The Academy Awards: The Complete Unofficial History [Hardcover]

Gail Kinn (Author), Jim Piazza (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

A celebration of the film world's most coveted prize complete with new listings, photos, and stories from the 2003 ceremonies. The perfect gift for any film buff.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

You are invited to share eighty years of stars and statues, directors and presenters, all the winners and losers, and all the glamour and gossip that is Oscar. From the very first awards spectacular to the most recent, star-studded ceremony, this is the complete, unofficial history. Get the full story and all the facts: memorable images, behind-the-scenes and on-camera anecdotes, and unabridged lists by year and category of every nominee and every winner that has ever heard his or her name called on the brightest night in Hollywood.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Gail Kinn has conceived and edited a wide range of film books including Screwball: The Great Romantic Comedies, Hollywood at Home: The Photographs of Sid Avery, and The Scorsese Picture.   She is the coauthor of The Academy Awards.


Jim Piazza is an essayist, screenwriter, and playwright whose personal essays and writings about the media have appeared in The Village Voice and Out Magazine. He has been a script analyst for Columbia, Fox, and Paramount Pictures. He is also the author of the lavish tribute to Elvis, The King and co-author of The Academy Awards  (Black Dog & Leventhal).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers; Rev Upd edition (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579123171
• ISBN-13: 978-1579123178
• Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 10.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,422,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Handsome to Look At, but Sloppily Edited, March 19, 2005

By 

BGK "BGK" (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Academy Awards: The Complete Unofficial History (Hardcover)

As an Academy Awards fan, I was pleased to receive this book as a birthday present. My version goes through 2001 and "A Beautiful Mind." It's a handsome book -- big, heavy, but nicely designed. For each year presented, brief bios of winners and photos of each are accompanied by facts and figures, as well as a short overview of that year.

Unfortunately, it's filled with errors from beginning to end. Perhaps these were caught in later editions, but it was embarassing. As I was reading it, I kept a running list of mistakes ... and they ranged from small to large. For example, in the write-up for Katharine Hepburn's first Oscar, it claims that she "went on to win eight Academy Awards by the end of her career." While she is the all-time acting champ in terms of wins, she won four, not eight. Marie Dressler's birth date is listed as 1838 in her bio ... which would mean she was 92 when she made "Min and Bill"! The correct date, I believe, is 1868. The description for Melvyn Douglas' win in 1979 is almost word-for-word the same description for his 1963 win! Shirley MacLaine's bio in 1983 lists films for which she was nominated but did not win, including two for which she was not. Then it says she was nominated six times, when in reality it was five. I could go on and on. The factoids called "Sins of Omission" list actors, actresses and films that failed to win a nomination. But every so often, it lists a person or film that WAS nominated. And in a complete headscratcher, under "Sins of Omission" for 1998, it lists as movie called "Sight Unseen" as an omitted best picture nominee. I'm fairly movie savvy, and I've NEVER heard of a film called "Sight Unseen."

The point is that these errors are presented as fact. And for readers unfamiliar with the Oscars, they will not realize that these errors exist. Again, I hope that later editions of this book clean up these errors. Otherwise, I'd go with another book on the Oscars if you're interested in learning about them.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a very poor effort, November 20, 2006

By 

Timothy J. Dunn (Hazard, KY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Academy Awards: The Complete Unofficial History (Paperback)

This book is not only poorly edited and proofread, as a previous reviewer said, it is INCREDIBLY poorly edited and proofread. Also, it is not well written. Some entries are very sparase--it seems that the writers know nothing of the movie being honored, or the actor or actress winning the trophy, or the role for which they are winning. Did these writers even bother to see "A Passage to India"? You wouldn't know it from their discussion of Peggy Ashcroft's best supporting actress win. They wonder at Dianne Wiest forgetting to thank Woody Allen when she won her first Oscar for "Hannah and Her Sisters" remarking that Wiest was a frequent star of Allen's movies--but "Hannah" was her first movie with Allen. A lot of similar nonsense throughout the book, but it seems to get worse as we get closer to the present, and the carelessness becomes more and more enfuritating.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite a book for film fans, August 1, 2006

By 

M. Emery "michaeleme" (MO, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Academy Awards: The Complete Unofficial History (Paperback)

I checked for the errors in the 2006 update of this book that BGK noted in his previous review. Most of the errors are corrected. I don't think the write-up on Melvyn Douglas constitutes an error. A number of people won multiple Oscars, and some duplication of copy is inevitable. The only error I've found in this edition so far is that Michael Caine's name is put in bold for ALFIE in 1966, which indicates he won best actor. As the page before it notes, Paul Scofield won for A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. But with this much factual info, it's almost impossible for something not to be wrong, and at least the authors and publisher have been willing to correct errors. The book has great pix, many in color. It doesn't replace Damien Bona's INSIDE OSCAR and INSIDE OSCAR 2 for sheer wealth of info, but it's an easily browsed reference that almost any Oscar fan would enjoy. By the way, it covers the Oscars all the way to the 2006 ceremony, when CRASH trumped BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN for best picture--a travesty that will echo through Hollywood's history.