Academy Award Facts and Trivia

Academy Award season is upon us now. Nominations for the 2006 awards will be announced later this month with the ceremony taking place late next month. Chances are, whether you are a movie fan or not, you will tune in for at least part of the show. It may be to see who is wearing what or to see your how your favorite movies of the year will fare. Perhaps you will watch to see the big production numbers to see if they are as garish and overblown as history dictates they will be. Or you may be an Ellen DeGeneres fan and want to see how she will do as host.

Perhaps you tune in to see if something truly outrageous and unexpected is going to happen. Something along the lines of when Marlon Brando sent up an Indian woman to refuse his Oscar for "The Godfather" and plead for the plight of the American Indians. Or the time when a man streaked

No matter the reason most people watch the Academy Awards.

The following list is some lesser-known facts about the Academy Awards of years past. Hardcore movie fans may know many of these pieces of trivia while the more casual viewer may know few to none of them. Either way this list represents an array of trivia that I hope you will find interesting.

1) In 1928/29, actress Jeanne Eagels becomes the first of 6 actors (and 7 nominations) to be nominated for an acting Oscar posthumously. Nominated for "The Letter," Eagels had died a few months earlier of a heroin overdose at the age of 39. James Dean would become the second and third recipient with nominations for Best Actor for "East of Eden" (1955) and "Giant" (1956). Spencer Tracy was the fourth posthumous nominee for 1967's "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" Tracy was so ill during production that director Stanley Kramer and co-star Katherine Hepburn had to forego their salaries as insurance in case Tracy died during production. To play it safe Kramer worked Tracy only half days to conserve his strength and the ploy worked. Ten days after finishing the film Tracy died of a heart attack at age 67. The fifth posthumous nominee was Peter Finch for "Network." Finch, believing this was his role of a lifetime, heavily worked the talk shows to aid his quest for the Oscar. While waiting to appear on Good Morning America with his director, Sidney Lumet, Finch collapsed and died of a heart attack at the age of 62. Finch would become the only actor to win the Oscar posthumously. In 1984 Sir Ralph Richardson became the 6^th posthumous nominee for his work in "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes." The last posthumous nominee to date came in 1995 when Italian actor Massimo Troisi was nominated for Best Actor for "Il Postino" (The Postman). Troisi fell ill during production with a serious heart condition brought on by rheumatic fever as a child. Told that he needed surgery at a hospital in Houston, Troisi put off the surgery until after finishing the movie, as he believed the project was too important. On the evening he wrapped his last scene, and the night before he was to fly to Houston for the surgery, Troisi died in his sleep at the age of 41.

2) 1928/29 also marked the only year in the history of the Awards where no film one more then one award.

3) In 1931/1932, "Grand Hotel" became the first of only two movies in Academy Award history to win the Award for Best Picture while its director was not even nominated for Best Director. In fact, "Grand Hotel" was not nominated for any other Awards that evening. The feat was repeated 57 years later when "Driving Miss Daisy" won Best Picture while Bruce Beresford was overlooked for Best Director.

4) In 1932/1933, Will Rogers presented the Award for Best Director. He opened the envelope and said, "It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Come on up and get it, Frank." A jubilant Frank Capra leapt from his seat and started down the aisle. When he neared the stage he realized what everyone else had - it wasn't he who won the Oscar but director Frank Lloyd. Capra later recounted that his walk back to his seat was "the longest, saddest, most shattering walk in my life."

5) 1935 saw the first refusal of an Award when screenwriter Dudley Nichols won for his script for "The Informer." Nichols was part of the newly formed writer's guild, whose union was in bitter disputes with the Academy. Nichols believed that accepting the award was a slap in the face to his new guild and its members. Academy president Frank Capra sent the award to Nichols anyway, who politely returned the award. Capra sent it back and Nichols reciprocated. Several years later Nichols finally agreed to take the award home after the guild and Academy had settled all their differences.

6) In 1939 actress Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Gone With the Wind." More surprisingly, she was the first African-American to ever attend the award ceremony.

7) In 1942 composer Irving Berlin was asked to present the award for Best Song. When he opened the envelope he said, "It's someone I've known a great many years. He's a nice kid and I think he deserves it." Berlin then revealed that he had won the award, the only time that a presenter has won the award he was presenting.

The same year Greer Garson won the Best Actress award for "Mrs. Miniver" and gave the longest acceptance speech in Academy history. Legend had it that Garson spoke for as long as an hour but the true length of the speech was five and a half minutes. Even then it had the press buzzing about the tediousness of the speech.

8) In 1944 Barry Fitzgerald became the only actor in Academy history to be nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same performance. As the elder priest in "Going My Way," Fitzgerald somehow made the cut for both categories that would lead to a refining of the rules the following year. Fitzgerald won for Best Supporting Actor and promptly took the award home where he accidentally decapitated it while practicing his golf swing in his study.

9) In 1946 Harold Russell, a war veteran who had lost both hands in action, became the first and only person to win two awards for acting in one movie. Russell was voted a special Oscar for his courageous performance because the Board of Governors believed he was a long shot to win for Best Supporting Actor against four acting veterans. Russell then shocked the movie world by winning the Best Supporting Actor award. After the show Russell announced he was retiring from acting and kept that promise for 34 years before appearing in another movie.

10) In 1948 director John Huston became the first (and only) director to win the Best Director Award in the same year as a relative (father Walter) won an acting award from the same movie (Treasure of the Sierra Madre). Huston would make history 37 years later when he would directed his daughter Anjelica to an acting award for "Prizzi's Honor" (1985).

11) 1956 had what was dubbed "the biggest boo-boo in Academy nomination history." One of the nominations for Best Motion Picture Story was the musical "High Society," which was an adaptation of the classic film "The Philadelphia Story" and, thus, not an original story, which made it ineligible. Added to the confusion was that the named writers, Elwood Ullman and Edward Bernds, weren't the men who had written the musical. It turned out that Ullman and Bernds had, indeed, written a movie in 1956 called "High Society," only that film turned out to be part of the Bowery Boys movie series. Steve Broidy, president of Allied Artists, the tiny studio that produced the cheap Bowery Boys movies, made a statement to the press that read, "This just proves what we have known all along - that the Bowery Boys series couldn't have lasted this long if not for the fine writers." At first the Writers Branch claimed that they had intended to nominate the Bowery Boys movie, but Ullman and Bernds sent a letter to the Academy Board of Governors stating, "Since our nomination is apparently a case of mistaken identity, we wish to withdraw our names from consideration." The governors breathed a collective sigh of relief and one member later confessed that the board was concerned that "pranksters" would vote for the Bowery Boys movie as a joke, which would have caused "no end of embarrassment to the Academy."

12) 1960 saw one of the worst cases of ad campaigning by an actor for an Academy Award. Character actor Chill Wills was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in John Wayne's epic "The Alamo." Wills elected to hire one W.S. "Bow Wow" Wojciechowicz as his press agent instead of using John Wayne's. Wills believed he needed a major push in the category as the front-runners were Sal Mineo (Exodus) and Peter Ustinov (Spartacus). "Bow Wow" started by sending out letters to the members of the Academy repeating a plug given to Wills by Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper. When Hopper got wind of it she wrote an article announcing that Wills had lost her vote. Wills publicly apologized but "Bow Wow" was just getting started. A series of ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter featured the names of every Academy member with a picture of Wills and the comment, "Win, lose or draw, you're all my cousins and I love you all." Groucho Marx replied with an ad of his own that read:

Dear Mr. Chill Wills, I am delighted to be your cousin, but I voted for Sal Mineo. Groucho Marx.

"Bow Wow" saved his best for last. Just days after Marx' ad appeared, an ad featuring a photo of the cast of "The Alamo" with Wills' superimposed over them with the copy line, "We of the Alamo cast are praying harder then the real Texans prayed for their lives in the Alamo for Chill Wills to win the Oscar as Best Supporting Actor - Cousin Chill's acting was great. Your Alamo Cousins. The following Monday even John Wayne had to place an ad claiming no knowledge of the "reprehensible claims" made in the ad. Even "Bow Wow" realized he had gone too far and apologized with an ad of his own to Wayne and to the members of the Academy. Wills claimed to have no prior knowledge of this and "Bow Wow" supported it but the damage was done. Peter Ustinov would win the Oscar.

13) In 1964, for the first and only time in Academy Award history, the four acting honors went to non-Americans. Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady) won for Best Actor; Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) won Best Actress; Peter Ustinov (Topkapi) won Best Supporting Actor; Lila Kedrova (Zorba The Greek) won Best Supporting Actress.

14) The 1967 Academy Awards show, slated for April of 1968, was postponed due to the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. The awards took place the day after the funeral as many of the nominees and presenters announced they would be attending the funeral instead.

For the first time since the Costume Design awards were introduced in 1947, costumer extraordinaire Edith Head failed to score a nomination in the category. In the previous 19 years she had accumulated 30 nominations (in the earlier years the category was split in two between color and black & white) while winning 7 awards.

15) Academy Award history was made when a 6'1, 400 pound Tahitian named Jocelyn LaGarde was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Hawaii." LaGarde spoke no English and had to learn her role phonetically. LaGarde would be the only actor in history to be nominated for their one and only film role.

16) For only the second time in Award history there was a tie in one of the acting races (the other was in 1931/32 when Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Wallace Beery (The Champ) tied for Best Actor). Katherine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) and Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) shared the Best Actress prize. The win was a bit controversial as Streisand had, a few months earlier, been allowed to join the Academy despite having made just the one movie and not having to wait the customary amount of time. It is logical to assume that if rules had been followed, Hepburn would have one by one vote. Skeptics raised doubts that the vote ended in an actual tie but representatives of Price-Waterhouse confirmed that the count was re-checked several times.

17) In 1969 "Midnight Cowboy" became the first and only X-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar. Starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, Cowboy told the story of a Texan who comes to New York to make a living as a stud for older women. Two years later Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" became the second, and last, X-rated film to be nominated for Best Picture. Interestingly, both films would later be re-released to theaters and then to home video re-rated with an R rating.

That same year "They Shoot Horses Don't They?" was nominated for a record 9 awards - none of them was for Best Picture. The record still stands.

Also in 1969 the international thriller "Z" became the first film to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Film in the same year. It would win the latter. Only "Life is Beautiful" (1998) has achieved the same honor.

18) In 1970 George C. Scott refused his Best Actor nomination for "Patton." This was not the first time as Scott had similarly refused his 1961 Best Supporting Actor nomination for "The Hustler." Scott had claimed that when he was first nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1959 for "Anatomy of a Murder," he let himself get caught up in the media hype and fully believed he was going to win. When he lost he claimed the disappointment reached a "ridiculous level" and chose not to be part of it again. This time was different as Scott was the overwhelming favorite to win the award. Scott was in Spain shooting "The Last Run" when he was informed of his nomination and promptly sent the following telegram to the Academy:

"Gentlemen: Although I have received no official notification, elements of the international press have informed me that I have recently been nominated for an Academy Award. Once again I respectfully request that you withdraw my name from the list of nominees. My position on this matter has been well known for some 10 years. Please understand that my request is in no way intended to denigrate my colleagues who saw fit to nominate me nor is it intended to insult or hurt the many talented people with whom and for whom I worked on "Patton." Furthermore, peculiar as it may seem, I mean no offense to the Academy. I simply do not wish to be involved. I will not attend the awards ceremony nor will any legitimate representative of mine attend. Very sincerely yours, George C. Scott."

The Academy had no method of removing a nominee from the ballot so Scott remained and ended up winning the award. Scott claimed that on Oscar night he watched a hockey game and then went to bed. Not to be outdone, the Academy nominated Scott the very next year for "The Hospital." Scott did not make a public fuss and did not win.

19) In 1972 Bob Fosse's hit musical "Cabaret" set a record by winning 8 Academy Awards without winning Best Picture. It would win for Best Director (Fosse); Best Actress (Liza Minnelli); Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey); Cinematography; Art Direction-Set Decoration; Sound; Adaption Score; Film Editing. Fosse's director award was a particular shock as the favorite was Francis Ford Coppola for "The Godfather," and Coppola had won virtually every other award before the Oscars. The record 8 wins still stands.

20) 1977 came what many consider the most controversial moment in Academy Awards history. Vanessa Redgrave had just been announced the winner of Best Supporting Actress for "Julia" when she proceeded on a ranting diatribe against "Zionist Hoodlums" and the fight against anti-Semitism. Redgrave's speech was greeted with loud boos and hisses with only a smattering of applause. When it was time to present the writing awards, Paddy Chayefsky, the award winning writer of "Network," came on and made the following speech:

Before I get on to the writing Awards there's a little matter I'd like to tidy up - at least if I expect to live with myself tomorrow morning. I would like to say, personal opinion, of course, that I'm sick and tired of people exploiting the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own personal propaganda. I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple 'Thank you' would have sufficed.

Chayefsky received a standing ovation and was so startled by the reception that he started to open the envelope before reading the list of nominees.

21) 1985 marked the first year in Academy history that all ten nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress were American born. The nominees for Best Actor were: Harrison Ford (Witness); James Garner (Murphy's Romance); William Hurt (Kiss of the Spiderwoman); Jack Nicholson (Prizzi's Honor); Jon Voight (Runaway Train). Hurt was the winner. The nominees for Best Actress were: Anne Bancroft (Agnes of God); Whoopi Goldberg (The Color Purple); Jessica Lange (Sweet Dreams); Geraldine Page (The Trip to Bountiful); Meryl Streep (Out of Africa). Page was the winner.

22) In 1987, for the first and only time, all five nominated for Best Director were non-Americans. The nominees were Bernardo Bertolucci (Italy - The Last Emperor); John Boorman (England - Hope and Glory); Lasse Hallstrom (Sweden - My Life As A Dog); Norman Jewison (Canada - Moonstruck); Adrian Lyne (England - Fatal Attraction). This did not go unnoticed by presenter Robin Williams, who said, "The Oscar, and a green card, goes to..." Bertolucci was the winner.

23) 1991 marked the first and only time that a mother and daughter were nominated in the same year for the same film when Laura Dern and Diane Ladd were nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for "Rambling Rose." Neither would win.

24) In 1992 Robert Downey, Jr. would become the first actor ever nominated for portraying an Academy Award winner for "Chaplin."

25) Twice in Awards history an actor has won an Academy Award for playing another real life actor. The first time was in 1994 when Martin Landau won Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's "Ed Wood." Ten years later Cate Blanchett would win Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Katherine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator."