History of Emmy Statuette

By Sandra Parker

It was the last one considered by the TV Academy, but it ended up being the best.

After rejecting 47 proposals for what was to become the Emmy® statuette, Academy members in 1948 selected a design that television engineer Louis McManus had created using his wife as a model.

The statuette of a winged woman holding an atom has since become the symbol of the Television Academy's goal of supporting and uplifting the arts and science of television: The wings represent the muse of art; the atom the electron of science.

After selecting the design for the statuette that would reward excellence in the television industry, Academy members were faced with decision number two: What to name the symbol.

Academy founder Syd Cassyd suggested "Ike," the nickname for the television iconoscope tube. But with a national war hero named Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower, Academy members thought they needed a less well-known name. Harry Lubcke, a pioneer television engineer and the third Academy president, suggested "Immy," a term commonly used for the early image orthicon camera. The name stuck and was later modified to Emmy, which members thought was more appropriate for a female symbol.

Each year, the R.S. Owens company in Chicago casts the approximately two hundred statuettes ordered for the prime-time awards show and the three hundred for the regional awards. Although the numbers of categories rarely change, the possibility of multiple winners prompts the Academy to order extra statuettes. Surplus awards are stored for the following year's ceremony.

The statuettes weigh four and three-quarter pounds and are made of copper, nickel, silver, and gold. Each one takes five and one-half hours to make and is handled with white gloves so as to leave no fingerprints.

"It's an intense process," said Noreen Prohaska, an account executive at R.S. Owens, which also makes the Oscars and trophies for other ceremonies. "They are handcast, deburred, buffed, and hand polished."