The Academy’s Moving Saga

Oscar-winning films visually whisk moviegoers off to India, Morocco, Vietnam and other far reaches of the Earth. But all over the world, when people watch the Academy Awards, they’re looking at Los Angeles.

The Oscar ceremonies have bounced around over the years, but they’ll settle down after one more stop at the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday. Starting next year, Oscar’s permanent address will be Hollywood, where the 3,300-seat Kodak Theater is under construction. (See story on Page 53.)

The first Oscar ceremony took place May 16, 1929, at the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. The black-tie dinner was attended by 270 academy members and their guests. Though the Roosevelt fell into disrepair, the landmark (reputedly haunted by the likes of Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe) was refurbished to its former glory in the mid-’80s. The pastel Blossom Room is still in use for banquets, movie locations and such events as the annual Razzie Awards, which honor Hollywood’s worst movies.

Unlike the Hollywood Roosevelt, the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard has since closed to the public and is used primarily for film and television productions. But in the 1930s, the landmark hotel was the home of several Oscar ceremonies. In April 1930, the Cocoanut Grove was host of the second Oscars. And when the third awards were presented in November that year, the banquet was held at the Ambassador’s Fiesta Room. The Oscars returned to the Fiesta Room in 1932 and ’34 and the Cocoanut Grove in 1940 and ’43.

The Regal Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles hosted several Oscars during the 1930s and early ‘40s and also been seen in such movies and TV programs as “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Vertigo,” “Chinatown” and “Bugsy.” The Oscars were held at the Sala O’Oro at the Biltmore in 1931 and moved in 1935 to the hotel’s banquet room, called the Biltmore Bowl. The Academy Awards were held at the Biltmore Bowl in 1936, ‘37-’39 and ‘41-’42.

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The Oscars were held at the then-Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood in 1944 and ‘45, so that people in the armed forces on leave could attend the event. Now called Mann’s Chinese Theatre, the more than 70-year-old movie palace is still one of the premier theaters in the L.A. area and, of course, its courtyard of stars’ footprints and handprints in cement attracts countless tourists.

The first time the Shrine Auditorium was home to Oscar was in 1947. After the show was held there in 1948, it would be 40 years before the Academy Awards returned.

The venerable theater near USC is home to several other ceremonies during the year, including the Emmys and the American Music Awards. A popular location for filmmakers, the Shrine can be seen in such films as the 1933 “King Kong,” the 1954 version of “A Star Is Born,” “The Bodyguard” and “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.”

Now the den of the Tony Award-winning musical “The Lion King,” the sumptuous Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard was the home of the Academy Awards from 1950 to 1960. In fact, TV audiences got their first glimpse of an Oscar ceremony when the awards were broadcast for the first time in 1953 from the Pantages. The Pantages was one of Hollywood’s legendary movie palaces until it became a legitimate theater in the mid-’70s.

In 1961, the Academy Awards moved west to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, where they continued through 1968.

Then, from 1969 to 1987, downtown L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Opera, welcomed the Academy Awards. Since 1988, the Chandler has alternated with the Shrine Auditorium. The last year the Oscars were held at the Chandler was 1999.