Showbiz History: The Manchurian Candidate, Soul Man, and B.D. Wong
Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 10:00AM 8 random things that happened on this day (Oct 24th) in showbiz history
1962 The depressingly prescient classic The Manchurian Candidate involving Russian infiltration into the US government arrives in theaters, receive tswo Oscar nominations: Supporting Actress Angela Lansbury (who won the Globe but lost the Oscar -- argh!) and Film Editing. It deserved to win both races and it's so annoying that it didn't make the Best Picture list.
1969 After a few scattered premieres and openings in big cities, the Paul Newman / Robert Redford western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid opens everywhere...
It will receive 7 Oscar nominations, winning four of them including Best Cinematography.
1986 Soul Man a comedy in which C Thomas Howell dons blackface (to get into college on an African-American only scholarship) is the highest grossing new release for the weekend. Can you imagine? This was only 32 years ago! Among the unbelievable taglines was "He didn't give up, he got down."
(Since it was an October weekend it was surrounded by future Oscar nominees in the box office top ten that weekend like Crocodile Dundee, The Color of Money, Children of a Lesser God and Peggy Sue Got Married.)
1987 Michael Jackson's "Bad" single hits #1. The video by Martin Scorsese (!) had been out for almost two months at that point.
1997 Modern sci-fi classic Gattaca arrives in theaters starring Jude Law and Uma Thurman as perfect human specimens and Ethan Hawke as a man only pretending to be genetically superior.
2008 'Happy' 10th anniversary to Clint Eastwood's Changeling (2008) which honestly still annoys us because without its blatant Oscar seeking, Sally Hawkins could have been nominated in Best Actress for Happy-Go-Lucky instead of Angelina Jolie since Hawkins, you know, deserved to win the Oscar!
2009 Britney Spears hits #1 with "3" her song about... counting.
Maureen O'Hara arrives at the Governors Awards
2015 Maureen O'Hara died at 95. We'd like to thank the Academy again for giving her an Honorary Oscar before it was too late. And we're still so proud of how much we celebrated her here three years ago with articles on her breakthrough The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), her ravishing leading lady years via Black Swan (1942), her skepticism in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) her personal favorite The Quiet Man (1952) and that 40something comeback as the sexy, funny and dazzling mother of scheming twins in The Parent Trap (1961).
Today's Birthdays
Oscar Winners: Actor F Murray Abraham (Amadeus), Producer Merian C Cooper of King Kong and The Quiet Man fame (Honorary Oscar), Actor Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda) -- have I ever told you how much my mom loves him?, and Designer Tony Walton (All That Jazz)
Oscar Nominees: Cinematography Arthur Edison (Casablanca), Screenwriter Moss Hart (A Star is Born, the 1954 version)
Actors: Tony nominee Raúl Esparza, Ashton Sanders, Kim Ji-Soo, Casey Wilson, and Hideo Takamatsu
Other Showbiz Peeps: Screenwriter Dave Callaham, Director Martin Campbell, Singer Drake, Batman co-creator Bob Kane, Singer Monica, YouTube star PewDiePie, Designer Zac Posen, Cinematography Roman Vasyanov, and Director Matthew Warchus (Pride) who we had a great interview with a few years back.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 58th birthday to Tony winner and Emmy nominee B.D. Wong (an actor we've always loved - how great was he on Mr Robot?). Here he is as "naked Charlie Chaplin". We have no idea why this photo was taken or what it's about but Wong shared it on his twitter page so we're sharing it with you.
Reader Comments (24)
I think Lansbury not winning is my #1 Oscar wrong. Mrs Iselin is one of the great creations.
Thanks for the shout-out to B.D. Wong - also excellent as the F.B.I. profiler on loan to the N.Y.P.D. in "Law and Order: S.V.U." and the genetic archeobiologist in the "Jurassic" films.
I try to love Sally Hawkins, but I just can't when you keep bringing up her performance in Happy Go Lucky. Jesus, I hate it. So many tics, so artificial. I don't like her in The Shape of Water, too. Her best work, in my opinion, is in Blue Jasmine, a very calm and natural performance, perfectly balancing Blanchett's eruption (a friend of mine always says Blanchett is not an actress; she's a volcano)
Once you've seen "Fat" by Weird Al Yankowic it is flat out impossible to ever take the "Bad" video seriously again.
That body of B.D. Wong’s. Who knew. 🎂
Completely agree that Lansbury not winning for "Manchurian" is easily one of the most egregious Oscar mistakes of all time. She was completely earth-shattering in that role, and it always reminds me just how much more she had to give than the film industry allowed her to. She is truly one of the greats--more skilled and natural on screen that just about anyone else ever has been, and certainly more than she has ever gotten credit for. (Since she's also mentioned in this post, I think the lovely Maureen O'Hara is also in that category--there are few actors in my opinion who have ever lit up the screen the way Maureen consistently did).
And speaking of snubs, birthday boy Raúl Esparza not winning the Tony for Company is without a doubt the most severe injustice in recent Broadway history. Maybe the most embarrassing thing the ATW has ever done. Shameful.
Your comment about how your mom loves Kevin Kline just means that for next Mothers’ Day, Team Film Experience does a round robin of which stars their mothers love. I bet we’d get some fun responses!
Knowing how Charles Chaplin's sexual life was, the naked picture makes sense. Everybody's favorite (me included), Chaplin wouldn't survive with #metoo.
Green Book will compete as Comedy so Viggo is finally winning a Globe. My Wednesday is suddenly better.
Lansbury is very good in The Manchurian Candidate, but I wouldn't consider it a big snub when the winner that year was Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker - another very good performance. If Lansbury had lost to someone terrible, then so be it.
Except that Patty Duke was *not* a supporting actress in The Miracle Worker, which is so obviously a two-hander. If she had been nominated as Best Actress, and Anne Bancroft still had won (deservedly), that would make much more sense. Angela Lansbury it is then.
Excellent as Angela Lansbury is, for me it comes down to a battle of the 2 juveniles - Patty Duke (I have no problem with her categorization) and Mary Badham (exquisite in To Kill a Mockingbird)
Raúl Esparza is the definitive Bobby in Company for me. His rendition of Being Alive is one for the all-time list: https://youtu.be/fjrA93_O6Dw
I get that people still hold The Miracle Worker in very high regard, but I'm with the set who considers Lansbury's loss to be one of Oscar's biggest misses. That's one of the greatest film performances - and actually the film has many virtues so it's unfortunate it was only up for 2 Oscars.
And I'm with Jes V. I'm a big David Hyde Pierce fan, but it's bizarre to me that Esparza didn't win for Company. Esparza has still never won a Tony, right? That seems weird on its own - but he was outstanding as Bobby, and that production seemed to be very well-received, and it seemed the right time in his career to honor him, so I'm perplexed by his loss.
1962 is such a strong year but that BP lineups rivals 1995 as one of their weirdest. Leaving out movies they loved, nominated elsewhere and that ultimately time was much kinder to.
The 1962 supporting actress Oscar is for me one of the 10 most deserving awards that went to someone who was *not* the best in their lineup. Lansbury should have won, but hard to begrudge Duke's tremendous performance taking the gold.
Soul Man is yeah, a bad film. You can't get away with that shit in today's ultra-PC world. Especially with the revelations about Bill Cosby. What a piece of shit that motherfucker is. I hope Richard Pryor is up in heaven right now laughing his fucking ass off over what has happened to Cosby. Serves him right that self-righteous hypocritical motherfucker. I hope he enjoy them puddin' pops he's been trying to sell to kids.
Look, Patty Duke deserved the Oscar, but Angela deserved it more. Plus, I suspect Patty won in large part because that movie was such a two-hander that once voters decided they were checking off Bancroft's name (the right decision), they also felt compelled to reward Duke (the wrong decision, in my opinion), which is lazy voting as far as I'm concerned. Not to mention the Academy's strong preference (which had maybe waned somewhat by 1962 but not enough) for women playing virtuous roles, which I'm sure tipped the scales in Duke's favor.
And @ScottC, correct that Esparza has never won a Tony. Really makes you question what you think you know about the world.
I saw Soul Man theatrically. The 80s was a premium decade for a childhood.
For me, Angela Landsbury gave the best performance by an actress in a supporting role over put on film in The Manchurian Candidate. It's my favorite film and her performance is a big part of that. I was so entranced by her. I couldn't believe how great it was.
Jes V, Scott, Mareko -- i can't even with Raul Esparza's Tony loss. That's my least favorite Tony decision I think EVER.
Totally agree with you about Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky, Nathaniel. That was an egregious Oscar snub. Glad that she's managed to get two (very deserving) nods since. She's just absolutely wonderful to watch.
....but Angelina was heartbreaking in Changeling. That year was brutally competitive.
I'm just glad that someone here has the user name Feline Justice.
B.D. Wong, sit on my face.