If today, March 25th, is your birthday please brag about this fact...
Audrey Hepburn & Prince at their Oscar winning ceremonies
More Oscar ceremonies have been held on your birthday than any other day in history with the exception of March 29th, which has had the same amount of Oscar ceremonies: five. (Supposedly in 2022, these two March dates will have to share this peculiar honor in a three way tie with February 27th.)
1954 The 26th annual Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 1953...
From Here to Eternity, recently discussed, is the big winner with 13 nominations and 8 wins, though sadly the great Montgomery Clift loses yet again in Best Actor. This year also marked the debut and win of Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday), and the unofficial gay anthem "Secret Love" from Calamity Jane won Best Original Song. Ann Blyth (of Mildred Pierce Joan Crawford slapping fame) performed the Doris Day tune at the ceremony.
1985 The 57th Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 1984. Amadeus wins Best Picture and most agree that it's the best Best picture winner of the 1980s. Other notable things that happened this Oscar season: super brilliant documentary The Times of Harvey Milk won the Oscar in its category despite Oscar's intermittent homophobia; Prince won the very last "Best Original Song Score" Oscar for his immortal score to Purple Rain, a category that had existed infrequently and under several names; Dr Haing S Ngor became the only Asian winner of Best Supporting Actor (for The Killing Fields); this was the only time in history where EVERY nominee for Best Original Song was also a Billboard #1 hit. They were...
- "Against All Odds" - Against All Odds
- "Footloose" - Footloose
- "Ghostbusters" - Ghostbusters
- "I Just Called To Say I Love You" -Woman in Red
- "Let's Hear It For the Boy" - Footloose
1991 The 63rd Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 1990. Kevin Costner's western Dances with Wolves is the undisputed champ of the night winning 7 Oscars from its 12 nominations. But Ghost was the biggest box office hit among the nominees and Goodfellas the film with the best critical reputation to this day.
1996 The 68th Academy Awards were held 25 years ago today, honoring the best of 1995. It's one of yours truly's unhappiest Oscar nights as Braveheart remains the worst winner of my lifetime. The sadistically violent and homophobic epic took the prize that could have gone to a family film masterpiece in Babe or Ang Lee's lovely adaptation of Sense & Sensibility. Ah well. At least we had one of the best Best Actress races of all time that year (which we've discusssed many times).
2001 The 73rd Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 2000. Gladiator wins Best Picture but loses Best Director to Traffic. Meanwhile the best film in the lineup Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, has to settle for Best Foreign Language Film and three craft Oscars (Art Direction, Cinematography, and Score). We'll be discussing this Oscar year in the new season of the Supporting Actress Smackdown in the second week of May so get your rewatching in before then --- see the schedule here.
Happy 74th to Elton John!
Oscar's birthdays today...
Two time Best Original Song winner Elton John ("I'm Gonna Love Me Again" from Rocketman and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King), Oscar nominated producers Amy Pascal (Little Women, The Post), Robert Fox (The Hours), and Lawrence Gordon (Field of Dreams)
And late greats like... two time Best Director winner David Lean (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia), nominated screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt (Sunday Bloody Sunday), and Best Actress winner Simone Signoret (Room at the Top) but more on her later today...