The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on Thursday, May 16, 1929. Since the winners were announced to the press on Monday, February 18, 1929 - three months early - the 250 people who attended the presentation in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel weren't anxious for the results to be announced. After a dinner of Filet of Sole Saute au Buerre and Half Broiled Chicken on Toast, Douglas Fairbanks and William C. deMille presented each winner with a statuette, The Academy Award of Merit.
Emil Jannings, the winner for best actor, did not attend the ceremony so that he could travel back to his home in Germany. Prior to his departure, he was given the statue and became the very first person to be given an Academy Award.
Picture (Production)
Wings
Picture (Unique and Artistic Production)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Actor
Emil Jannings (The Last Command; The Way of All Flesh)
Actress
Janet Gaynor (Seventh Heaven; Street Angel; Sunrise)
Director
Frank Borzage (Seventh Heaven)
Lewis Milestone (Two Arabian Knights)
