Irving Thalberg's Academy Award for Best Picture - Mutiny on the Bounty....

Description

Irving Thalberg's Academy Award for Best Picture - Mutiny on the Bounty. (MGM, 1935) Hosted by Frank Capra, the 8th Academy Awards ceremony was held March 5, 1936 at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. The Oscar for Best Picture was awarded to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Mutiny on the Bounty, and Capra presented it to none other than legendary producer Irving Thalberg. The film, based on the rousing 18th century maritime tale, starred Charles Laughton as "Captain Bligh" and Clark Gable as "Fletcher Christian" and was the highest-grossing film of 1935. Thalberg was known as "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and uncanny ability to select scripts, create and groom new stars, and make both high quality and profitable films on an international level. Noteworthy actors in Thalberg films are Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, and Norma Shearer (whom Thalberg married in 1927). Thalberg became head of production at the Universal Film Manufacturing Co. at the age of 20 and three years later was vice president and head of production for Louis B. Mayer. A year later, Mayer's studio became part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) with Thalberg assuming the position of vice president and supervisor of production. Over the next eight years MGM became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, with Thalberg personally supervising the studio's top productions. Sadly, just six months after accepting this Best Picture Oscar, Thalberg died of pneumonia at the age of 37. Following his death, Thalberg was called the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history," and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences instituted the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which is given out periodically to producers whose body of work reflects the highest of filmmaking standards. In the entertainment industry and the world over, the "Oscar" statuette is indisputably the most treasured and iconic symbol of the filmmaker's accomplishment and the public's romance with Hollywood glamour and movies. This vintage male statuette stands 12 in. tall with the cast metal, gold-plated figure measuring 3.5 in. wide by 10.25 in. tall. The beveled black marble base is 5.5 in. round at the bottom, tapered to 4 in. where the base attaches to the film reel that forms the integral foot of the metal statue. Embedded in the bottom of the base is a 1.75 in. round engraved gold-plated disc, which reads, "Academy First Award to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the Production of 'Mutiny On the Bounty'". The statuette exhibits expected patina with a pebbled finish and some crazing on the "film reel" base. The base has a small chip on the left lip of the bottom tier and the small semi-circular plaque is missing. Original green felt buffer remains attached to the bottom of the base and exhibits some shifting. Without question, one of the most significant Best Picture Oscars to ever reach the market, with its ties to the legendary Irving Thalberg, MGM - Hollywood's most glamorous and revered film studio - and, of course, Mutiny on the Bounty, a Golden Age classic considered by critics to be the best cinematic work inspired by the historical mutiny. Provenance: From the family of Irving Thalberg and never before offered for sale.

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