Patrick Stockstill, who at 14 began keeping track of Academy Award nominees and winners on what would amount to 10,000 index cards and eventually realized his dream of becoming the Academy’s historian, died last week at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a long fight with heart disease. He was 57. “When he came to us, he was a man with extraordinary knowledge of the history of the Academy Awards,” said Bruce Davis, exec director of the Academy. “He leaves us with that history available to us and the rest of the world.” As keeper of the statuettes, he was always backstage at the Oscars, handing the awards to the presenters. The night before the nominations were announced, Stockstill and his team would be given the names of the nominated stars to dig up facts and figures about. “Suddenly, in the middle of the night, without access to the library, he would come up with tidbits like ‘This is the third time a left-handed Bulgarian has been nominated in this category,’ ” Davis said. (LA Times)