22 facts you didn’t know about American Oscars, British BAFTAs and Spanish Goya Ceremony Awards

1. The Oscars is the oldest entertainment awards ceremony, first held on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people.

2. The cost of guest tickets for that night’s ceremony was $5 ($69 as of 2015), and ran for 15 minutes. Fifteen statuettes were awarded that night.

3. British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) was founded in 1947.

4. The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as Los Premios Goya, are Spain’s main national annual film awards and were established in 1987.

5. The Oscars awards ceremony was first televised in 1953, it is now seen live in more than 200 countries.

6. The Oscars Academy uses a sealed envelope to reveal the name of the winners since Los Angeles Times announced the winners just before the ceremony began in 1940.

7. The Oscar statuette is made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.85 kg). It takes between three to four weeks to manufacture each Oscar statue.

8. The reel of film with five spokes where the Oscar stands represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians.

9. The BAFTA awards famous mask was designed by US sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe and it weighs 3.7kg.

10. The Goya award itself is a small bronze bust of painter Francisco de Goya created by the sculptor José Luis Fernández.

11. In support of the American effort in World War II, the Oscar statuettes were made of plaster and were traded in for gold ones after the war had ended.

12. Since 1950, the Oscar statuettes have been protected by the requirement that they can’t be sold without first offering to sell them back to the Academy for US$1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette.

13. Harold Russell sold his 1946 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The Best Years of Our Lives in 1992 to a private collector for $60,500 to pay for his wife’s medical expenses.

14. Orson Welles sold his 1941 Oscar for Citizen Kane (Best Original Screenplay) in an online auction for US$861,542 in 2011 after winning a court decision contending he never signed any agreement to return the statue to the Academy.

15. Walt Disney won 26 Oscars, more awards that anybody else ever.

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16. BAFTA runs a year-round programme of educational events including film screenings and tribute evenings.

17. BAFTA is supported by a membership of about 6,000 people from the film, television and video game industries.

18. The BAFTA ceremony used to be held after the Oscars in April or May, but realising that made it less relevant, it was changed to February in 2002.

19. Woody Allen has been nominated 24 times in various categories and has won 10 BAFTA awards.

20. Meryl Streep has embarrassed herself a couple of times on stage at the BAFTA awards. The funniest situation was when reading out a speech, she accidentally said, “I’d like to spank…” rather than thank, leading to the audience bursting into laughter.

21. In 2003, a large number of film professionals took advantage of the Goya gala awards ceremony to express their opposition to government support of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

22. In 2004, the AVT (an association against terrorism in Spain) demonstrated against terrorism and ETA, a paramilitary organisation of Basque separatists, in front of the Lope de Vega theatre during the Goya gala awards ceremony.

Tags: BAFTAs, Goya Awards, Oscars, Paloma Fraile