The Nazi shame of the first ever Best Actor winner at the Oscars
When the ballot results came in to decide the first winner of the Oscar for Best Actor, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences realised they faced a tricky problem. The “actor” who had collected the most votes was actually a dog called Rin-Tin-Tin, who had starred as Rinty in popular films such as A Dog of the Regiment and Jaws of Steel. The film board were concerned that awarding the first statuette to a canine would hardly give credibility to their new awards. To avoiding appearing to be barking mad, they diverted the 1929 Oscar to Emil Jannings.
The academy awarded some honours in their inaugural year for performances in more than one film. Jannings won for his portrayal of both a bank clerk in 1927’s The Way of All Flesh, and for playing Grand Duke Sergius Alexander in the 1928 film The Last Command.
Looked at through the long lens of history, the decision backfired. A committee who were so worried about the embarrassment of honouring a dog ended up commemorating a man whose career ended in ignominy as a reviled propagandist for Adolf Hitler. The Oscars snubbed a German shepherd and got a Nazi poodle instead.
At the end of the Second World War, with Hitler and his minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels dead, Jannings is said to have rushed towards the allied troops marching into Berlin, clutching his golden statuette and yelling: “Don’t shoot, I have won an Oscar!” He was not imprisoned, but his reputation was in tatters. The man once considered the world’s greatest actor never worked again. Ninety years on from that historic award, it’s no surprise that the academy don’t talk much
