Lunchtime Poll: What are the oddest Best Actress wins?
Friday, March 27, 2020 at 12:47PM Claudio recently celebrated Glenda Jackson's Oscar winning performance in Women in Love and we have to ask if you've ever seen Women in Love's trailer? We personally can't recall a time another time when critical pullquotes were wielded to shame people into praising something. Haha. Note that final blurb!
While most Oscar wins make sense given the context of their own years (for various reasons), they don't always make any sense in the grander scheme of Oscar history and taste. Women in Love stands as one of the strangest Oscars wins in its category given the nature of the role and the acting achievement. I'd argue that Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins is another odd duck, with no correlative elsewhere in Oscar taste. Who would you name as one of the strangest Oscar wins in Best Actress history (besides those two)? And why?
Reader Comments (60)
Louise Fletcher's win is an aching anomaly!
Luise Rainer in The Good Earth? At least from a historical perspective. Maybe I just think that because it's such an awful win, especially compared to the competition, fact that she won the year before, and that whole racist thing.
Kathy Bates in Misery. It's a great performance, but it's just unusual for a villainous performance to win.
Kathy Bates in Misery... Much deserved, but a really unusual character for Oscar to go for, in a genre film with no other Oscar nominations.
Kathy Bates in misery
Olivia Colmann in the Favourite is a little odd, but made sense
Gah, Robert A went with Kathy Bates...
So I'll switch it up and pick Elizabeth Taylor in BUtterfield 8. I understand the historical context of her win (overdue for a win, major hospitalization during the voting period) but the performance and film is awful and such an odd character for Oscar to award.
Should have been Shirley MacLaine for The Apartment that year.
Hardy -- but isn't she a prostitute? Oscar loves those.
Nathaniel R - I suppose you're right. She does have a heart of gold, sort of. And that "slut of all time" line is kinda echoed in Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar-winning performance in Silver Linings Playbook where she has the monologue about being unapologetically sexual.
I actually think the weirdest in Glenda Jackson's other win in A Touch of Class. Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets is a close second.
Not to slag on Glenda Jackson who is a great actress but her win for "A Touch of Class" is almost as odd as her win for "Women in Love." It's actually worse because 1970 had a pretty weak line-up of actress while in 1973 Jackson was up against Ellen Burstyn in "The Exorcist" and Barbra Streisand in "The Way We Were!" Unfathomable.
I think Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter qualifies as an inexplicable win. As Katrina Holstrom, a maid who winds up elected to Congress, Young’s performance is bland and burdened with an over the top accent that borders on buffoonish. Young was a minor actress cast in the romantic comedy which had been developed as a vehicle for Ingrid Bergman. The Oscar was widely expected to go to Rosalind Russell. It is a true head scratcher.
Kathy Bates in Misery was who came to mind first for me as well, for the reasons given.
Patricia Neal in Hud?
Glenda Jackson's win in 1973 is truly odd, especially considering that Barbra Streisand was right there. She fully deserved her Oscar in 1970.
Judy Holliday, probably the only accidental winner, after the vote was split between two iconic roles/performances. She is good, but clearly should have taken bronze at best.
While I perfectly understand Julie Christie's win (such a beautiful young lady in two major hits, and whose main competition have won the year prior), the Diana Scott character is not exactly the one you would expect to win over a highly loveable nanny, a sympathetic victim who tries to escape and a charming blind girl who has to deal with an abusive mother. That being said, Darling was popular at the time, and she's very charismatic in it, which help to explains the win, though I never cared much for this movie, which may explains why rewarding such an amoral character feels strange to me. I would have expected her to be nominated for Doctor Zhivago instead.
I lost to a tracheotomy.
Adding to others mentioned, Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and Brie Larson in Room always have struck me as unique.
Shmeebs - Partially agree on Brie Larson. The character’s arc, a mother/trauma victim, is within Oscar’s wheelhouse. But her function within the film and screentime in the second half always struck me as odd that she steamrolled through awards season. It’s Jacob Tremblay’s film.
I just find it very strange that they consistently feel the need to hand out second Oscars to people who really didn't deserve it (i.e. Sally Field, Hillary Swank, Frances McDormand, Renée Zellweger) in lieu of crowning fresh blood or overdue actresses. Spread the wealth, people!
Luise Rainer in The Great Ziegfeld!! The woman literally has one important scene! I have nothing against her as an actress and even with the yellow face I think her performance the next year in The Good Earth is beautifully done but in this she didn't even deserve a supporting actress nomination and that's where she belonged. A snapshot of studio power in the Golden Age.
Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle-She was up against Bette Davis in The Letter, Joan Fontaine in Rebecca and Kate Hepburn in Philadelphia Story for crying out loud!
Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter-Again she was up against some great work and hers is bland. Like Ginger this is a career award.
Shirley Booth in Come Back, Little Sheba-She was new to film and up against three of the biggest actress of the time-Davis, Crawford and Susan Hayward.
Glenda Jackson in A Touch of Class-I'll never understand even though I like her in the film.
Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby-The performance is nothing special and she's had such a flat career between this and Boys Don't Cry and afterward.
Glenda - but for A TOUCH OF CLASS, not WOMEN IN LOVE.
With 1970, the win is easy to rationalize - Alexander was arguably category fraud; LOVE STORY was divisive; RYAN'S DAUGHTER underperformed critically and commercially; and DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE was even more bizarre than WOMEN IN LOVE.
In 1973, however, Jackson had already won and was headlining a complete trifle of a film. Burstyn was one of the hottest up-and-comers, in a commercial smash; Streisand was THE hottest leading lady at that moment; Mason won the Drama Globe and her film was a sleeper hit; and Woodward earned raves and was arguably the critics' darling.
Julie Christie gives an absolutely perfect performance in "Darling".
Beyond Kathy Bates for Misery (Oscar just doesn't seem to like horror movies), I would also add Marie Dressler for Min and Bill. It's a good performance, but it's a role that Oscar hasn't warmed to since.
I don't raise this because of the role or the performance, and I get that the early 1960s were a time when Italian cinema was very much in vogue, but does Sophia Loren's win qualify? Awarding Best Actress to a performance in an Italian film is very unusual.
By the way, has anyone written a sort of long form piece on the year Grace Kelly won for The Country Girl? I mostly understand why she won - but I'd be interested in reading about that in more depth, considering the other nominees that year (not just Judy).
Jessica Lange - BLUE SKY
Does Sandra Bullock in Blind Side count? It's been ten years and we are still asking why she won.
She and her movie specifically made a lot of people money but I think it may be more because of vote splitting among her competitors. Who was second? Some think Gabby some think Carey and some think Meryl.
@ScottC Be Kind Rewind has a really good video essay on Kelly's win.
I think the oddest Oscar win in recent history is Frances McDormand in Fargo. I'm not saying she didn't deserve to win (although I'm not a fan, I still think Blethyn and Watson were far superior), but surely it's an unconventional character very different from the female winner usual standard.
The Jessica Lange comment is not me.
It seems innocuous enough that the poster could have used their own handle. Why hide behind some one else’s name?
Kathy Bates has always stood out to me as kind of odd. It's a horror movie, she plays the villain, she was fairly unknown to most moviegoers at the time, she was in her 40s (it seems most actresses who've won in their 40s were well-established stars at the time, either winning their second Oscar or their long overdue Oscar), and, I mean this with no disrespect, but she doesn't look like you're typical Best Actress winner either. I was too young at the time to know what the Oscars were, so maybe that year it made total sense but 30 years later it does seem a bit surprising.
The closest comparison is probably Louise Fletcher but she was also in an Oscar juggernaut, whereas Bates was the movie's only nomination.
I think its a great performance, a fun win, and I'm very happy Bates has an Oscar.
Gwyneth in 98.
Glenda Jackson in A TOUCH OF CLASS. It's totally watchable movie, and kind of fascinating because it is so of its time, but ... what a strange win! The reactions to her name being called from her fellow nominees sum it all up.
Patricia Neal was supporting... Natalie Wood should have won BA.
I've always thought Katherine Hepburn's win for Morning Glory an odd one (and I love Katherine Hepburn). On paper, the role makes sense - actress, ingenue - a star as born-eque story mirroring Kate's discovery. But the film and acting is so bad. I always assumed it must be great, but after watching it, I find it so odd that she won.
Thanks, Marshako!
Nathaniel this method of using critics opinions to sell art house cinema was very common in British movies of that period - look at the trailer for " Sunday, Bloody ,Sunday". "Women in Love" is an amazing film the nude wrestling scene between the two men is still more erotic than most explicit gay porn. Russell was using sex to communicated ideas. A true work of cinema art
Kathy Bates is an atypical win but not strange. Three of her rival nominees are previous winners. Had there been less hostility to Roberts' nomination she might have been more competitive for the win.
Jodie Foster. Horror movie, incredibly subtle performance. And it's a second win!
I adore the performance, but when did an actress win just by trying to solve a problem in close-up? Her main task is to portray intelligence and then put a lot of subtext without never defining it clearly. Maybe gay, maybe sexually repressed, always smart.
@Ferdi, you beat me to it. Frances McDormand is so great in Fargo but it’s such an atypical character with no huge arc and if I recall, she doesn’t even enter the picture until about 20 - 30 mins in, after all the action has been set up. There’s no big breakdown scenes or huge character development either. Blethyn and Keaton had the roles tailor-made for Oscar that year.
Jennifer Lawrence in SLP too. There really was nothing to that character, and she didn’t do anything to help that with her performance.
Grace Kelly in The Country Girl. Bland and shallow performance mistaken for great acting by using the old trick of playing against type . And yes, it should have been Garland. In Groucho's words, "the greatest robbery since Minsky's.
I agree Julie Andrews winning over the great Kim Stanley in SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON is laughable. But I think Glenda Jackson deserved to win in 1970, though Barbra Streisand should have bested her in 1973. Louise Fletcher? A weak year for women's roles. Diane Keaton winning for ANNIE HALL over Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Shirley Maclaine, and Marsha Mason was odd but Keaton has since proven herself in other roles. To me, a truly egregious win was Katharine Hepburn's purely sentimental 4th win in 1981 for ON GOLDEN POND when Marsha Mason's astonishing work in ONLY WHEN I LAUGH went overlooked. Criminal! I also think Diana Ross should have defeated Liza Minnelli in 1972, though LADY SINGS THE BLUES doesn't hold up as well as CABARET. Can't have everything.
Ralph, co-sign on 1981. Marsha Mason’s mesmerizing performance is one of my all time favorites. A terrible travesty she didn’t win.
McDormand is certainly interesting — never forget that she lost the Golden Globe that year to Madonna! But it’s a great performance and the movie doesn’t work unless we as the audience love and understand Marge.
Bates and Larson could also be a testament to the power of movies being based on very popular books (although this didn’t work for Rosamund Pike).
Bullock is interesting. Even if the Internet hated the movie, the Academy did (it got a Best Picture nom!) and was a box office smash — and, again, based on a very popular book. And while we could never suggest Blanchett shouldn’t have won for BLUE JASMINE, it makes me weirdly sad that because Bullock had just won a year prior, there wasn’t a lot of talk about her when she was nominated the following year for GRAVITY, which is her best dramatic performance.
What a great topic!
I get Glenda's first win, but it's her second one for A Taste of Class that baffles the hell out of me.
Othiefia Stoleman's win is also not gonna age well.
Still so fetch Fadhil!!! That nickname like totally is aging well :) :) :)
Julie Andrews - Mary Poppins
Faye Danaway - Network
Jodie Foster - The Silence of the Lambs
Frances McDormand - Fargo
Helen Hunt - Good at it gets
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Jennifer Lawrence - Silver L. Playbook
Brie Larson - The Room
I would like to add to this category:
Glenn Close - Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons
Michelle Pfeiffer - The Baker Boys and Batman Returns
Anjelica Huston - The Grifters
Sigourney Weaver - Alien
Charlize Theron - Mad Max: Fury Road
Emmanuelle Riva - Amour
Tilda Swinton - Julia
Fernanda Montenegro - Central Station
Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
Viola Davis - The Help
Lupita N'Yongo - Us
Louise Fletcher. Reverse category fraud is so unusual
HOLLIDAY4EVA FIELD4EVA FLETCHER4EVA
Yes Bullock was a very odd win - she had the statue in her pocket already weeks before... for a really bland performance & pretty dull movie !? And no one knows why... besides that she is popular and was never nominated before.... don't get me wrong I like her (or liked her before her face turned into a wax mask) - but I think her work was solid but not even worth a nomination.
Despite rave reviews and outstanding work from Sidibe (stunned so many), Mulligan (had every Audrey Hepburn new star vibe) & Meryl (who delivered my favourite most enjoyable and for a change so UPLIFTING Oscar performance that year) - I was torn between Mulligan (little did I know, she would stay with one nom.) & Streeps 3rd...