Academy Juvenile Award
The Academy Juvenile Award, also known informally as the Juvenile Oscar, was a Special Honorary Academy Award bestowed at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to specifically recognize juvenile performers under the age of eighteen for their "outstanding contribution[s] to screen entertainment".[1][2]
Academy Juvenile Award
Academy Honorary Award presented for "Outstanding Juvenile Performance"
United States
The honor was first awarded by the academy at the 7th Academy Awards to 6-year-old Shirley Temple for her work in motion pictures of 1934.[2] The Award continued to be presented intermittently over the next 26 years to a total of 12 child actors and actresses, with the last Juvenile Oscar presented at the 33rd Academy Awards to 14-year-old Hayley Mills who received the child-size statuette for her performance in the 1960 film Pollyanna.[3]
The trophy itself was a miniature Academy Award statuette standing an estimated seven inches tall (depending upon variations to its base over time),[2][4][5][6][7] approximately half the height of the standard 13.5 inch tall Oscar trophy.[8]
History of the Academy Juvenile Award[edit]
The Academy Awards, first presented on May 16, 1929, did not initially present a Special Award for juvenile actors.[11] The very first child actor to be nominated for an Oscar was 9-year-old Jackie Cooper, who was nominated as Best Actor in 1931 for his work in the film Skippy. Cooper, however, lost that year to Lionel Barrymore.[12] Recognizing that children could be placed at a disadvantage in the hearts and minds of Academy voters when nominated alongside their adult counterparts in the competitive Best Actor and Best Actress categories[13] – and with no categories for Best Supporting Actor or Supporting Actress having yet been created[14] – the academy saw the need to establish an Honorary "Special Award" specifically to recognize juveniles under the age of eighteen for their work in film.[2]
On February 27, 1935, the 7th Annual Academy Awards, honoring achievements in film for the year 1934, became the first Oscar ceremony at which the Special Juvenile Award was presented.[2] Playfully dubbed the "Oscarette" by Bob Hope in 1945,[15] the statuette itself was a miniaturized Oscar, depicting an Art Deco image of a knight holding a crusader's sword and standing on a reel of film.[16] Standing approximately one-half the size of its full-sized counterpart, this rare child-sized trophy remained the prototype for the statuette throughout the history of the Award, with only relatively small modifications to its base over time.[5][17][18]
After first being presented in 1935, the Special Juvenile Award continued to be presented intermittently to a total of 12 young actors and actresses over the next 26 years.[5][19] However, there were several juvenile actors who were instead nominated in the competitive Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories during this time. These included, most notably: 14-year-old Bonita Granville as Best Supporting Actress of 1936 for These Three;[20] 11-year-old Brandon deWilde as Best Supporting Actor of 1953 for Shane;[21] 17-year-old Sal Mineo as Best Supporting Actor of 1955 for Rebel Without a Cause;[22] and 11-year-old Patty McCormack as Best Supporting Actress of 1956 for The Bad Seed.[23] All of these nominees, however, lost to their adult counterparts in their respective categories.
Held on April 17, 1961, the 33rd Annual Academy Awards, honoring achievements in film for the year 1960, was the last Oscar ceremony at which the Honorary Juvenile Award was presented.[3]
Post-juvenile era[edit]
In 1962, 16-year-old Patty Duke starred in The Miracle Worker and in 1963, was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the film, becoming the youngest actress at the time to win an Academy Award of merit and, for the first time, demonstrating that a juvenile could win in a competitive category.[39] From this point onward, child actors were recognized in competitive categories alongside their adult counterparts, or not at all.[5]
As of 2022, a total of three minors (including Duke) have won Oscars, all in the Best Supporting Actress category. The other two are Tatum O'Neal, who was 10, for Paper Moon (1973), and Anna Paquin, who was 11, for The Piano (1993). As of 2022, O'Neal remains the youngest person to win a competitive Academy Award.