2/27/2012:
Everyone called them “the Gregerson girls” – Grace, Rose, Florence, Ethel and Mildred. Around 1909 their parents, Sarah and Frederick, moved with three daughters from Minnesota to Fargo, where their father worked for the North Dakota Harness Company. Two more daughters were born in Fargo, and by 1914 the family was complete.
All five Gregerson girls were considered well educated and excelled in the fields of business and education, continuing to live with their parents until Sarah died in 1938 and Frederick in 1939.
Ethel Margaret Gregerson graduated in a pre-secretarial curriculum from Fargo Central High School in 1928, then went on to business college. For nearly ten years she worked as a stenographer, first for the Bradstreet Company, then for Northwestern Bell Telephone in Fargo.
But unlike her sisters, Ethel possessed an adventurous streak. Around the time her parents died, she took off for Alaska, then down the coast to Los Angeles, where she landed a plum accounting job with Price Waterhouse. Somewhere along the way she met and married Benoit Banville, and together they traveled the world.
After the 1939 Academy Awards fiasco, when the Los Angeles Times leaked the results prior to the awards ceremony in early 1940, Price Waterhouse was entrusted with the secret counting and confidentiality of the votes. Executives may have noticed Ethel’s trustworthiness and North Dakota work ethic, for they placed her in charge of the project.
She instituted a system of secret sealed envelopes that was used for the first time at the 13th Academy Awards at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles on this date in 1941.
Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, won the Oscar for Best Picture; John Ford won Best Director for The Grapes of Wrath. James Stewart won Best Actor; and Ginger Rogers won Best Actress. “When You Wish Upon a Star” from the movie Pinocchio was voted Best Original Song.
Ethel must have been especially proud of her vital role in the Academy Award ceremony that presented an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film to Teddy, the Rough Rider—a movie about Teddy Roosevelt, an icon in her home state of North Dakota.
But few people realize that, according to family lore, Ethel Gregerson created the famous line, “The envelope please,” spoken amidst the glitz of Hollywood’s rich and famous for the first time on February 27, 1941.
Dakota Datebook written by Karen Horsley
Sources:
The Forum obituaries, June 15, 2011.
Wikipedia, “13th Academy Awards.”
Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1993, “Keeping Secrets: They Count Oscar Votes.”
Fargo (ND) City Directories, 1908, 1910, 1920, 1932, 1936, 1938, 1940.
Cynosure, Fargo Central High School, 1928.