Wait, did a dog really win his first Oscar for Best Actor?

If you’re under 60, you probably don’t know who Rin Tin Tin is. This is unfortunate, as there was a time when Rin Tin Tin was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Born in Fleury, France in 1918, Rin Tin Tin, sometimes called Renty for short, was a German shepherd who was found on a French battlefield by an American soldier named Lee Duncan, fighting in World War I. After returning from the war, Duncan trained Renty to perform on camera and took the dog from studio to studio, asking if they were looking for a performing animal. Rin Tin Tin first appeared in the 1922 film The Man from Hell’s River, replacing the annoying wolf. He went on to play Wolf Dog in the 1923 film “Where the North Begins,” launching the famous dog into the mainstream.

Throughout the 1920s, Rin Tin Tin made headline appearances in more than 20 films, often playing himself. He was one of the best-trained dogs in Hollywood, and became the face of many dog-related products. Some ticket sales estimates place Rin Tin Tin as the highest-grossing film star of the era, although these numbers cannot be fully substantiated. Sadly, many of Rin Tin Tin’s films have been lost to the ravages of time. Fortunately, audiences can still see the first color dog film, John G. Adolfi’s “The Show of Shows,” a high-profile theatrical film featuring singers, dancers, Shakespearean spectacle, and great canine acting.

In 2011 biography “Rin Tin Tin: Life and Legend” Written by Susan Orlean (whose book was The Orchard Thief). The inspiration for “Adaptation” was led by Nicolas Cage), began a legend that continued in Hollywood for a while. Aurelian repeatedly claimed (Including in an article in The New Yorker), that Rin Tin Tin received enough votes to win the Best Actor award at the first Academy Awards ceremony (held on May 16, 1929). She said Rinty was denied the award after the show’s producers decided that giving away a dog would not give the new awards the prestige she had deliberately sought.

Unfortunately, this is not true.

It must be remembered that the Oscars were not created to celebrate a growing art form, but rather was a deliberate and mercenary attempt by studio ace Louis B. Mayer to discourage Hollywood players from joining unions. / A film about Meyer’s Oscar machinations has been written in the past And how his attitudes toward unions were based on the personal costs he incurred while building a luxury home in Santa Monica, California. The Academy was formed as a way to distract workers, directors and actors with a token trinket, an award that they could say had prestige.

With that in mind, it’s plausible that the Academy would actually want its first Oscar to retain as much prestige as possible. Giving Best Actor to Rin Tin Tin would have robbed the ceremony of that status and completely undermined the entire purpose of the awards ceremony. From this perspective, Aurelian’s hypothesis seems correct.

but, As noted on the cover in 2017Oscar Rin Tin Tin was an urban legend. Orléans only embellished a widely circulated myth about Rin Tin Tin’s ballots and the subsequent embarrassment of the brand-new academy. As Rapp’s article pointed out, all of the ballots for the 1928 Academy Awards that year — it was not a secret ballot yet — were signed and all are archived at the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, located in Los Angeles, California. One could look at the ballots and find that Rin Tin Tin’s name was not written on one of them. The dog star was a big enough star to keep Warner Bros. On its feet, but no one actually voted for the good boy to perform well.

Note: The photo above is not of Rin Tin Tin, but of Rin Tin Tin IV as he appeared in the 1954 TV series “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin.” Everyone’s favorite dog was the first in the legacy of dog artists.

The origins of Rin Tin Tin’s Oscars rumor lie in a story Fox co-founder Darrell Zanuckwho was a Warner Bros. executive. in 1929, and letters he shared with screenwriter Frank Woods, the Academy’s first paid executive. Woods, who had been working with Mayer’s idea, liked the idea of ​​the film industry giving awards to the best films of the year and reached out to several executives, hoping to gain some support. Zanuck reportedly responded very negatively to the idea of ​​the Academy Awards, finding the idea of ​​an industry rewarding itself somewhat ridiculous.

Zanuck, according to Rapp’s article, wrote a scathing letter to Woods, including a fake copy of his ballot where he only voted for Warner Bros. Why did Zanuck feel that any executive would vote for films from other studios? He also quipped that Rin Tin Tin should receive the Best Actor award. It was a joke.

Zanuck may have told the Rin Tin Tin joke to Jack Warner – the head of WB – and the executive went on to write his own hilarious ballot that also listed Rin Tin Tin as best actor. Warner also jokingly wrote in balloting Casey Jones (who died in 1900) in the now moribund Best Engineering category.

However, the presence of Rin Tin Tin’s name on two executive ballots left some true believers scratching their heads, and rumors began to spread that the votes were serious. Rumors quickly spread, and some claimed that Rin Tin Tin received enough votes to win the Best Actor award. The rumors persisted until 2011, when Orlean wrote her book.

The rumors are definitely not true. Other outlets have exposed them. Rin Tin Tin is a very good boy, but he’s not an Oscar winner.