The first Academy Awards were presented on May 16, 1929, at a private banquet in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which had opened in 1927 with backing from a group that included Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Sid Grauman. About 270 guests paid $5 each to attend the dinner, and Fairbanks, then president of the Academy, presented the awards in about 15 minutes, the shortest ceremony in the Academy's history. It is the only Academy Awards ceremony that was not broadcast on radio or television.

The awards honored films released in 1927 and 1928, and there was no suspense: the winners had been announced three months earlier. Emil Jannings, the German actor who won Best Actor for The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh, received his statuette before the ceremony because he was leaving for Europe, which made him the first person ever to receive an Academy Award. Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for…