On this day, March 26th, in Oscar history only...
1938 Jezebel opens in movie theaters. We discussed it in the Smackdown of '38. The movie will win Bette Davis her second and sadly final Best Actress Oscar.
1958 The 30th annual Academy Awards are held honoring the Best of 1957...
Interracial romantic drama Sayonara leads the nominations but The Bridge on The River Kwai takes home Best Picture and six additional Oscars. We recently discussed this year via the Supporting Actress Smackdown. This Oscar year is notable for being the only time an Asian actress won an Oscar, the first time that the Best Picture and Best Director lists lined up exactly, and for Federico Fellini's second consecutive win in the new "Foreign-Language Film" category for Nights of Cabiria. Only one other director after him will manage two consecutive wins in the category (Ingmar Bergman from Sweden). Fellini would win twice more making him the all time leader in the category (his fellow Italian director Vittorio de Sica also received four but two were honoraries before it was a proper category).
1990 The 62nd Academy Awards are held honoring the Best of 1989. It's a very controversial year in Oscar history since Driving Miss Daisy wins Best Picture but Spike Lee's masterful Do the Right Thing isn't even nominated for the top prize or Best Director. Future Best Supporting Actress winner Kim Basinger actually complains about it live (see the clip above) while presenting the clip for Dead Poet's Society proving she was ahead of her time in more ways than just her future Oscar win.
2000 The 72nd Academy Awards are held honoring the Best of 1999. American Beauty is the night's big winner but falls one short of entering the very rare realms of "big five" winners, with Annette Bening losing Best Actress to Hilary Swank (Boys Don't Cry). 1999 is considered on the greatest years in film history but you absolutely wouldn't know it from the Best Picture field that year. Oscar voters majorly flubbed that season.
2010 How to Train Your Dragon opens in movie theaters. It becomes a word of mouth blockbuster and spawns two sequels, and all three of them will be up for the Best Animated Feature Oscar (the only animated trilogy to achieve that) though none will win the category. The Dragon films lost twice to Toy Story sequels (one entirely redundant) and Disney's Big Hero 6 the other time. (Disney and its subsidiaries have won 13 of the 19 Oscars in this category even when their competition was very strong; it's a default reflex for Oscar voters and will surely continue this year as well)
Oscar approved birthdays today...
Happy 36th to two time nominee Keira Knightley (Pride & Prejudice, The Imitation Game). Other key films include Pirates of the Caribbean and Atonement. Her career has been a bit quiet lately but we're rooting for a a juicy role and a third nomination soon. Up next: a holiday comedy with Matthew Goode called Silent Night.
Happy 51st birthday to Oscar winner Martin McDonaugh. His four Oscar nominations come from three different categories. He won the Best Short Film Oscar for Six Shooter (2004) and chased that with two nominations in Original Screenplay (In Bruges, Three Billboards) and one more in Best Picture (Three Billboards). His fourth feature film which will reunite his In Bruges stars, Farrell & Gleeson, is currently in pre-production.
Happy 77th to superstar Diana Ross, she was Oscar nominated in Best Actress for Lady Sings the Blues (1972) which was also her film debut. (Andra Day just repeated that exact trick, Oscar nominated for playing Billie Holliday in her film debut)
Happy 71st birthday to twice Oscar nominated composer Alan Silvestri (Forrest Gump, The Polar Express). Silvestri hasn't been able to get arrested by the Academy in a while but his career is still going strong. Recent credits include Flight, The Croods, Allied, Welcome to Marwen, Ready Player One, and three of the four Avengers movies.
Happy 79th to Oscar winning screenwriter Ronald Bass (Rain Man). Other famous films of his include My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998) and Dangerous Minds (1995)
Happy 81st to Oscar nominated actor James Caan (The Godfather). Other key films include Cinderella Liberty, Comes a Horseman, Thief, Rollerball Misery, Honeymoon in Vegas, The Way of the Gun, and his riveting vicious debut in Lady in a Cage.
Happy 87th to Oscar winner Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) who was nominated three additional times for The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and Argo)
and late showbiz people like...
Tennessee with Brando
Today in 1911, one hundred and ten years ago, Tennesee Williams was born in Mississippi. He would become an enormously successful and influential playwright and affect the careers of dozens of legendary actors. He was also nominated for two Oscars for the screenplays to A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Baby Doll (1956) both based on his own plays. We've written a lot about Tennessee over the years.
Today in 1942 Oscar nominated screenwriter Richard Boyle (Salvador) was born in San Francisco. Salvador was his only produced screenplay. He died five years ago in the Philippines.
Today in 1921, one hundred years ago, Oscar winning costume Designer Julie Harris (Darling) was born. More on her later today for her centennial.
Today in 1905, one hundred and sixteen years ago composer Larry Morley was born in Los Angeles. He was Oscar nominated twice in Best original Song (Bambi, So Dear to My Heart) and was also one of the six credited directors on Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)