Oscars' past glamour augmented by riches.

Today's Academy Awards, enveloped in that glitzy, elaborately-produced show seen literally by billions around the globe, bears very little resemblance to the comparatively simple showcase for stars - closer to a private affair than a public event - that constituted the first Oscar night back in 1928.

The industry was just on the threshold of sound then. The Jazz Singer, Warner Bros.' first excursion into sound, was ruled ineligible simply because Louis B. Mayer, the MGM autocrat, didn't consider it fair competition for the silents.

Basically, the concept of the Awards must be credited to Mayer. He wanted to form an industry organization that would battle the unionization of the studios, and that would, incidentally, also improve their public image. Together with Douglas Fairbanks, Mayer came up with the idea of Merit Awards - The Academy - to be handed out by industry members, a kind of self-congratulatory gesture.

The Oscar statuette itself was designed by Cedric Gibbons, the executive art director of MGM, and for two years it was simply called the statuette, a gilded figure of a man and a sword. It wasn't until 1931 that Margaret Herrick, the executive director of the Academy, glanced at the statuette and burst out laughing. "He reminds me of my Uncle Oscar," she said, and the name stuck.

The Academy, incidentally, holds all the rights to the Oscar, which means that recipients can't sell it to anyone unless it's back to the Academy itself. With the exception of two war years, when plaster was substituted, the statuette has always been made of solid metal.

"Life without service isn't worth living," gushed Mayer on the first Oscar night, which saw the silent Wings win the prize.

Mayer accepted a special award for The Crowd. This practice - of studio heads stepping up to hold the Oscar instead of the film's producer - continued into the 40's and generated some fierce rows, notably when Jack Warner accepted the honor for Casablanca instead of producer Hal Wallis, who took very badly to the perceived slight.

Sixty years ago, in 1933, the winning picture was Cavalcade and the winning actors were Charles Laughton and Katharine Hepburn (in Morning Glory). she went on to win three more Oscars. J. Theodore Reed, Academy president, amused the audience by saying, This looks like the last roundup of ermine."

Ten years later, in 1943, in the midst of war, Casablanca captured Oscar, long with Paul Lucas, and Jennifer Jones for Song of Bernadette. Oddly, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman left empty-handed.

In 1953, From Here to Eternity made it to the top, William Holden got the statuette as best actor and Audrey Hepburn clutched her first Oscar (for Roman Holiday).

1963 saw Tom Jones win the Oscar, along with Sidney Poitier and Patricia Neal. 1973 brought the honor to The Sting and Oscars went to Jack Lemmon and Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class). The year before that, Katharine Hepburn, presenting the Irving Thalberg award to producer Lawrence Weingarten, quipped: "I am living proof that a person can wait 41 years to be unselfish." That too was the year when Jack Lemmon showed up in tux with a red tie and a matching handkerchief.

It's a decade ago that the Oscars went to Terms of Endearment, Robert Duvall and Shirley MacLaine. That was the year, too, when, in the light of Barbra Streisand having yet again been snubbed by the Academy members, the caustic Johnny Carson cracked "Now Barbra Streisand really knows the meaning of The Big Chill." Streisand's Yentl hadn't even been nominated.

The Oscars have had a turbulent history, ranging all the way from streakers to an Indian woman spouting a propaganda speech in the place of of the (absent) Marlon Brando. The value to the theatrical box office of a winning film has always been estimated at between i million and $2 million. Today, what with video, it's probably much higher than that.