Executive Director, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1945–1971)
Spouses
Donald Gledhill
(m. 1931; div. 1945)
Philip A. Herrick
(m. 1946; div. 1951)
Margaret Florence Herrick (September 27, 1902 – June 21, 1976),[1][2] also known professionally as Margaret Gledhill, was an American librarian and the Executive Director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1971, the Academy's library was named the Margaret Herrick Library in her honor.[3]
In 1929, Herrick became head librarian at the Yakima Public Library in Yakima, Washington. She moved to Hollywood, California, with her husband and became the Academy's first librarian. She served in that capacity until 1943, during the war, when she became the interim executive director of the Academy, replacing her husband.[6] In 1945, she was offered the Executive Director position permanently and held that position until her retirement in January 1971.[7]
In the mid-1960s, Herrick went on international tours to promote the tenth anniversary of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.[8] Between 1963 and 1968, she visited many international film institutions.[3]
Herrick is generally credited with naming the Academy Award an "Oscar", declaring the statuettes "looked just like my Uncle Oscar".[10] However, others, including Academy President Bette Davis and Hollywood gossip columnistSidney Skolsky, have claimed they invented the name.[11][12][13]
Bette Davis said that the statue reminded her of her husband Harmon Nelson's derrière. Nelson's middle name was Oscar.[14] However, Davis later relinquished this claim.[15]
Columnist Sidney Skolsky, who had a syndicated column for over 50 years,[16] referred to the nickname, "Oscar," in his March 17, 1934, column, which is believed to be the first time the award was called the Oscar in print.
In 1931, Herrick married Donald Gledhill, an assistant to the executive secretary of the Academy.[17] She and Gledhill divorced in 1945. She married Philip A. Herrick in 1946, and continued to use his name professionally following their divorce in 1951.[7]
Gledhill, Margaret Buck; Christeson, Frances Mary (1941). Classification Scheme for Motion Picture Collections. Hollywood, Calif: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library. hdl:2027/uc1.b3926458. OCLC613712320.
^Osborne, Robert (February 17, 2015). "The Origin of Oscar"(video). Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved February 3, 2016.
^Stine, Whitney; Davis, Bette (1982). Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis. London: W.H. Allen. p. 74. ISBN978-0-352-31142-9. OCLC16600617. I relinquish once and for all any claim that I was the one...
Coco, Anne (1998). Femme Boss: Margaret Herrick, Librarian and Executive Secretary of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Second Generation of Hollywood Career Women (M.L.I.S. thesis). University of California, Los Angeles. OCLC45091607.
Sands, Pierre Norman (1973). A Historical Study of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1927–1947) (Ph.D. thesis). New York: Arno Press. ISBN978-0-405-04100-6. OCLC340397. – Originally presented as the author's thesis, University of Southern California, Arno Press Cinema Program, 1966.
Slide, Anthony (2014). The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. pp. 1–2. ISBN978-1-135-92554-3. OCLC871224495.
