See the Man Who Inspired Design of the Oscar Statuette The 84th
Annual Academy Awards air tonight at 6pm Evansville time on ABC
(channel 25, 11, 910, or whatever it is on your cable or
satellite provider). The goal for every nominee is to be one of
the select few that takes home a little golden man
affectionately known around the world as “Oscar”. But who is
this 8-1/2 pound chisled piece of gold that everyone in
Hollywood wanting to take him home? This is Emilio “El Indio”
Fernandez, the man whose body provided the inspiration for
Oscar’s design back in 1929. As the story goes, Fernandez was a
Mexican filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor who fled Mexico for
Los Angeles in the 1920′s after being exiled from his homeland
for supporting a failed revolutionary uprising by a man named
Adolfo de la Huerta. While working in Hollywood, Emilio became
friends with a Mexican-American actress who just so happened to
be the wife of an Art Director at MGM Studios named Cedric
Gibbons. Gibbons was also a member of the Academ