11th Academy Awards — award ceremony presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for achievement in filmmaking in 1938
The 11th Academy Awards ceremony set multiple Oscar firsts, including Frank Capra's third Best Director win and George Bernard Shaw's Nobel-and-Oscar double.
Key Facts
- Date
- February 23, 1939
- Venue
- Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles
- Host
- Frank Capra
- Capra's Best Director wins
- 3 (first person to achieve this)
- First non-English Best Picture nominee
- La Grande Illusion (France)
- Spencer Tracy milestone
- First actor to win Best Actor two years in a row
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences convened its annual ceremony to honor outstanding achievements in filmmaking during 1938. Radio coverage was controversially banned that year, prompting a Mutual Radio Network reporter to attempt an unauthorized broadcast from a locked booth before being removed by security.
Held on February 23, 1939, at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles and hosted by Frank Capra, the ceremony recognized numerous milestones: Capra's unprecedented third Best Director award, Spencer Tracy's consecutive Best Actor win, Fay Bainter's dual acting nominations, and George Bernard Shaw's screenplay win for Pygmalion, making him the first to hold both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award.
The ceremony established several records that stood for decades. Partial radio coverage was eventually reinstated beginning with the 1942 ceremony. Shaw's dual Nobel-Oscar distinction remained unique for over 77 years until Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016. Spencer Tracy's consecutive Best Actor wins would not be matched until Tom Hanks in 1994.