Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

Thirty-Four Million TV Viewers Watch Award of "Oscars'' JL OR the first time in history, television audiences throughout America and radio listeners in many parts of the world shared the suspense and excitement of the annual "Oscar" awards ceremony of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On Thursday, March 19, the National Broadcasting Company tele- cast and broadcast the proceedings which originated alternately in Hollywood and New York. An estimated audience of 34,000,000 televiewers witnessed the two- hour program which was sponsored by the RCA Victor Division. Sixty-one stations of the NBC television network and 195 NBC radio stations carried the ceremony. NBC fed the Armed Forces Radio Service which beamed the program through 69 foreign stations to American troops stationed throughout the world. The APRS station at Bremerhaven and stations of its Blue Danube network broadcast the "Oscar" ceremonies behind the Iron Curtain. Other APRS stations as far north as Point Barrow, Alaska, and as far south as Pago Pago, Samoa, carried NBC's broadcast of the presentations to movieland winners. Bob Hope, noted comedian, served as master-of- ceremonies for the Hollywood ceremonies. Conrad Nagel, a former president of the Motion Picture Academy, was emcee in New York. Top honors went to Cecil B. DeMille's "Greatest Show on Earth" which won the "Oscar" for the best picture of 1952. Shirley Booth was named best actress of the year for her first starring screen performance in "Come Back Little Sheba." Gary Cooper was named best actor for his leading role in Stanley Kramer's "High Noon." Actor John 'Wayne accepted the award for Cooper. Television added glamour to this year's Academy award presentations. NBC-TV cameras, manned by cameramen dressed formally in dinner jackets, captured scenes of the arrival of limousines at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, and the capacity audience there and in the International Theatre in New York. Other NBC-TV cameras caught the faces of the winners as they walked from their seats to the stage to accept their "Oscars." NBC provided glimpses of the back- stage rooms at the Pantages where members of the press interviewed the winners. RAD\0 AGE n Robert Welch, an NBC-TV producer, was in charge of network coverage of the 25th Annual Awards ceremony. Richard Clemmer produced the first tele- cast of the New York "Oscar" ceremonies in history. ■William Bennington was TV director in Hollywood, Warren Jacober in New York. All but two of this year's "Oscar" winners were in Hollywood. In New York, Shirley Booth hurried from the Empire Theatre where she is starring in a Broad- way play entitled "The Time of the Cuckoo" in time to receive her "Oscar" from Fredric March. Miss Booth's brief word of thanks to "old friends for faith, new friends for hope and everyone for their charity" brought more than a few tears to TV audiences and to the audiences seated in the theatre. Boris Vermont won the other New York bestowed award for produc- ing the year's best one-reel short subject, "Light In The Window." John Ford, who was in England, won his sixth award for best director, this year for Argosy-Republic's "The Quiet Man." Gloria Grahame earned the "Oscar" as best supporting actress for her part in "The Bad and The Beautiful." Anthony Quinn won the award as best supporting actor for his part in "Viva Zapata!" "Forbidden Games," a French picture released in the U. S. by Times Film Corporation, won the award as best foreign language film of the year. hilm star Shirley Booth receives "Oscar" from Fredric March as "best actress of the year," in ceremonies tele- cast and broadcast coast to coast by NBC under the sponsorship of RCA Victor Division.