Trivia

Designed the Academy Award (Oscar) statuette.

According to the book "Let's Go to the Movies!" by Lester Gordon published by Santa Monica Press in 1992, the reason his name appears in over 1500 film credits is as follows: "His 1924 contract stated that every film released by MGM in the USA would give him the credit of Art Director, even though others did the majority of the work."

Received over 1500 on-screen credits between 1917-56, an unsurpassed record.

He was nominated for and won more Academy Awards than any other art director.

Dolores Del Rio recommended to Gibbons that he use Emilio Fernández (aka "El Indio") as the model for the statue.

Chief of MGM's art department from 1924-56.

He was art director at MGM), and its immediate predecessors Metro-Goldwyn Studios and Metro Pictures, for the entire length of his career, and during that time he worked at no other studio.

One of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)

Brother of writer Eliot Gibbons and brother-in-law of costume designer Irene (married to Eliot).

Art director for five Oscar Best Picture winners The Broadway Melody (1929), Grand Hotel (1932), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Mrs. Miniver (1942), and 34 other Best Picture nominees The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), The Divorcee (1930), The Big House (1930), The Champ (1931), Smilin' Through (1932), The Thin Man (1934), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), David Copperfield (1935), Naughty Marietta (1935), Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), San Francisco (1936), Romeo and Juliet (1936), Libeled Lady (1936), The Good Earth (1937), Captains Courageous (1937), Test Pilot (1938), Boys Town (1938), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Ninotchka (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Blossoms in the Dust (1941), Random Harvest (1942), The Human Comedy (1943), Madame Curie (1943), Gaslight (1944), Anchors Aweigh (1945), The Yearling (1946), Battleground (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), King Solomon's Mines (1950), Quo Vadis (1951), Julius Caesar (1953) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).

Great-uncle of Maria Cooper Janis.

Uncle of Sandra Shaw.

He designed the Oscar in a few minutes and went on to win 11 of them. The value of an Oscar is said to be $250 but winners are pledged never to sell them except back to the Academy.