30 Amazing facts of Oscard Award

1 - If you won an Oscar, the Academy wouldn't just give it to you - you'd have to sign a winners' agreement not to sell the award without first offering to sell it back to the Academy for $1. This is to make sure that no award is sold to private collectors.

2 - In 1988, for the first and only time, all the Best Director nominations went to non-Americans: Italian Bernardo Bertolucci for 'The Last Emperor'; Englishman John Boorman for 'Hope And Glory'; Englishman Adrian Lyne for 'Fatal Attraction'; Swede Lasse Hallstrom for 'My Life As A Dog' and Canadian Norman Jewison for Moonstruck.

3 - The longest Oscar ceremony was in 2002. It lasted approximately 256 minutes.

4 - The shortest Oscar ceremony in history was at the first Oscars in 1929. The evening lasted only 15 minutes, shorter than some speeches these days. Tickets cost US$ 5.

5 - Julius J Epstein and Philip G. Epstein are the only twins to win an Oscar. They won best screenplay for 'Casablanca' (1943)

6 - Only 3 films have won all top 5 Oscars in one night - Best Film, Actor, Actress, Director and Writing. They are: 'It Happened One Night', 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest' and 'The Silence of the Lambs'.

7 - When Will Rogers opened the Best Picture envelope in 1934, he said "Come on up and get it, Frank!" Up leapt Frank Capra, convinced he'd won it for 'Lady for a Day'. By the time he got to the stage, he realized the winner was Frank Lloyd for 'Cavalcade'. He had to turn around and sit down again, wearing the reddest face in Academy history.

8 - Everyone who wins an Oscar is automatically asked to be an Academy member. Academy members have the privilege of picking Oscar winners.

9 - 'Ben Hur', 'Titanic', and 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' have won the most Oscars for a single film - 11.

10 - Peter Finch was on his way to a pre-Oscar ceremony TV interview with Good Morning America when he died of a heart attack. His wife picked up his Best Actor award for the 1976 film 'Network', making this the first posthumous Oscar.

11 - The Oscars are so named thanks to Margaret Herrick, a former librarian for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She said the statues looked like her uncle named Oscar Pierce.

12 - The only actress to win an Oscar for playing a man is Linda Hunt. She appeared as a male photographer in 1981's 'The Year of Living Dangerously'.

13 - At the 1983 Oscars, Zbigniew Rybczynski stepped out for a quick smoke. He was then announced Best Animated Short for 'Tango', but the security guard wouldn't let him back in. Rybczynski cried "I have Oscar!!" and kicked the guard. Rybczynski landed in jail that night.

14 - 'The Turning Point' (1977) and 'The Color Purple' (1985) have been the biggest losers at the Oscars. Both were nominated in 11 categories but won nothing.

15 - Before the 1960 Oscars, Chill Wills, an actor in the film 'The Alamo' put out ads naming all Academy members and saying 'Win, lose or draw, you're still my cousins, and I love you all'. Groucho Marx, a comedian, replied with an ad saying 'Dear Mr Wills, I am delighted to be your cousin, but I'm still voting for Sal Mineo'. Though nominated in 7 categories, The Alamo won only 1 award - for Best Sound.

16 - In 1962, Joan Crawford was furious to find that her co-star and deadly rival Bette Davis was nominated for 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'. She wrote to the other 4 nominees saying that if they won but were unable to attend the ceremony, she'd happily accept the award on their behalf.

17 - The only women to have been nominated for Best Director, were Lina Wertmuller for 'Seven Beauties' in 1976, Jane Campion for 'The Piano' in 1993, and Sofia Coppola for 'Lost in Translation' in 2003.

18 - In 1935, Dudley Nichols who got Best Writer Screenplay for 'The Informer' refused the award. This was at a time when the Screen Writers Guild was on strike. This marked the first time an Academy Award had been declined.

19 - The first television broadcast was in 1953. More than 90 million people watched. The 2008 Oscar telecast averaged 39.9 million viewers.

20 - As of 2008, the Academy had 5,829 members. When established in 1929, the Academy had just 36 members.

21 - Until the 1950s, child actors who won an Oscar were given miniature statuettes instead.

22 - In 2000, 55 Oscar statuettes were stolen en route to the Award show. 52 were recovered next to a trash bin and one was found years later in a drug bust. Two are still missing.

23 - Willie Fulgear, the guy who found and returned the Oscars in 2000 was given US$ 50,000 and 2 tickets to the show. Ironically, burglars broke into his flat afterwards and stole his prize money.

24 - Several Oscar winners have had their statuettes stolen including Whoopi Goldberg, William Hurt and Orson Welles.

25 - Playwright George Bernard Shaw was the only Nobel Laureate (1924 for Literature) who also won an Oscar (1938 for Pygmalion).

26 -'Midnight Cowboy' was the only X-rated movie to ever win the Academy Award for Best Pictures.

27- At the 61st Academy Awards in 1989, the trademark phrase "And the winner is..." is replaced with the phrase "And the Oscar goes to..."

28 - At the 1941 Academy Awards, sisters Joan Fontaine (Suspicion) and Olivia de Havilland (Hold Back the Dawn) were both nominated for the Best Actress Award. Fontaine won the Oscar. This left the sisters estranged for decades.

29 - Kevin O'Connell has received 20 nominations over the years and not won even once!

30 - During World War II, the winners were given Oscar statues made of plaster instead of the usual golden ones.