Oscar Trivia Awards Night Is Rich With Lore

The 69th annual Academy Awards presentation will be held at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium on Monday.

Billy Crystal is returning to host the show for the fifth time. The most frequent Oscar host is Bob Hope. He performed the task solo seven times and co-hosted 10 times.

Bob Hope has never won an acting Oscar at the ceremony (“or,” he said, “as it’s called at our house, Passover”), but he has taken home four honorary awards and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Number of voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: 5,173.

First Academy Awards: May 16, 1929, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. There were 250 in attendance and tickets were $10.

The accounting firm of Price Waterhouse first tabulated the votes in 1935 - and they’ve been on the job ever since.

First year the sealed-envelope system was used to announce winners: 1941.

First telecast of the awards: 1953.

First color telecast: 1966.

Academy Awards postponed: 1938 - one week (reason: floods); 1968 - two days (reason: funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.); 1981 - one day (reason: assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan).

Most acting nominations: Katharine Hepburn, 12.

Most acting wins: Katharine Hepburn, four.

Number of times Katherine Hepburn has attended the Oscars: One.

Henry Fonda, 76, and Katharine Hepburn, 74, became the oldest best actor and actress winners for 1982’s “On Golden Pond.” Hepburn’s record was broken in 1989 by 80-year-old Jessica Tandy (“Driving Miss Daisy”).

Two actors have turned down their Oscars: George C. Scott, Best Actor winner of 1970 for “Patton,” and Marlon Brando, Best Actor winner of 1972 for “The Godfather.”

All-time Oscar-winning champion: Walt Disney with 32, 12 of which were for cartoons.

To celebrate the achievement of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the academy awarded Walt Disney one normal-size Oscar and seven tiny ones.

In 1937 ventriloquist Edgar Bergen received a special Oscar - made of wood.

Beginning in 1942, and for the duration of World War II, the Oscar statuette was made of plaster.

The statuette was given its nickname by academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who took one look at it and said, “It looks like my Uncle Oscar!”

James Dean is the only actor to receive two posthumous best actor nominations: for “East of Eden” (1955) and “Giant” (1956).

Peter Finch is the only actor to win a best actor award posthumously: for “Network” (1976).

Both Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole received seven acting nominations with no wins.

Most nominations for a single film: 14, for “All About Eve” (1950). It had six wins.

Most Oscar wins by a single film: 11 (out of 12 nominations), “Ben Hur” (1959).

“West Side Story” (1961) won 10 Oscars out of 11 nominations.

Both “Gigi” (1958) and “The Last Emperor” (1987) made clean sweeps. Each had nine nominations and nine wins.

Top gaffe in 1969: This went to Barbra Streisand for ripping her transparent pants on the way to the podium.