Why read The Academy and the Award?

Book cover of The Academy and the Award: The Coming of Age of Oscar and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Book description

The first behind-the-scenes history of the organization behind the Academy Awards.

For all the near-fanatic attention brought each year to the Academy Awards, the organization that dispenses those awards-the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences-has yet to be understood. To date, no one has ever produced a thorough…

Explore

Topics

Genres

Biographies

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Academy and the Award as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jon Burlingame

Author

The author was the executive director of the Academy for 20 years; as a writer for Variety who regularly covered the Oscar races in music, I knew him slightly as someone who could answer my questions about the inner workings of Oscar rules. He was always a smart, honest, and decent guy in that difficult and often politically sensitive position.

This book was astonishing to me for its thorough debunking of Oscar myths, including the famous one of “who named Oscar” and its never-before-told stories of the machinations and behind-the-scene maneuvering that went on during Oscar’s first several decades. Often…

From Jon's 3 favorite reads in 2023.