The Oscars' Past and Present

It's Oscar week in Hollywood. The Kodak Theater is the latest in a long line of venues to host the big show, but what is the future of the Academy Awards?

Getting ready for the annual broadcast of the Academy Awards takes a lot of preparation and a whole week to get it just right.

It wasn't always so complicated.

The awards were first passed out at a ceremony at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles in 1929.

The awards moved to the Ambassador Hotel the next year and then on to the Biltmore.

Twelve years later, Oscar came back to Hollywood Boulevard for three years at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and then Oscar was off to the Shrine and on to the Pantages. Then the awards even headed out to the beach and Santa Monica's Civic Auditorium from 1961 to 1968.

And then the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion opened its doors to the show and swapped years with the Shrine Auditorium from 1969 to 2001.

Since 2002, the Kodak Theater has been Oscar's party place.

But now Kodak can no longer afford to pay for its name on the theater. The Eastman Kodak Co. is in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings and has received court approval to end its sponsorship deal with the Hollywood theater.

So the Academy is weighing its options for the show two years from now.

The Nokia Theater is the most talked about alternative for the future.

But as for this year, fans are excited.

"It's nice to see and to imagine that next week the stars will go here and celebrate the Oscars," said fan Anne Birnitzer.

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Copyright AP - Associated Press
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