Natalie_Wood_and_Tab_Hunter_arriving_at_the_28th_Academy_Awards_1956

The news this morning is filled with the pictures and winners from last night’s Academy Award ceremony – well, that and the slightly terrifying crisis in Crimea. As always the dresses were gorgeous (at the Oscars that is – I’m woefully under-informed about dresses in the Ukraine) and Jennifer Lawrence continued her Awards tradition of falling over once again. As a naturally clumsy girl I sympathise. I couldn’t walk in that dress and those heels either!

Here’s my vintage take on the Academy Awards over the years, from the first ceremony in 1929 through the war years and into the 1950s.

Above: The 1956 Academy Awards. Actors Natalie Wood and Tab Hunter arrive to the 28th Academy Awards with gossip writer Louella Parsons in the background. She looks rather like Rita Skeeter doesn’t she? I wonder whether she was the inspiration for J.K Rowling?

Grace Kelly and Ernest Borgnine Oscars

Grace Kelly presents Ernest Borgnine with an Oscar for Marty in 1956

Gary Cooper and Joan Fontaine holding their Oscars at an Academy Awards after party in 1942.

Wartime chic: Gary Cooper and Joan Fontaine holding their Oscars at an Academy Awards after party in 1942.

The 1st Annual Academy Awards Presentations on May 16, 1929, establishing this annual tradition which continues more than 80 years later

The 1st Annual Academy Awards Presentations on May 16, 1929

Outside the 26th Annual Academy Awards at RKO Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, Calif., 1954

Outside the 26th Annual Academy Awards at RKO Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, Calif., 1954

Image source 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and copyright: This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed.