12th Academy Awards

The 12th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1939, was held on February 29, 1940, at a banquet in the Coconut Grove at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was hosted by Bob Hope (for the first of nineteen times).

David O. Selznick's production Gone with the Wind received the most nominations of the year with thirteen. Other films receiving multiple nominations included: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Wuthering Heights; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Stagecoach; Love Affair; The Wizard of Oz; The Rains Came; The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex; Ninotchka; Of Mice and Men; and Dark Victory.

This was the first year in which an Oscar was awarded for visual effects. This was also the first time that two awards for cinematography were presented (one for a color film and another for a black-and-white film).

Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to receive an Academy Award, winning in the Best Supporting Actress category for Gone with the Wind.

Read more about 12th Academy Awards:  Awards, Academy Honorary Awards, Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, Academy Juvenile Award, Multiple Nominations and Awards, The Lead Up To The Awards Ceremony, The Ceremony, Post Awards Discussion, Academy Award Ceremony Presenters in Sequence of Awards Presented

Famous quotes containing the word academy:

    ...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.
    Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)