Academy Awards 2014: Was Mexican Director Emilio ‘Indio’ Fernández the Model for the Oscar Statue?

Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez was a Mexican film director and actor who lived and worked in Hollywood in the 1920s. He is remembered for such films as "Maria Candelaria," the film which won the Palm d'Or at Cannes in 1946 and put Mexican filmmaking on the map. However, one of the most interesting facts about this director may also be the least known. According to some, Fernandez was the model for the statuette that will be given out at tonight's Academy Awards.

The story goes that Fernandez was indeed working in Hollywood in the 1920s when the Oscars first began. He was working as an extra at the time when MGM Art Director Cedric Gibbons was designing the statuette for the Academy Awards. According to Charles Ramirez Berg, professor of film studies at the University of Texas, Gibbons' wife, Dolores Del Rio gave her husband an idea. "The story is that Dolores Del Rio referred him to Emilio Fernandez and said you should use Emilio for the model," Ramirez Berg told NPR.

There is little concrete evidence to prove that Fernandez was indeed the model, and the Academy itself has refused to confirm the story. However, as Berg points out, "He had a very athletic build, I mean, he looked just like Oscar. All of this could have happened." True or not, the story is a sign for the many Latinos working in Hollywood of their place in Hollywood history. If Alfonso Cuaron takes home the statuette, he may be clutching an image of one his great predecessors.