The 36 Founding Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)

In 1926, Louis B. Mayer wanted to short-circuit the growing labor union movement in Hollywood. He decided to create an umbrella organization whose membership would be open to all employees of the film industry, but which would actually be controlled by producers to serve their needs overall. Mayer and Fred Beetson -- the secretary-treasurer of the Association of Motion Picture Producers (the West Coast branch of the Hays Code organization, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America) -- got together with actor Conrad Nagel and director Fred Niblo to develop the groundwork for what would become the Academy. One of the earliest decisions was to divide the Academy into five branches: Actors, Directors, Producers, Technicians, and Writers. Dozens of Hollywood dignitaries were invited to attend an organizing banquet at the Ambassador Hotel on January 11, 1927. Anybody who attended would be listed as founding members of the Academy. Thirty-six people attended and, in what would become an Academy tradition, were permanently locked into the one branch they chose for themselves that night, even though some of them were qualified to join multiple branches. Four founding members have no IMDb pages; Beetson and Paramount Pictures executive Milton E. Hoffman, who both joined the Producers Branch; and lawyers George W. Cohen and Edwin Loeb.