6th Academy Awards — award ceremony presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for achievement in filmmaking in 1932/1933
The 6th Academy Awards introduced a 17-month eligibility period, the longest in Academy history, and featured several notable firsts in Oscar ceremony history.
Key Facts
- Ceremony date
- March 16, 1934
- Venue
- The Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles
- Host
- Will Rogers
- Eligibility period length
- 17 months (Aug 1, 1932 – Dec 31, 1933)
- Best Picture winner
- Cavalcade
- Best Actress winner
- Katharine Hepburn
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
A change in eligibility rules extended the nomination window to seventeen months, spanning August 1, 1932, through December 31, 1933. This adjustment was made to align future eligibility periods with the calendar year, resulting in no ceremony being held at all during 1933.
Held on March 16, 1934, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and hosted by Will Rogers, the ceremony honored films from the extended eligibility window. Notable moments included Rogers mistakenly calling Frank Capra to the stage instead of winner Frank Lloyd, and Katharine Hepburn winning Best Actress after two nominees were prematurely summoned to the stage. Walt Disney also became the first person to win consecutive Academy Awards.
The ceremony marked the end of the unusually long eligibility period, after which the Academy adopted calendar-year cycles. Cavalcade became the last Best Picture winner without a writing nomination until Hamlet in 1948, and the event set precedents regarding nominee absences and the concentration of nominations among Best Picture contenders.