In which year was the first Academy Award given for 'Best Makeup'?

The Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling is the Academy Award given to the best achievement in makeup and hairstyling for film.

The competitive category was created in 1981 as the Academy Award for Best Makeup, after the Academy received complaints that the makeup work in "The Elephant Man" (1980) was not going to be honored. Although no award was given to "The Elephant Man", an entire category dedicated to honoring makeup effects in film was created for subsequent ceremonies. Previously, makeup artists were only eligible for special achievement awards for their work. Beginning in 1993, hairstylists were added to the recognition category.

A record-holding winner of seven Academy Awards for Makeup out of eleven nominations, Rick Baker is a lifelong “monster kid” who won the first competitive Oscar awarded in that category for his innovative work on "An American Werewolf in London" (1981), one of several collaborations with director John Landis. His apprenticeship under one of the industry’s greatest makeup artists, Dick Smith (including working as his assistant on "The Exorcist"), prepared him for a career providing cutting-edge makeup effects in many genres ranging from comedy to science fiction to horror, with titles including "Ed Wood" (1994), "The Nutty Professor" (1996) and "Men in Black" (1998).