The Oscars are a hot topic at the moment. You saw plenty of awards being handed out, speeches and performances being made, as well as beautiful actors waltzing along the red carpet. But the biggest element of film history still didn't get a mention:

Who is the Oscar statuette modeled after?



The statuette was designed in an angular Art Deco style by Cedric Gibbons in 1928. Gibbons was the art director for movie studio MGM. The design is of a knight holding an enormous sword, standing on a reel of film, and it's hardly changed for nearly a century. It weighs about 8.5 pounds and stands at 13.5 inches tall.

However, the official history of the statue doesn't mention any model for it, and the official Academy Awards library in Los Angeles declined to comment on whether there was actually a model.

But popular legend decided on one story, which appears pretty much everywhere: that Gibbons was at the time involved with Dolores del Rio, a famous and beautiful Mexican actress who later became his wife.

Del Rio was a huge star at the tail end of the silent film era, and was a muse for a very handsome Mexican director Emilio Fernandez.

Fernandez began as an extra in Hollywood productions after he was exiled from Mexico for serving in Adolfo de la Huerta's revolutionary uprising. His mother was a Kickapoo Indian, which earned him the not-so-nice nickname "El Indio".

After spending some time in Hollywood, he returned to Mexico and landed bigger acting roles. But he soon moved to the production side as a screenwriter, and soon, director. His most famous movie, María Candelaria, won the grand prize at the 1943 Cannes film festival--the first film from a Latin country to do so. That movie starred Dolores del Río.


Image: Emilio Fernandez (left) and Dolores del Rio                                                             

Back in 1928, Emilio Fernández was a young and handsome film director with a successful career. Gibbons, charged with designing the Oscar statuette, spoke to his girlfriend Dolores del Rio about the task. Dolores suggested her friend Emilio as the perfect model for the statue. According to the legend, Emilio was at first resistant, but eventually gave in and modeled nude for Gibbons, who crafted the statue, exaggerating his already ruggedly handsome appearance.

The Oscar statuette kind of resembles Fernandez, but it could easily resemble any movie star with a chiseled jaw and lean physique.