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2003 |
 John's great-uncle, George Stanley, in his studio |
John Stanley WHO REALLY CREATED THE OSCAR? in 2000 |
Oscar's name is 'George'
By JOHN STANLEY
of TheColumnists.com
LET ME take this opportunity, as we approach the 75thAcademy Awards presentation, to set the record straight and tell you a little story about just who created this thing called "The Oscar."
The official account of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences goes that Cedric Gibbons, who was the art director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in 1927, was assigned by MGM boss Louis B. Mayer to create an award that would be handed out annually to Hollywood's best. It could be a plaque, a trophy or a scroll. Mayer didn't care; Gibbons could come up with whatever design he wanted.
So, this official story continues, Gibbons sketched a naked man plunging a sword into a reel of film for what would be a statuette. Then he hired George Stanley, an unemployed graduate of the Otis Art Institute, to sculpt the prototype in clay, based on Gibbons' drawing. It would end up being 13½ inches tall and weigh in at 6¾ pounds, after being cast in tin and copper and plated with gold.
Stanley, did I say? Hmmm . . . any relation? Glad you asked. Because this is where I and my family come into the story. You see, that unemployed graduate student was my father's uncle, who would go on to become a leading architect and designer for the city of Los Angeles during the 1930s.
And here's where I want to stick in my two cents. (Everybody else does at Academy Awards time, so why shouldn't I?) Because as a wide-eyed kid I went to a lot of family reunions and still remember my father, Myron, and a lot of other Stanleys coming to the fore to claim that the Academy version was all "trumped up." That it was George who designed as well as sculpted the final version that is still used today.
And I still have a vivid memory of the one and only time I met my great-uncle George in the summer of 1967, at his home in Sunland, Calif. A quiet, soft-spoken, almost shy man, trembling uncontrollably because he suffered from Parkinson's Disease . . . but more about that in a minute.
I wanted to get to the
truth once and for all, but because some of my recollections
of those family reunions were now hazy, I decided I needed a
confirmation, something to substantiate all those memories of
so long ago.
So I rang up the family's leading authority on our genealogy--my
aunt Viola, who is still alive and living in Bakersfield, and
she told me her version. The words came heatedly over the wire,
as if Aunt Vi was fed up with the official story and wanted the
whole world to know the truth:
"George was the sweetest man I've ever known and he deserves better than he got. The truth about this deserves to be told. George was the last man to blow his own whistle but he told me the whole story. He and Gibbons sat in the restaurant of the Hollywood Biltmore Hotel and Gibbons told George what he wanted, just kept rattling on while Uncle George sat there drawing on a napkin, because that's all he had. And he sketched as fast as Gibbons described what he wanted. But when that meeting was finished, it was George who came up with the design of the Academy Award. And do you know something? All he ever got from the Academy was $500. That was it. Never a penny more. For creating one of the best known awards in history."
Aunt Vi, being a stickler for the truth, insisted that I call George's widow, Beatrice, who still lives in the same house in Sunland. She came on the phone sounding like Mayberry's Aunt Bee, with a voice as sweet as maple syrup and as warm as a summer Sunland day. She was delighted to hear that someone still remembered George and cared about his contribution to the history of the Academy Awards.
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Beatrice had been married to George from 1934 until his death in 1970, so I figured if anybody would know the truth, she was the one. I reiterated the story that Aunt Vi had told me, and she politely asked me to print it the way I'd heard it from Vi. Beatrice sounded a bit on the shy side, like she was too polite to repudiate an official story from the Academy in her own words.
Beatrice told me about the highlights in George's life and I quickly learned he had sculpted a lot more than the Oscar. There was his "Muse of Music" statue at the entrance to the Hollywood Bowl, as well as his "Muse of Drama" and "Muse of Dance" statues. "George," she said, "actually cut away some of the rock for the Music Muse using a jack hammer. He was always a hands-on person, who tried to do everything himself.
"Did you know he also helped to design the Wilshire Building? His contribution was the facade above the main doors. And then for the Philharmonic Association of Los Angeles he designed many reliefs and plaques. In Van Nuys, there is a Catholic church where George designed a special cross above the altar. And did you know he was a teacher for more than 20 years at Otis Art Institute? There are so many of his creations, scattered about the Southern California landscape. It's like a part of him will always be here for us to see."
She talked about his triumphs, yes, but she also described the setbacks and the ultimate disappointments and finally the stunning tragedy of his Parkinson's Disease.
"It all began in 1949 when George had a burst appendix. In those days they didn't take it out after it burst; instead, the doctors rushed him into the hospital and put him into a straitjacket and packed him in ice in an effort to isolate the poison and keep it walled off. He couldn't move and he had to stay cool and full of ice water and cold juices."
Beatrice recalled that George was still in the hospital recovering when the fingers of one hand started moving involuntarily up and down. Pretty soon his entire hand was wracked by tremors. Then the other hand suffered the same thing. Before long his entire body was hard hit by Parkinson's.
Talking to Vi and Beatrice began bringing back memories of that time I spent with George back in the 1960s. One image remains etched in my mind of that summer day in Sunland: George trembling uncontrollably yet totally in control of his voice and thoughts as he talked to me matter-of-factly about his career. Outside was all storm and turmoil, but inside was tranquility and control. He was a gray-haired, bearded man with sad, wise eyes that looked as if they had seen a millennium of living. How ironic, I remember thinking, that a talented artist who made his livelihood with his hands, sculpting and molding and drawing beautiful, aesthetic things, should lose control of those hands, and hence lose control of his talent, and watch the twilight years of his career slip away, out of his grasp because he had no grasp.
In his workshop, George showed us assorted pieces of sculpture he had created, as well as the statue of a nude woman. That afternoon I was amazed to see George's beautiful pastel paintings, which he had done years before. He brought from his garage a box of sketches--samples of the work he had done at Warner Bros. in 1943 when he worked for a short while as a sketch artist under Tyrus Wong. The set decorators' union had gone on strike that year and George found himself on a picket line, and actually ended up in jail for a few days, dragged there after a fight erupted outside the studio and the cops grabbed anyone involved.
And he told us about the night of May 19, 1929, when the very first Academy Awards were presented. He had been asked to stand up and take a bow by then-Academy president Douglas Fairbanks in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Later, George was given an Oscar of his own to keep, and I remember my dad taking the award and posing with it, one arm lifted into the air as if to say he was the king of the world.
I never saw George again after that day, so that's the whole story as I know it. The story as it happened, according to the Stanley family. The way it's been handed down by the generations.
And now I'm passing it along to you: The real story about the man who created the Oscar.
© 2000 by John Stanley. Photos are from the Stanley family archives. All rights reserved..
You can comment on this column or contact John Stanley with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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