IN NUMBERS: The Oscars

For those who couldn’t stay up last night, highlights of the 89th Academy Awards are on at 10pm on Sky Living. Here, we look at some facts and figures about the prestigious gongfest...

1929 The year the Academy Awards were first given, in a 15-minute ceremony during a private dinner for 270 guests at a Hollywood hotel. That year, busy Charlie Chaplin was honoured for writing, directing, producing and starring in the 1928 silent film The Circus.

11 The largest number of Oscars won by a single film, a record held by three titles:

Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997) and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

(2003). This year, La La Land was up for 14 Oscars, so this record just might have fallen… 87 The age of the oldest person to win a competitive (i.e., not honorary) Oscar. Step forward veteran composer extraordinaire Ennio Morricone, who was first nominated in 1979 for Days Of Heaven, but didn’t win until 2016, when he finally bagged one for his score for The Hateful Eight.

3 The number of months it takes to cast 50 statuettes. Until 2016, they were made with a pewter base, plated with copper, nickel, silver and finally 24-carat gold (left). Now, they are gold-plated bronze. Each Oscar costs around $500 to make – and recipients are not allowed to sell them without offering them back to the Academy first. They were designed in 1928 by Dublin-born Cedric Gibbons, who won 11 of them for art direction. 750 The cost, in dollars, of the top tickets to the ceremony. However, ‘ordinary’ people are unlikely to get in without extraordinary connections.