Bringing Up Oscar
The Men and Women Who Founded The Academy
by
Debra Ann Pawlak
Genre/s
Nonfiction, Biography / Memoir
Publish Date
January 16, 2011
Short Description
In times of adversity, the best of humanity rises up and follows a dream towards a new, braver, destiny. The founders of the motion picture industry were a motley crew, but when they converged in Hollywood, a small California town with unpaved roads, white-hot sparks ignited. These early twentieth-century dreamers, founders of the Academy, who simply called themselves filmmakers, created an art form that would dominate the world long after they were gone. They weren’t necessarily artists; former cowpunchers, prospectors and junk dealers, they made up the rules as they went along and in the process gave us something we never had before—the opportunity to see ourselves in motion, to experience in one lifetime the experiences of many lifetimes.
Bringing Up Oscar brings the lives, talents and passions of these innovative purveyors of the preeminent art form of the Twentieth Century into sharp focus. It also reminds us of what it means to dream with a purpose and ferocity that tomorrow’s entrepreneurs will also need to depend on.
$22.79
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Book's Awards
Description
The untold story of the innovative pioneers who helped make movies the preeminent art form of the twentieth century by founding the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The founders of the now infamous Academy were a motley crew as individuals, but when they first converged in Hollywood, then just a small town with dirt roads, sparks flew and fueled a common dream: to bring artistic validity to their beloved new medium.
Today, movies are so ingrained in our culture it is hard to imagine a time when former cowpunchers, prospectors, vaudevillians, even junk dealers made up the rules as they went along. Prohibition and the Great Depression were keeping everyone on edge, and the business was rife with murders and drug scandals. Something had to happen. And so on January 11th, 1927, thirty-six members of Hollywood's elite and not-so-elite came together at the behest of MGM chief Louis B. Mayer. From Cecil B. DeMille to Mary Pickford, Harry M. Warner, who owned a bike shop before launching the revolutionary “talkie” The Jazz Singer, even Joseph M. Schenck, freed from jail just in time to discover Marilyn Monroe―each guest was more colorful than the last. Although they didn’t know it yet, these thirty-six achievers and dreamers gave birth to a golden child.
Who were these movers and shakers who would change movies forever? And what about Oscar, their famous son? He is fast approaching his 100th birthday, and is still the undisputed king of Hollywood. Yet with such dynamic parents, what else could we expect?
