1972: Soaked in Booze with "The Ruling Class"

TFE will be periodically looking back at the 1972 film year before we hit the Supporting Actress Smackdown at month's end. Here's Anna from Defiant Success

Adapted from the play of the same name by Peter Barnes (who also serves the film’s writer), Peter Medak’s The Ruling Class establishes its bizarre nature early on. The plot kicks off after Ralph Gurney, the 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) accidentally hangs himself while performing autoerotic asphyxiation. Upon his death, his only surviving son Jack (Peter O’Toole) becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney. One problem with this new arrangement: Jack firmly believes that he’s Jesus Christ...

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Showbiz History: Star Wars' Oscar Ceremony & Matthew Goode's Birthday Suit

8 random things that happened on this day in history (as it relates to showbiz). Happy April 3rd!

1882 Jesse James is Assassinated by the Coward Robert Ford (Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck recreating that for you above circa 2007).

1930 The 2nd Oscars are held with Broadway Melody taking Best Picture. (No film won more than 1 Oscar at that ceremony but that's less crazy than it sounds since there were only 7 categories then.)

1942 Zoltan Korda's The Jungle Book opens in movie theaters. It certainly won't be the last film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's wild boy and jungle animals adventure but it receives the most Oscar nominations of any of them by far in four categories (Cinematography, Production Design, Visual Effects, and Original Score)

After the jump the historic 50th Oscar ceremony. So much good trivia awaits you...

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Showbiz History: Faye's win, Winona's debut, Gaga's birth, and Angelina's first nuptials

7 random things to celebrate on this day in showbiz history...

And the winner is... Faye Dunaway in Network

1920 Silent superstars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford marry. Their marriage last only 16 years but their only child together is still going strong: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences! We kid sort of. They were the two most famous of the 36 founding members of the Academy, originally the brainchild of producer Louis B Mayer though the Oscars were not initially the main idea of the group...

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Great Acceptance Speeches: Dustin Hoffman, "Kramer vs. Kramer"

We asked Team Experience to share their favourite Oscar acceptance speeches as we countdown to Hollywood's High Holy Night. Here's Ben Miller...

Dustin Hoffman had an incredible run of films at the start of his career.  After breaking through with The Graduate in 1967, he followed that with the legendary Midnight Cowboy, and steadily continued on with Little Big Man, Straw Dogs, Papillion, Lenny, All the President’s Men and Marathon Man.  When 1979 rolled around, he was 42 years old and already had three Best Actor nominations under his belt.

Hoffman was no fan of the Academy at the time.  In the midst of his 70’s run, Hoffman called the Oscars a garish and embarrassing evening.  He even drew the ire of Frank Sinatra during the 1975 ceremony.  Despite that, the Academy didn’t mind all that much as they nominated him again in 79 for Kramer vs. Kramer, and this time they gave him the award...

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5 days til Oscar! The Sound of Music, Cuckoo's Nest and More...

The Sound of Music won exactly 5 Oscars, lost exactly 5 Oscars, and won in a year ending in the number 5Today's magic number is 5 and it's too overwhelming a number in Oscar lore for a list of trivia items since it's the 'traditional' size of Oscar shortlists in every Oscar category with the exception of Best Makeup and Hairstyling. We've harped on that one before but we consider it brazenly insulting that Oscar views those craftsmen as the bastard stepchildren of the industry since they've never been allowed more than 3 nominees despite literally every live action film using their services. Several categories have experimented with varying sizes of their nominated lists over the years (Best Picture under the current rules, being obviously the most prominent and inconsistent *sigh* but the number five can safely be called one of Oscar's favourite things...

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