The Oddball Oscars

It may not be Oscar season, but the SCC Library is now stocked with the best Academy Award-winning films of 2019 on DVD. Such as...

1917 – Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood – Best Supporting Actor (Tom Hanks)

Bombshell – Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Ford v Ferrari – Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing

Harriet – Nominee, Best Actress (Cynthia Erivo)

Jojo Rabbit – Best Adapted Screenplay

Joker – Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Best Original Score

Judy – Best Actress (Renee Zellweger)

Knives Out – Nominee, Best Original Screenplay

Little Women – Best Costume Design

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Best Supporting Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Production Design

Pain and Glory – Nominee, Best Actor (Antonio Banderas), Nominee, Best Foreign Film

Parasite – Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director (Bong Joon-Ho), Best Foreign Language Film

Richard Jewell – Nominee, Best Supporting Actress (Kathy Bates)

Toy Story 4 – Best Animated Feature

Pretty great lineup of award-winning features, right? And speaking of the Oscars, what could be a better opportunity to review some of the weirdest bits of trivia concerning Hollywood’s famous awards ceremony? Let’s take a moment to congratulate the winners of …

1. Best Sibling Rivalry

In 1941, Olivia de Havilland was nominated as Best Actress for Hold Back the Dawn. Spoiling the moment for Olivia was her younger sister, Joan Fontaine, receiving the same nomination that year for Suspicion. Though the two made efforts to appear gracious in public, a childhood of bitter competition for mama’s approval became a bitter competition for the Academy’s love. Joan took home the Oscar, but the sisters became estranged, engaging in occasional public feuds until Joan’s death in 2013. Olivia not only eventually received two Oscars to his sister’s single win, but outlived nearly everyone in Hollywood, still with us today at the age of 103.

2. Least Nominated

Cinematographer Hal Mohr holds the distinction of being the only Academy Award winner who was not officially nominated. Mohr won his Best Cinematography Oscar for A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1935 as the result of a write-in campaign. Talk about a popularity contest! The Academy has since changed the rules to disallow write-in votes.

3. Best Snub

Not everyone who wins an Oscar is all a’tingle with delight. When Dudley Nichols won for Best Screenplay (The Informer) in 1935, he was in a snit about the Academy’s ongoing conflicts with the Writer’s Guild, so he refused the award. George C. Scott went Dudley one better by not only refusing to accept his 1970 Best Actor award for Patton but publically slandering the ceremony as a “two-hour meat parade.” But the Best Snub award goes to Marlon Brando, who refused his Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather to protest Hollywood’s depiction of Native Americans. Brando sent Apache activist Sacheen Littlefeather to the awards ceremony to read a statement on his behalf, eliciting both boos and cheers for the political protest. Ah, the Seventies.

4. Most Deceased

Screenwriter Sydney Howard was the first person to receive an Oscar from the Great Beyond (for Gone with the Wind in 1939), and both Peter Finch and Heath Ledger received “Best” awards for films released shortly after they had died (for Network and The Dark Knight, respectively). However, the Most Deceased award clearly goes to composer Larry Russell, whose Best Musical Score Oscar for Limelight was awarded in 1972, eighteen years after his funeral.

5. Best Windbag

By a long shot, Greer Garson holds the record for longest Oscar Acceptance speech. Winning her Best Actress award for Miss Miniver in 1942, Garson, with finishing school poise, delivered a six-minute speech, pontificating on the nature of awards and their meaning in a world of sacrifice. It’s no wonder that the Academy began strictly enforcing a 45-second cap on acceptance speeches or that Garson never again won an Oscar.

6. Least Dressed

At the 46^th Academy Awards in 1974, David Niven was onstage, awaiting the arrival of Elizabeth Taylor to announce the winner of Best Picture. Instead of Liz, a notoriously naked man named Robert Opal “steaked” across the stage, flashing the peace sign. Streaking, the art of sudden public nudity, was enjoying a popular trend during this period, and Opal was a keen practitioner. Opal often streaked at city council meetings in Los Angeles to protest the ban of nudity at public beaches, but this appearance was definitely his most glamorous. The Best Picture winner was The Sting, but by that time nobody cared.

7. Biggest Losers

1977’s The Turning Point received eleven Oscar nominations, but didn’t win in any category. In 1985, The Color Purple also gained eleven nominations and won no Oscars. Could this be the unlucky curse of the number eleven? Or could it be the unlucky curse of films which center on female characters? Choose your own conspiracy!

8. Best Most Noms

With 52 nominations, composer John Williams holds the record for most Oscar nominations. He also has 6 Emmy nominations, 25 Golden Globe nominations, and 71 Grammy nominations. It helps that John Williams has composed the original score for every single motion picture released since 1968 (citation needed).

9. Most Delayed

In 1973, Charlie Chaplin’s film Limelight won an Oscar for Best Original Musical Score. Oddly, this was a full twenty years after the film’s release. Chaplin was on a promotional tour of Great Britain for Limelight in 1952 when he was informed that his reentry visa to the United States had been refused. This being the “red scare” period in America, Chaplin’s communist sympathies were frowned upon by government officials, and Limelight received little to no distribution in this country. Twenty years later, having finally become eligible for Academy consideration with an official Los Angeles theater release, Chaplin won his only competitive Oscar.

10. Worst Best

There have been many films criticized over the Academy’s history as being undeserving of their Best Picture Oscars. 1944’s Bing Crosby vehicle Going My Way is generally regarded as a real stinker (and was an upset win over the masterful Casablanca). The lackluster How Green was My Valley stirs resentment for winning over both Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon in 1941. And the less said about Crash winning Best Picture in 2006 the better.

Still, based on reviews and retrospectives of Hollywood classics, it seems no Oscar winner is more universally panned than The Greatest Show on Earth, winner of Best Picture in 1952. It’s generally assumed that the Academy wanted to award director Cecil B. DeMille for a lifetime of cinematic achievement and considered this their last chance. Ironically, DeMille made one last, far superior film, The Ten Commandments, which lost out for Best Picture in 1957 to Around the World in 80 Days, another film now considered one of the worst to have won Best Picture. Better luck next time, Cecil.

Works Cited

"Academy Awards." Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, vol. 1, Schirmer Reference, 2007, pp. 1-9. Gale in Context: U.S. History.
Edelman, Rob. “Mohr, Hal,” Writers and Production Artists, edited by Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast, pp. 612-614. International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4th ed., vol. 4, St. James Press, 2001. Gale in Context: Biography.
"Garson, Greer." The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, et al., vol. 4,Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001, pp. 200-203. Gale in Context: Biography.
"Olivia de Havilland." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, vol. 33, Gale, 2013. Gale in Context: Biography.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. “Academy Award Trivia and Interesting Facts,” Liveaboutdotcom, Dotdash, 14Jan. 2020, https://www.liveabout.com/academy-awards-interesting-facts-1779239.