nothing of significance. Early in their careers, Budd Schulberg (then a script reader for David O. Selznick) and Ring Lardner, Jr. (who was working in Selznick's publicity department) were assigned to write some additional dialogue for the film, a collaboration which produced Janet Gaynor's (and the film's) final words: "This is Mrs. Norman Maine." The line was used again in the 1954 Warner Bros. musical remake starring Judy Garland and James Mason. George Cukor, who directed the remake, suggested adding the scene in the 1937 film in which Menjou offers the fading star a supporting role. Janet Gaynor was given the first Oscar for Best Actress at the first Academy Awards ceremony on May 16, 1929. In the scene in which Vicky Lester wins an Oscar, it is Janet Gaynor's own Oscar she is holding. In a subsequent scene, the same Oscar is seen sitting on a shelf. Fredric March Had won the Oscar for Best Actor (1931/32) on November 18, 1932, for the film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (he tied with Wallace Beery for The Champ (1931 film)). Although Norman Maine states that he won an award statue, and the name "Oscar" never is mentioned on screen, it is, presumably, an Oscar. Unlike Janet Gaynor, however, Fredric March's Oscar never is seen. Background Some film historians believe that the marriage of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay was the film's real-life inspiration. John Bowers has also been identified as inspiration for the Norman Maine character and the dramatic suicide-by-drowning scene near the end of the film (Bowers drowned in November 1936). The film contains several inside jokes, including Gaynor's brief imitations of Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, and Mae West; the "Crawford Smear", referring to Joan Crawford's lipstick; and the revelation that the glamorous Norman Maine's real last name is Hinkle. (Henkel was the real last name of silent film star Agnes Ayres, and not far removed from Fredric March's real last name, Bickel.) This film also has many similarities to the earlier film What Price Hollywood? (1932), released by RKO Radio Pictures. The 1932 film's original title was The Truth About Hollywood based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns. St. Johns loosely based her plot on the experiences of actress Colleen Moore and her husband, alcoholic producer John McCormick (1893–1961), and the life and death of director Tom Forman, who committed suicide following a nervous breakdown. Four