Sidney Skolsky

The famous columnist Sidney Skolsky, who perhaps has the best claim to having invented the term "Oscar" for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Award of Merit (the official name of the Academy Award, which bore the inscription "First Award for Merit" up until the 1950s), was born in New York City in 1903. A graduate of New York University, he became a Broadway press agent, then graduated to the newspapers, becoming a Broadway columnist in 1929. Skolsky's column was yclept "Times Square Tintypes" and offered typewriter-written caricatures (tintypes) of the leading lights of Broadway (those that didn't come powered by Con Edison). These "tintypes" were a staple of Skolsky's journalism career, and while he was never as powerful as Walter Winchell or as famous as Mark Hellinger, he did -- like Hellinger -- become a movie producer, though not as successful as his fellow New York scribe. In 1932, Skolsky left the Big Town (a.k.a. The Big Apple) for Lotus Land (a.k.a. Tinseltown o