Showbiz History: Grand Hotel's win, Robert Pattinson's Debut, Delroy Lindo's first Spike Lee joint
Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 8:00AM 7 random things that happened on this day, November 18th, in showbiz history...
1932 The fifth annual Academy Awards are held at the Ambassador hotel honoring the films released between August 1931 and July 1932. Grand Hotel wins Best Picture. It's the only Best Picture ever to win the top prize that was only nominated for that one Oscar and won of only three top winners to win only one statue (the others were Broadway Melody at the 2nd annual Oscars and Mutiny on the Bounty at the 8th Oscars). As we've said multiple times, it's too bad there weren't supporting Oscars back then because Joan Crawford sure was more than worthy in the all star ensemble. The only film to win multiple Oscars that night was the pre-code relationship drama Bad Girl which took Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. (The next ceremony would have a long eligibility period because Oscar wanted to move to the full January to December calendar year system)...
1959 Ben-Hur premiered in NYC and would go on to become the top box office attraction of 1959 and sweep the Oscars the following April with 11 wins. No film has ever bested that total though Titanic (1997) and Return of the King (2003) eventually tied it.
1980 Heavens Gate premieres in NYC and plays for just one week before United Artist pulls it from theaters due to negative reception and sparse audiences. Very strangely it doesn't showup elsewhere until the following year when it plays Cannes, then flops in US (but becomes Oscar eligible) and then receives 1 Oscar nomination to its 5 Razzie nominations for the 1981 film year. Now it has many defenders. Strange trajectory!
1983 It was a crowded Friday at theaters for new movies. The new releases were: A Christmas Story (which became a classic), Nate and Hayes starring Tommy Lee Jones, A Night in Heaven (male stripper drama and something of a camp classic), Sleepaway Camp (something of an infamous slasher flick), and the now forgotten horror flicks Amityville 3D, and some sci-fi horror flick called The Being which had several old Old Hollywood stars in it. Amityville 3D topped the charts with huge hit / future Oscar contender The Big Chill (in it's 8th week !!!) still at number #2.
1992 Malcolm X is released on Delroy Lindo's 40th birthday. It was his 8th film and first Spike Lee joint. Cut to now: He has Oscar buzz for Spike Lee's latest Da 5 Bloods.
2005 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opens in theaters featuring the screen debut of Robert Pattinson as "Cedric Diggory". I think we can all agree he's had an interesting and eventful career since.
2011 Happy Feet Two, a sequel to the Oscar-winning animated film opens in theaters. I have no recollection whatsoever of this movie existing or what happens in it. Do you?
Today's Birthday Suit
Chlöe posing for Allure 15 years ago
Happy 46th to Nineties and Aughts hipster icon Chlöe Sevigny. Have you seen her in the new Luca Guadagnino HBO series We Are Who We Are?
Actors celebrating birthdays today: Noemie Schmidt (30), Pablo Lyle (34), Robert Kazinksy (37), Damon Wayans Jr (38), Nasim Pedrad (39) Allison Tolman (39), Jun'ichi Okada (40), Nate Parker (41), Miranda Raison (43), Steven Pasquale (44), Chlöe Sevigny (46), Goran Kostic (49), Peta Wilson (50), Owen Wilson (52), Tim Guinee (58), Elisabeth Perkins (60), Tohoru Masamune (61), Delroy Lindo (68), Andrea Marcovvi (72), Linda Evans (78) and Brenda Vaccaro (81)
Other showbiz people with birthdays today: Fashion designer Christian Siriana (35), Director Julia Ducournau (37), Personality Megyn Kelly (50), Writer/Producer Steven Moffat (59), Pop singer Kim Wilde (60), Composer Carter Burwell (66), Comic writer Alan Moore (67), Cinematographer Jack N Green (64), Novelist Margaret Atwood (81)
Gone but not forgotten: Trailblazing Oscar-winning screenwriter Frances Marion (The Big House, The Champ) born on this day in 1888, Imogen Coca (Your Show of Shows) born on this day in 1908, Oscar-winning ongwriter Johnny Mercer (Breakfast at Tiffany's) born on this day in 1909), Mexican icon Pedro Infante (Pepe el Toro) born on this day in 1917, David Hemmings (Blow-up) born on this day in 1941.
Reader Comments (11)
I love you, Chlöe! I hope the guy who ripped your gown at the Globes is still doing time.
Sleepaway Camp has a truly shocking WTF ending that might not play so well now.
I saw Happy Feet 2. I remember a puffin who thinks it's a penguin and Brad Pitt & Matt Damon as a pair of lost krill. It's vastly inferior to the first film.
When you run out of smackdowns, would love to hear a special on the years before the supporting awards were started.
Um, Mutiny on the Bounty also won Best Picture and nothing else.
Bad Girl is pre-code, but there's nothing naughty or "bad" about it. It's a very bland comedy/drama about some newlyweds and their first years of marriage. At least that's what little I remember of it. So forgettable. I like Grand Hotel but my choice that year for Picture/Director is easily the delirious Shanghai Express. How Borzage could win - for a second time - over Sternberg is truly astonishing - and not in a good way.
I believe it should be spelled "Marcovicci" for the great cabaret singer Andrea Marcovicci who used to sing at the now defunct Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel. She also appeared opposite Woody Allen in The Front.
But "Mutiny On the Bounty" was also nominated for 7 other Academy Awards while "Grand Hotel" got 1 nomination and the win.
I just love Grand Hotel. Maybe because I spent so much time working in them. If supporting categories existed Crawford and Lionel Barrymore would probably have walked away with trophies.
"Grand Hotel" is truly grand and now that is an all star cast..."Heaven's Gate" might have failed but at least Cimino was aiming a great American epic- when was the last time anyone tried to do that?
Uh, I think Pattinson made his big-screen debut in Vanity Fair by Mira Nair starring Reese Witherspoon that came out the year before.
The premiere of Heaven's Gate is infamous as it arrived at that theater with its print dripping wet as Cimino had finally finished it (in its 219-minute original cut) and by the time it reached its intermission. Cimino asked "how come no one is drinking champagne?" Someone then replied "because people hate the movie Michael". It arrived with a bad reputation already and having to then re-cut the film into a 149-minute running time six months after its initial one-week release. Oh... it did worse.
I am one of those people that does enjoy the film, flaws and all. It is a monumental film that is about some of the darkest aspects of American history that not many people want to go into. It probably has a lot more relevance in recent years in the way Americans treat immigrants. Still, it didn't deserve the reputation it got. Yes, Cimino got out of control and became an egomaniac during the production but he did create something incredible. Plus, he would make 2 more films that I think deserve some re-evaluation and praise in Year of the Dragon and the extended version of The Sicilian.
thevoid -- well, i usually use "credited" appearances as the debut.