Academy Award of Merit

The official name of the Oscar statuette is the "Academy Award of Merit." It was designed by Cedric Gibbons, chief art director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley. The Oscar statuette depicts a knight, holding a crusader's sword, standing on a reel of film. The film reel features five spokes, signifying the five original branches of the Academy (actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers.)

Each statuette is made from the alloy britannium and is then plated in copper, nickel silver, and finally, 24-karat gold.

Each statuette stands 13-1/2 inches tall and weighs 8-1/2 pounds.

Since the initial awards banquet on May 16, 1929, through the 77th Academy Awards Presentation on February 27, 2005, 2,578 statuettes have been presented.

How Oscar received his nickname is not exactly clear. The most popular story is that Margaret Herrick, an Academy employee and eventual executive director, remarked that the statuette resembled her Uncle Oscar, and the Academy staff began to refer to it by that name. Whatever the actual origin of the nickname, it was well enough known by 1934 that Walt Disney supposedly used it during an acceptance speech that year. Although journalists used the nickname with increasing frequency during the late 1930s, the Academy didn't officially use the name Oscar until 1939.