Showbiz History: An epic Oscar battle + Brad Pitt
Friday, December 18, 2020 at 10:14AM 6 random things that happened on this day, December 18th, in showbiz history
1941 Thirteen year-old Shirley Temple, her contract bought out from Twentieth Century Fox after two 1940 flops, attempts her first "comeback" (though she'd only been gone from screens for a single year) with MGM in a film called Kathleen about a poor little rich girl. It also flopped. A few more hits were in her future but the writing was on the wall (she'd retire, for good, from movies by the age of 21)...
1969 Future Oscar hit Anne of a Thousand Days and the latest James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service with George Lazenby (the first of many to take up the 007 mantle after Sean Connery) both open in US theaters.
1973 Federico Fellini's Amarcord premieres in Italy (and comes to America about 10 months later and has a two-year Oscar run back when they allowed that for foreign-language films). Meanwhile Cinderella Liberty opens in the US. Both films score 3 Oscar nominations. We've written about both so why not click those links. Use our back catalogue when you need something to read ;)
1981 Press ethics drama Absence of Malice opens in movie theaters, expecting to be one of the biggest at the Oscars but it doesn't work out that way with just three nominations (Actor, Supporting Actress, and Screenplay). We discussed it just this summer on the podcast.
1985 Out of Africa and The Color Purple share an opening day in movie theaters. Both films end their runs among the top five grossers of the year with very similar box office hit dollars (remember when that happened to adult dramas? I guess only if you're Generation X or older. Sigh) They also compete at the Oscars with the same number of nominations (11!) though Out of Africa triumphs there with 7 wins while The Color Purple joins the history books in a tie as the most-nominated film without any Oscar wins.
2010 Katy Perry's "Firework" hits #1 on the Billboard 100
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 57th birthday to one of our greatest and most beautiful movie stars, Brad Pitt.
He's won two Oscars, Best Picture (12 Years a Slave) and Best "Supporting" Actor (Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood), and we hope he never retires. Up next: action flick Bullet Train (from the director of Atomic Blonde!) with a really fun ensemble which is about five assassins on a moving train and after that Damien Chazelle's Old Hollywood epic Babylon.
Other showbiz people born on this day: Legend Steven Spielberg (E.T., Schindler's List), legend George Stevens (Giant, A Place in the Sun), formidable character actress Gladys Cooper (Now Voyager, Song of Bernadette), Oscar winning cinematographer Walter Lassally (Zorba the Greek), Director Alan Rudolph (Choose Me), Jason Mantzoukas (Big Mouth, The House), pin up film star Betty Grable (How to Marry a Millionaire), Director Jules Dassin (Topkapi), character actor Ossie Davis (Do the Right Thing), Oscar nominated Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter), Oscar nominated Rachel Griffiths (Hilary & Jackie), rocker Keith Richards, rapper DMX (Romeo Must Die), Ray Liotta (Goodfellas), Director Gillian Armstrong (Little Women), Norwegian director Bent Hamer (Kitchen Stories, O'Horten), Emily Swallow (The Mandalorian), Peggy Cummins (Gun Crazy), Hunky Casper Van Diem (Starship Troopers, Tarzan and the Lost City), Katie Holmes (Dawson's Creek), film critic Leonard Maltin, and pop stars Sia, Christina Aguilera, and Billie Eilish... that's a lotta pop star for one day!
Reader Comments (25)
People need to consider ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE a go-to Christmas film. I can't watch FANNY AND ALEXANDER every year (though I know people who do) and I'd rather watch this than DIE HARD.
Controversial but I think Bujold should have won the 69 Best Actress Oscar.
I miss Sally Field movies of the 80's.
You can never have enough of Beautiful Brad.
I've seen three of Shirley Temple's teenage movies: Since You Went Away, I'll Be Seeing You, and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. She still had good screen presence in all of them.
Out of Africa and The Color Purple opened on the same day? I'll have a tequila shot now in honor of the things we lost in the fire.
Oprah deserved that 1985 Oscar!
Prizzi's Honor should have swept. Brazil should have got 11 nominations.
@ markgordonuk- I'd be ok with her winning too.
@ cash- I agree with you. Temple had a great screen charisma that only true stars have. I do wish she had done more movies in her adult life ( she was considered for Veda in Mildred Pierce!) but she had already spent a decade in the business. I totally understand her wanting to retire early.
Happy birthday to Gladys Cooper one of my favorite character actresses. Someone needs to make a gif of her performance in Mrs Parkington going "I think we stink!" over and over again.
Lots of big name birthdays today.
A terrific Showbiz History post today, Nathaniel! Given the headline, and the poster, my first thought was, well, yes, On Her Majesty's Secret Service should have figured in an epic Oscar battle! For my money, it's better than Midnight Cowboy (which I do like) and it should have won about eight Oscars.
I never knew that The Color Purple and Out of Africa opened on the same day. But I am one of the ones who remembers just how giant adult dramas (including with women in leading roles) could be at the box office in the 1980s. The box office charts have really taken a step backwards since those times. I just don't know why that is. Whenever people say, these days, that more women should headline major films, of course I agree but I also lament the loss of when it did happen with some regularity (which doesn't mean things were all rosy for women actors back then, but it seems Hollywood respect their abilities more).
As for that year's Oscars: I haven't seen Kiss of the Spider Woman, but I think that Out of Africa is the best of the other nominees. I feel that Prizzi's Honor is very witty and daring but tonally it's a bit unsure of itself; that Witness is a solid thriller but not exceptional, and that The Color Purple is too prettified.
As for Amarcord, I just bought Criterion';s gigantic Essential Fellini box set and I'm looking forward to rewatching Amarcord, as it's been possibly twenty years since I last saw it.
Casper Van Dien... Good memories of my childhood/teen years...
Online there are many pictures of the young Gladys Cooper and there is a great strange resemblance to the young Lady Di. Gladys was one of those actresses who found herself in the movies playing the mother of actors many times with very little difference in age or even older than her. From her vast filmography, I would highlight, among the least remembered films - two great hits in their times, both nominated for Best Picture and winners of one award each, Best Actress(Ginger Rogers) and Best Sound, respectively, Kitty Foyle (1940) and The Bishop's Wife (1947). Important supporting characters so similar that they could have gone straight from one flick to the other.
We hope Dat Azz™ (pictured) never retires, tbh.
I'd prefer Brad Pitt to leave the cinema instead of Cameron Diaz. I can't see any talent in him. The Oscar he received this year was really "Brad is a very good fellow". He'll never be better or on the same level as Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino and Joe Pesci in anything.
Shirley Temple's adult film career was a rocky variable one but one not helped by 20th Century Fox who should have put more care and effort in helping her bridge the gap from child to adult after all the profits her films had brought in. She did have some good films mixed in with the ordinary especially The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer which really showed what careful handling and good direction could bring out of her but according to her very readable autobiography "Child Star" by the time she turned 21 she'd lost the zest and drive for moviemaking. She had a disastrous first marriage and had no desire to see the same thing happen to her second plus she wanted to focus on her children. She kept her hand in somewhat until her interest in politics took hold. She made many positive impacts there and as a goodwill ambassador as well as raising awareness regarding breast cancer when she refused to hide the fact that she suffered from if and had required a mastectomy freeing the diagnosis being cloaked in shame as it had been previously.
Casper Van Dien, such a handsome man should have become a superstar. In the 1940s / 50s he would have become in the same molds as Guy Madison, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, George Peppard, Alan Ladd...
Tarzan is the kind of thing that when you are a child or quite young and discovering about the world and about yourself and gay you can watch without arousing suspicion in the family. Like those epics shot in Italy in the 1950s / 1960s with handsome muscular men in loincloths.
Still unbelievable tp me that The Color Purple didn't win any Oscars. I would have given it Best Supporting Actress (for Margaret Avery), Best Actress and Best Original Song (Miss Celie's Blues). At least Angelica Huston and Geraldine Page were Oscar worthy but that Lionel Ritchie dreck Say You, Say Me should never even have been nominated. Crazy For You or Don't You Forget About Me should have taken its place.
Gladys Cooper created the best ever Monster Mum in Now Voyages.
Casper Van Dien, had the look but not the chops. Just another disposable pretty boy.
Brad Pitt, the look and the chops. Plus, he's fucking hilarious.
Something tells me that the Oscars really fucked up in choosing Out of Africa over The Color Purple though there were so many good films that year that could've been nominated instead of Out of Africa. I never saw that film and it's probably going to be a long time before I ever decide to see it. It looks boring.
thevoid99: See it! It might just sweep you up in its romantic swirl.
I still can't believe you were going to axe your best regular pieces! We've already suffered the dumping of your masterpiece in the making, Seasons of Bette, don't make 2020 more '2020'! ;)
I saw Out of Africa recently for the first time and despite its many flaws, it is truly an epic of a bygone era with bonafide movie star performances from Streep and Redford. It's so movingly romantic even if slow.
Beautiful movie posters.
I always use your back catalogue to find reading material. Access to past Film Bitch Awards would probably quadruple my visits and crash the site lol
A whole boatload of talent born on this day.
That Color Purple shut-out was so ugly. How did Miss Celie's Blues not win Best Original Song??? Out of Africa is a tired colonial fantasy dressed up in a romantic bow.