Remember When All the Oscar Winners Were Announced Before the Ceremony? – Armessa Movie News

From the Best Picture Oscar winner that never was to the La La Land/Moonlight blunder, the history of the Academy Awards is full of interesting tidbits. And perhaps one of the most interesting stories is the one about the time a newspaper announced all the Oscar winners before the ceremony. It’s a story that dates back to the early days of the Academy and that explains a whole lot about how the awards work nowadays. It is, in the end, the reason why we never get these kinds of leaks anymore. But what exactly is the story about? When did everyone find out about the Oscar winners before the ceremony, and how on Earth did this happen?

Well, the year was 1940. It was the night of the 12th Academy Awards, and big name directors and movie stars were still in the dark about who would take home the event’s main trophies. They didn’t know it at the time, but the upcoming ceremony would make history. Well, they knew some of it: the 12th Academy Awards were set to be the first filmed Oscars ever. What they didn’t know was that the ceremony would also mark the first time a Black person would be awarded for their work in the film industry: forced to sit at a segregated table throughout the entire night, Hattie McDaniel was voted Best Supporting Actress for her role in Gone With the Wind.

But these weren’t the only remarkable things about the 1940 Oscars. From that year onwards, the Academy would institute a policy of secrecy that keeps even its announcers in the dark about whom the winners are up until the last minute. And the ones responsible for this change were a group of hasty journalists from the Los Angeles Times.

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The Oscars Results Weren’t Always Kept Secret

Perhaps the best way to start this story is by explaining that the results of the Academy Awards haven’t always been classified. In the very first ceremony, held in 1929, attendees and moviegoers all over the country were already well-aware of whom the night’s winners would be. The results were made public a whopping three months before the ceremony. It was only by 1930 that the Academy decided to keep the recipients of the awards a mystery up until the very last minute.

Still, they didn’t exactly keep it a secret from everyone. Academy members, of course, were very much in the know about who would win each prize, and so was the Los Angeles Times. A while before the ceremony took place, the Academy would give the Times a list of all the year’s Oscar winners. This list was supposed to be published on the paper on the day following the ceremony. With this list on hand, the Times had the advantage when it came to letting the greater public in on the news about the ceremony. It was a perfect arrangement – at least, for the Los Angeles Times.

In 1940, a Hasty Newspaper Put a Start to the Era of the Secret Oscars Envelope

On the night of Feb. 29, 1940, however, something went very wrong in the Los Angeles Times’ newsroom. Whether on purpose or by accident, the Times broke the embargo that had kept it at an advantage for so many years. Back in the days before television became popular, it was quite common for big newspapers to run at least two editions a day: one in the morning, and one at night. And, so, at 8:45 p.m., the names of all the recipients of the 1940 Oscars began to hit newsstands all across LA.

The night’s big winner was the aforementioned Gone With the Wind, directed by Victor Fleming. The epic romance was nominated for 13 of the 20 awards and took home eight prizes, including Best Picture. In not-so-close second came Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, nominated in 11 categories and awarded in just one: Best Story. The list of winners also featured movies like Stagecoach (Best Supporting Actor and Best Scoring), The Wizard of Oz (Best Original Score and Best Song), and Wuthering Heights (Best Cinematography in Black and White).

Knowing who the 1940 Academy Awards winners were is, of course, very cool, especially for Oscar buffs. However, what’s really important about the 1940 ceremony and all it entailed are the measures the Academy took to keep things such as the Los Angeles Times leak from happening again. First and foremost, they stopped sending their results in advance to the Times. However, they didn’t simply choose a different newspaper to award with this semi-confidential information. Instead, they decided that no one would be privy to the voting results before the night of the ceremony – not even the members of the Academy.

The change came in 1941. When it was time for the 13th Academy Awards winners to be announced, every single name was hidden inside a thick paper envelope supposed to be open only at the time of the announcement itself. No one knew who would win. Well, no one apart from the two accountants put the papers inside the sealed envelopes. Apart from hiding the names of the winners behind an extra layer of paper, the Academy also hired an accounting firm to tally the votes of its members. Up to this day, the PwC accounting firm, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCooper, is responsible for keeping tally of the Academy’s votes and placing the winners inside the sealed envelopes that are only opened by the awards’ presenters on stage.

The Oscars Secret Envelope Policy Has Lead to Its Fair Share of Blunders

But, in 2017, a blunder that could only have happened due to this “new” sealed envelope policy almost led PwC to lose its footing with the Academy. That year, someone gave the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who were on stage to announce the award for Best Picture. The real winner of the night was Barry Jenkins’ acclaimed Moonlight. However, the name that Beatty and Dunaway read was of an entirely different movie: Damien Chazelle’s La La Land. This fiasco caused PwC to review some of its policy, putting a third accountant in charge of the envelopes. The company also removed the two accountants responsible for the mix-up from the Oscar job.

This wasn’t the only occasion in which a presenter was given the wrong envelope, though it was certainly the most drastic. In 1964, Sammy Davis Jr. was on stage to give out the Best Score award, which was won by Andre Previn for Irma La Douce. However, before announcing Previn’s name, he called out John Addison, who had written the score for Tom Jones, but wasn’t running in the same category. Davis shrugged it off with a joke, saying “Wait till the NAACP hears about this” and assuring the audience that he would not get it wrong a second time. Still, that’s one heck of a blunder, and one that was only possible because of the envelope system.