Showbiz History: Warren Beatty's habitual Oscar fate, 1954's lame Best Picture lineup, and more...

4 random things that happened on this day, March 30th, in showbiz history

1946 The 3rd annual Golden Globes were held on this day honoring The Lost Weekend, 75 years ago. It was AFTER the Oscars. How bizarre right? But the Globes were more like the NBR at the start announcing winners (no nominees) in advance of a banquet.  

1955 The 27th Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 1954 On the Waterfront leads the nominations and wins an incredible 8 Oscars.  Though the Academy nominates all the wrong movies as its competition so it had an easy time of it. The Best Picture lineup went like so...

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Actors Turned Producers @ the Oscars

by Cláudio Alves

We've already posted about many records broken with this year's Oscar nominations, but one particular achievement remained unmentioned. With her double nominations for Nomadland – for Best Picture and Best Actress – Frances McDormand became the first woman to earn an acting and a Best Picture nomination for the same project. This comes after a decade when this feat became incredibly common for male performers. Historically, ever since the 1950s, when AMPAs started to list producers with Best Picture nods, instead of merely the studios' name, actors have been producing their movies and earning added honors for those efforts. Still, it was only in the late 60s that someone scored the elusive double citation by the Academy…

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Showbiz History: Liza Minnelli, Broadway behemoths, and a wedding for Hollywood Royalty

7 random things that happened on this day, March 12th, in showbiz history...

1946 To Each His Own opened on this day 75 years ago. It would win Olivia de Havilland the first of her two Best Actress Oscars. 

1969 The 11th Grammy Awards are held. "Mrs Robinson" by Simon & Garfunkel wins Record of the Year and "Hair" wins Original Cast Show album... 

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Will Regina King be nominated for Best Director? It'd be a first in more than one way.

by Eurocheese

All Oscar season, I’ve heard a comment that didn’t sit quite right with me. When discussing Regina King’s Oscar chances for a Best Director nomination, the belief was that because she is a well-known actress, her nomination was more likely. Is that true, when we look at previous Best Director nominees? My knee jerk reaction has been 'tell that to Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper', two of the most surprising Oscar snubs in the category over the last decade. Does Best Director typically resist award winning actors? And would King be an unusual choice for a nominee? My answer to both questions is yes, and before you object, I brought receipts.

There have certainly been acclaimed actors (mostly white males, of course) that have crossed from the acting world to become acclaimed directors. Examples typically fall into a few specific categories...

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When Bening met Beatty

by Cláudio Alves

Barry Levinson's gangster biopic Bugsy was the most nominated movie at the 1991 Oscars, ten nods in total, including Picture, Director, and Actor. While most of the big categories were won by The Silence of the Lambs, Levinson's picture still took home two statuettes. They were for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Costume Design, rightful rewards for a glamourous recreation of 1940s Hollywood and the nascent Las Vegas. Unlike Dennis Gassner, Nancy Haigh, and Albert Wolsky, the movie's star left the Academy Awards ceremony with no new little golden man of his own. Nonetheless, Warren Beatty might have gotten a greater reward out of Bugsy than any of the Oscared cineastes.

After all, it was during the shooting of Bugsy that the man once considered to be Hollywood's hottest bachelor finally met his match and future wife, the one and only Annette Bening…

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