690 illustrations, 60 in full color 384 pages • 9 x 12" • Hardcover ISBN 0-7892-0484-3 • $65.00

Here it was at last: fifty years after that initial gathering at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the Academy celebrated its first half-century birthday, stronger than ever, with Oscar the acknowledged final word on motion picture achievement. The celebration took place April 3, 1978, again at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center, with a stage full of stars, including the first Oscar winner Janet Gaynor, two-time champions such as Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland, plus current box office names like John Travolta and Sylvester Stallone taking part. The show was telecast on ABC-TV, produced by Howard W. Koch and directed by Marty Pasetta.

Star Wars won six statuettes for the biggest award total of the night, all of them in the technical division; it also received a seventh award, voted by the Academy Board of Governors, for its special achievement (by Benjanim Burtt, Jr.) in the creation of alien creature and robot voices. Annie Hall received four awards, including best picture, best actress (Diane Keaton), best director (Woody Allen) and best original screenplay (Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman). Richard Dreyfuss was chosen best actor (for The Goodbye Girl, Frace's Madame Rosa was selected best foreign language film, Vanessa Redgrave was named best supporting actress in Julia and Jason Robards was chosen best supporting actor (for Julia). Robards, winner in the same category the previous year, became the fourth performer in Academy history to win in subsequent years (following Luise Rainer in 1936-1937, Spencer Tracy in 1937-1938, and Katherine Hepburn in 1967-1968). Miss Redgrave caused controversy when she used her acceptance speech to criticize "militant Zionist hoodlums" for protesting her political beliefs and actions.

Overall, it was a friendly, glamorous and star-studded night for Oscar, a fitting finale to the first fifty years of activity. And there was good news the morning after, when the ratings came tumbling in: the telecast had attracted the largest television audience for any Oscar show to date.

Best Picture: Annie Hall (United Artists; produced by Charles H. Joffe), Best Director: Woody Allen and Best Actress: Diane Keaton as Annie (right, with Allen as Alvy Singer) in Annie Hall. Annie's a budding singer, and Alvy is a TV-nightclub comic; they meet in Manhattan, have a brief entanglement, then split. Told with penetrating insights into modern relationships (and generously sprinkled with Woody Allen's unique deadpan humor) Annie Hall won four Oscars, including two for Mr. Allen, as director and as co-author (with Marshall Brickman) of the original screenplay, and one for the infectious title performance by Miss Keaton.

Best Supporting Actress: Vanessa Redgrave as Julia (right, with Jane Fonda) in Julia (20th Century-Fox; directed by Fred Zinnemann). Julia was based on Lillian Hellman's Pentimento, with Jane Fonda playing author Hellman, reminiscing about her early life and especially a childhood friend (played by Redgrave), who grew into an impassioned activist in World War II Europe and was eventually murdered by Nazi factions. Previously, Vanessa Redgrave had been an Academy nominee for Morgan! (1966), Isadora (1968) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). She was also the first from her distinguished acting family to win an Oscar; later she was also nominated for The Bostonians (1984) and Howards End (1992). By virtue of her Julia win, she became the only person in Oscar's first 70 years to win a supporting Academy Award for playing the title role in a movie.