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 account of the Academy's birth and its
awkward adolescence, and the few reports on those periods from outside
have always had a glancing, cursory quality. Yet the story of the
Academy's creation and development is a critical piece of Hollywood's
history.
Now that story is finally being told. Bruce Davis, executive director of
the Academy for over twenty years, was given unprecedented access to its
archives, and the result is a revealing and compelling story of the men
and women, famous and infamous, who shaped one of the best-known
organizations in the world. Davis writes about the Academy with as
intimate a view of its workings, its awards, and its world-famous
membership. Thorough and long overdue, The Academy and the Award fills
a crucial gap in Hollywood history.