards marked the first time this awards ceremony was broadcast nationally on the ABC Radio network.Through the 1940s, the ceremony and academy rules continued to evolve into the form by which we know them today. This is the first year that the Best Picture category was limited to...
recognized Margaret O'Brien
Margaret O'Brien
Margaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history...
with the Juvenile Award honoring her as "outstanding child actress of 1944". That year, 7-year-old O'Brien had become one of the most popular child actresses of her day, starring in the films The Canterville Ghost
The Canterville Ghost (1944 film)
The Canterville Ghost is a 1944 fantasy/comedy film directed by Jules Dassin, loosely based on the short story of the same title by Oscar Wilde...
, Music for Millions
Music for Millions
Music for Millions is a 1944 musical comedy film directed by Henry Koster. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1946.-Plot:"Mike" , age 6, arrives in New York to stay with her sister Barbara Ainsworth , who lived together with a group of girls, her co-players in a symphony orchestra...
, and Meet Me In St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 musical film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which tells the story of an American family living in St. Louis at the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in 1904...
alongside former Juvenile Award Honoree Judy Garland. Hosting the Annual ceremony that year was Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
who endearingly dubbed the Juvenile Award the "Oscarette" upon presenting O'Brien with her miniature Oscar.
The 18th Annual Academy Awards
18th Academy Awards
The 18th Academy Awards was the first such ceremony after World War II. As a result, the ceremony featured more glamour than had been present during the war. Plaster statuettes that had been given out during the war years were replaced with bronze statuettes with gold plating...
recognized Peggy Ann Garner
Peggy Ann Garner
Peggy Ann Garner was an American actress.A successful child actor, Garner played her first film role in 1938 and won the Academy Juvenile Award for her work in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...
with the Juvenile Award honoring her as "outstanding child actress of 1945". Beginning her prolific film career at the age of six, in 1945, 13-year-old Garner appeared in Nob Hill
Nob Hill (1945 film)
Nob Hill is a 1945 technicolor film about a Barbary Coast saloon keeper starring George Raft and Joan Bennett. Part musical and part drama, the movie was directed by Henry Hathaway.-Cast:*George Raft as Tony Angelo*Joan Bennett as Harriet Carruthers...
and Junior Miss
Junior Miss (film)
Junior Miss is a 1945 American comedy film starring Peggy Ann Garner as a teenager who meddles in people's love lives.Junior Miss was published by Doubleday in 1941. This collection of Sally Benson's stories from The New Yorker, was adapted by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields into a successful...
, as well as receiving critical acclaim for her dramatic role as Francie Nolan, a girl living in the Brooklyn slums with her devoted mother and alcoholic father in the 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
drama, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (film)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a 1945 film, the first film directed by Greek-American director Elia Kazan, starring James Dunn , Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Garner .The film is based on an American novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith first published in 1943...
.
The 19th Annual Academy Awards
19th Academy Awards
The 19th Academy Awards continued a trend through the late-1940s of the Oscar voters honoring films about contemporary social issues. The Best Years of Our Lives concerns the lives of three returning veterans from three branches of military service as they adjust to life on the home front after...
recognized Claude Jarman, Jr. with the Juvenile Award honoring him as "outstanding child actor of 1946". 13-years-old in 1946, Jarman was honored with the Juvenile Oscar for his screen debut as Jody in Warner Brothers' family drama, The Yearling. Although the Academy didn't officially begin to present the Juvenile Award for a child's work in a specific film until two years later, The Yearling was Jarman's first and only film released in 1946.
The 21st Annual Academy Awards
21st Academy Awards
The 21st Academy Awards features numerous firsts. It was the first time a non-Hollywood production won Best Picture, Hamlet. It was the first time an individual directed himself in an Oscar-winning performance...
recognized Ivan Jandl with the Juvenile Award honoring him for "the outstanding juvenile performance of 1948, as 'Karel Malik' in "The Search
The Search
The Search is a 1948 film directed by Fred Zinnemann which tells the story of a young Auschwitz survivor and his mother who search for each other across post-World War II Europe...
". Born in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, and beginning his relatively brief film career in 1948 at the age of eleven, Jandl was the first foreign child actor to be honored with the Juvenile Oscar. Unable to travel to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to attend the ceremony, Jandl's statuette was instead presented to him in his native Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
.
The 22nd Annual Academy Awards
22nd Academy Awards
-Awards:Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.-Multiple nominations and awards:These films had multiple nominations:*8 nominations: The Heiress*7 nominations: All the King's Men, Come to the Stable...
recognized Bobby Driscoll
Bobby Driscoll
Robert Cletus "Bobby" Driscoll was an American child actor known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of The Walt Disney Company's most popular live-action pictures of that period, such as Song of the South , So Dear to My Heart , and Treasure Island...
with the Juvenile Award honoring him as "the outstanding juvenile actor of 1949". That year, 12-year-old Driscoll had starred in the Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
tear-jerker So Dear to My Heart
So Dear to My Heart
So Dear to My Heart is a 1948 feature film produced by Walt Disney, released in Chicago on November 29, 1948 and nationwide on January 19, 1949 by RKO Radio Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. Like 1946's Song of the South, the film combines animation and live action...
, as well as garnering critical acclaim for his dramatic performance in the RKO
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
melodrama The Window
The Window
The Window is a 1949 American black-and-white suspense film noir, based on the short story "The Boy Cried Murder" by Cornell Woolrich. The film, which was a critical success, was produced by Frederic Ullman, Jr. for $210,000 but earned much more, making it a box office hit for RKO Pictures...
. Demonstrating the prestige the Honorary Juvenile Award held for Hollywood child stars of the time, on the night of the ceremony, Driscoll nervously accepted his miniature statuette saying, "I don't ever think I've been so thrilled in my life".
1950s—1960
The 27th Annual Academy Awards27th Academy Awards
The 27th Academy Awards honored the best films produced in 1954. The Best Picture winner, On the Waterfront, was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by Elia Kazan...
recognized both Jon Whiteley
Jon Whiteley
Jon Whiteley was a child actor in films.Whiteley appeared in five films during his brief career, and it was for the second of these, The Little Kidnappers that he, along with co-star Vincent Winter, was awarded an Academy Juvenile Award for this film...
and Vincent Winter
Vincent Winter
Vincent Winter was a Scottish film actor who was successful as a child actor.-Career:Winter was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and made his first film appearance at the age of six in The Little Kidnappers winning, along with his co-star Jon Whiteley, an Academy Juvenile Award...
with the Juvenile Award honoring their "outstanding juvenile performance(s) in "The Little Kidnappers
The Little Kidnappers (1953 film)
The Little Kidnappers, billed as The Kidnappers in the UK, is a 1953 British film, directed by Philip Leacock and written by Neil Paterson. It was remade as a TV movie in 1990.-Plot:...
". Perhaps best known to audiences in their native Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, in 1953, Whiteley, age 8, and Winter, age 6, played Harry and Davy respectively, two boys living with their grandfather in Nova Scotia who, forbidden by their grandfather to have a dog, "kidnap" an unattended baby and care for the child as their own in the British produced family drama.
The 33nd Annual Academy Awards
33rd Academy Awards
The 33rd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1960, were held on April 17, 1961 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California...
recognized Hayley Mills
Hayley Mills
Hayley Mills is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Tiger Bay , the Academy Juvenile Award...
with what would be the last Juvenile Award, honoring her performance in Pollyanna
Pollyanna (1960 film)
Pollyanna is a Walt Disney Productions feature film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. Based upon the novel Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, the film was written and directed by David...
as "the most outstanding juvenile performance during 1960". Making her acting debut at the age of twelve alongside her father John Mills
John Mills
Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...
in the 1959 crime thriller Tiger Bay
Tiger Bay (film)
Tiger Bay is a 1959 British crime drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and produced and co-written by John Hawkesworth. It stars John Mills as a police superintendent who investigates a murder, his daughter Hayley Mills, in her first major film role, as a girl who witnesses the murder, and Horst...
, in 1960, 13-year-old Mills made her Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
debut as the titular Pollyanna which also earned her a BAFTA Award
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . It is the British counterpart of the Oscars. As of 2008, it has taken place in the Royal Opera House, having taken over from the flagship Odeon cinema on Leicester Square...
nomination that same year as "Best British Actress".
List of Honorees
| Academy Juvenile Award Honorees | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | | Recipient | | Honor |
| 1934 1934 in film -Events:*January 26 - Samuel Goldwyn purchases the film rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the L. Frank Baum estate for $40,000.*February 19 - Bob Hope marries Dolores Reade... (7th) 7th Academy Awards The 7th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1934, were held on February 27, 1935 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. They were hosted by Irvin S... |
Shirley Temple Shirley Temple Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia... |
In grateful recognition of her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment during the year 1934. |
| 1938 1938 in film The year 1938 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January — MGM announces that Judy Garland would be cast in the role of "Dorothy" in the upcoming Wizard of Oz motion picture. Ray Bolger is cast as the "Tinman" and Buddy Ebsen is cast as the "Scarecrow". At Bolger's insistence,... (11th) 11th Academy Awards The 11th Academy Awards were held on February 23, 1939 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. It was the first Academy Awards show without any official host, as well as the first to have a foreign language film nominated for Best Picture.This was the first of only two times in Oscar... |
Deanna Durbin Deanna Durbin Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias.... & Mickey Rooney Mickey Rooney Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award... |
For their significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth, and as juvenile players setting a high standard of ability and achievement. |
| 1939 1939 in film The year 1939 in motion pictures can be justified as being called the most outstanding one ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year .- Events :Motion picture historians and film often rate... (12th) 12th Academy Awards The 12th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1939, was held on February 29, 1940, at a banquet in the Coconut Grove at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was hosted by Bob Hope .... |
Judy Garland Judy Garland Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage... |
For her outstanding performance as a screen juvenile during the past year. |
| 1944 1944 in film The year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released.... (17th) 17th Academy Awards The 17th Academy Awards marked the first time this awards ceremony was broadcast nationally on the ABC Radio network.Through the 1940s, the ceremony and academy rules continued to evolve into the form by which we know them today. This is the first year that the Best Picture category was limited to... |
Margaret O'Brien Margaret O'Brien Margaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history... |
Outstanding child actress of 1944. |
| 1945 1945 in film The year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins.... (18th) 18th Academy Awards The 18th Academy Awards was the first such ceremony after World War II. As a result, the ceremony featured more glamour than had been present during the war. Plaster statuettes that had been given out during the war years were replaced with bronze statuettes with gold plating... |
Peggy Ann Garner Peggy Ann Garner Peggy Ann Garner was an American actress.A successful child actor, Garner played her first film role in 1938 and won the Academy Juvenile Award for her work in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn... |
Outstanding child actress of 1945. |
| 1946 1946 in film The year 1946 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*November 21 - William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives premieres in New York featuring an ensemble cast including Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell.*December 20 - Frank Capra's It's a... (19th) 19th Academy Awards The 19th Academy Awards continued a trend through the late-1940s of the Oscar voters honoring films about contemporary social issues. The Best Years of Our Lives concerns the lives of three returning veterans from three branches of military service as they adjust to life on the home front after... |
Claude Jarman, Jr. | Outstanding child actor of 1946. |
| 1948 1948 in film The year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :... (21st) 21st Academy Awards The 21st Academy Awards features numerous firsts. It was the first time a non-Hollywood production won Best Picture, Hamlet. It was the first time an individual directed himself in an Oscar-winning performance... |
Ivan Jandl | For the outstanding juvenile performance of 1948, as 'Karel Malik' in "The Search". |
| 1949 1949 in film The year 1949 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello... (22nd) 22nd Academy Awards -Awards:Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.-Multiple nominations and awards:These films had multiple nominations:*8 nominations: The Heiress*7 nominations: All the King's Men, Come to the Stable... |
Bobby Driscoll Bobby Driscoll Robert Cletus "Bobby" Driscoll was an American child actor known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of The Walt Disney Company's most popular live-action pictures of that period, such as Song of the South , So Dear to My Heart , and Treasure Island... |
As the outstanding juvenile actor of 1949. |
| 1954 1954 in film The year 1954 in film involved some significant events and memorable ones.-Events:*May 12 - The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda... (27th) 27th Academy Awards The 27th Academy Awards honored the best films produced in 1954. The Best Picture winner, On the Waterfront, was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by Elia Kazan... |
Jon Whiteley Jon Whiteley Jon Whiteley was a child actor in films.Whiteley appeared in five films during his brief career, and it was for the second of these, The Little Kidnappers that he, along with co-star Vincent Winter, was awarded an Academy Juvenile Award for this film... |
For his outstanding juvenile performance in "The Little Kidnappers" The Little Kidnappers (1953 film) The Little Kidnappers, billed as The Kidnappers in the UK, is a 1953 British film, directed by Philip Leacock and written by Neil Paterson. It was remade as a TV movie in 1990.-Plot:... . |
| Vincent Winter Vincent Winter Vincent Winter was a Scottish film actor who was successful as a child actor.-Career:Winter was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and made his first film appearance at the age of six in The Little Kidnappers winning, along with his co-star Jon Whiteley, an Academy Juvenile Award... |
For his outstanding juvenile performance in "The Little Kidnappers" The Little Kidnappers (1953 film) The Little Kidnappers, billed as The Kidnappers in the UK, is a 1953 British film, directed by Philip Leacock and written by Neil Paterson. It was remade as a TV movie in 1990.-Plot:... . |
|
| 1960 1960 in film The year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I... (33rd) 33rd Academy Awards The 33rd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1960, were held on April 17, 1961 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California... |
Hayley Mills Hayley Mills Hayley Mills is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Tiger Bay , the Academy Juvenile Award... |
For "Pollyanna" Pollyanna (1960 film) Pollyanna is a Walt Disney Productions feature film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. Based upon the novel Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, the film was written and directed by David... , the most outstanding juvenile performance during 1960. |
Lost Garland Award
While only 12 stars have been awarded the rare miniature statuette, a total of 14 Juvenile Oscars are actually known to exist. Judy GarlandJudy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
had reportedly lost her award over the years, and in June 1958 contacted the Academy to obtain a replacement at her own expense. The Academy obliged, but asked Garland to sign its well known right of first refusal
Right of first refusal
Right of first refusal is a contractual right that gives its holder the option to enter a business transaction with the owner of something, according to specified terms, before the owner is entitled to enter into that transaction with a third party...
agreement covering the duplicate Oscar as well as her original, should it ever turn up. The agreement, in effect, states that Oscar recipients or their heirs who want to sell their statuettes must first offer the Academy the chance to buy the Oscar back for the sum of $10. (An amount which was subsequently dropped to $1 in the 1980s.)
After her death in 1969, many of Garland's personal effects came into the possession of her former husband, Sidney Luft
Sidney Luft
Sidney Luft was an American show business figure best known as the third husband of iconic American actress and singer Judy Garland.-Early life:...
who attempted to sell a miniature Oscar statuette at a Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
auction in 1993. Upon learning of the impending auction, the Academy quickly filed a legal injunction to halt the sale of the Award and, after some research, determined that the statuette in question was Garland's 1958 replacement Oscar, using photographs that showed the original 1940 statuette's unique base differed from the one being put up for auction. The courts ruled in the Academy's favor in 1995 and ordered Luft to return the 1958 statuette to the Academy; prompting Luft to instead turn the award over to daughter Lorna Luft
Lorna Luft
Lorna Luft is an American television, stage, and film actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and Sid Luft, and the half-sister of singer and actress Liza Minnelli.-Biography:...
who had expressed a desire to keep it in the family.
In 2000, a second statuette was put up for auction, which the Academy determined this time to be Garland's long-lost "original" 1940 Oscar. After once again tracing the auction back to Sidney Luft, the Academy again took legal action to halt the sale claiming the 1940 statuette fell under the terms of the agreement Garland had signed in 1958. The Academy again won its lawsuit in 2002 and Luft was ordered to turn the 1940 statuette over to the Academy. In February, 2010, Garland's original 1940 Juvenile Oscar was put on display to the public at an exhibit held by the Academy in New York City called "Meet The Oscars". As of 2011, its 1958 replacement is believed to still be in the possession of Garland's youngest daughter, Lorna.
Lost O'Brien Award
Growing up, Margaret O'Brien'sMargaret O'Brien
Margaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history...
awards were always kept in a special room. One day in 1954, the family's maid asked to take O'Brien's Juvenile Oscar and two other awards home with her to polish, as she had done in the past. After three days, the maid failed to return to work, prompting O'Brien's mother to discharge her, requesting that the awards be returned. Not long after, O'Brien's mother, who had been sick with a heart condition, suffered a relapse and died. In mourning, 17 year-old O'Brien forgot about the maid and the Oscar until several months later when she tried to contact her, only to find that the maid had moved and had left no forwarding address.
Several years later, upon learning that the original had been stolen, the Academy promptly supplied O'Brien with a replacement Oscar, but O'Brien still held onto hope that she might one day recover her original Award. In the years that followed, O'Brien attended memorabilia shows and searched antique shops, hoping she might find the original statuette, until one day in 1995 when Bruce Davis, then executive director of the Academy
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
, was alerted that a miniature statuette bearing O'Brien's name had surfaced in a catalogue for an upcoming memorabilia auction. Davis contacted a mutual friend of his and O'Brien's, who in turn phoned O'Brien to tell her the long-lost Oscar had been found.
Memorabilia collectors Steve Neimand and Mark Nash were attending a flea market in 1995 when Neimand spotted a small Oscar with Margaret O'Brien's name inscribed upon it. The two men decided to split the $500 asking price hoping to resell it at a profit and lent it to a photographer to shoot for an upcoming auction catalogue. This led to Bruce Davis' discovery that the statuette had resurfaced and, upon learning of the award's history, Nash and Neimand agreed to return the Oscar to O'Brien. On February 7, 1995, almost fifty years after she'd first received it, the Academy held a special ceremony in Beverly Hills to return the stolen award to O’Brien. Upon being reunited with her Juvenile Oscar, Margaret O'Brien told the attending journalists:
-
- “For all those people who have lost or misplaced something that was dear to them, as I have, never give up the dream of searching – never let go of the hope that you’ll find it because after all these many years, at last, my Oscar has been returned to me.”
See also
- Academy Award (Oscar)
- Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
(AMPAS) - Honorary Academy Award
- List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees
- Young Artist AwardYoung Artist AwardThe Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...
External links
- Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – Official Website
- Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – Official Database