Best Actress Oscar Trivia — Page 2

Here's one: This 70's actress snubbing for a Best Actress nomination prompted an unsuccessful petition from fellow actors to get her on the bill? Which actress and what movie?

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Updated On: 1/28/08 at 03:43 PM

Well played Master Dogs.

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I was gonna guess Bette Davis for OF HUMAN BONDAGE, but that was back in the '30s.

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Julie Christie certainly deserves the Oscar more for this performance than when she won for the utterly mediocre Darling.

For me, it's Christie 100%. It was spectacular work, and the kind of performance that really lingers in the memory. Cotillard was a very good, showy performance.

I still think that Amy Adams deserved a nomination for what was, essentially, a high-wire act. Could have gone so wrong, but she pulled it off like a charm.

Ah, no, meant ALICE/DANGEROUS

Ray---I agree that Tomei deserved it. She was great in the movie, and she elevated it to a higher level whenever she was on the screen. That's the sign of a wonderful supporting player... you show up on screen, an immediately the movie gets better.

I felt that way about Whoopi in "Ghost." Well-deserved Oscars.

I think Marissa distinguished herself in a year filled with "international heavy-hitters." She was the broad from Brooklyn. The one doing something different from the others in her category.

I'm just glad that comedic performances are honored from time to time. I wish it happened more often, truthfully.

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I love Bette in OF HUMAN BONDAGE.

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Neddy, I actually found JUNO to be rather poignant about teen pregnancy, poignant and non-cliched. I don't think the film tried to be a representation of ALL cases of teenage pregnancy (which is where every other film about the issue fails so profusely). Page's struggle in particular felt very real to me.

Regardless, I am ashamed at the amount of attention this terrible film has been getting.


Updated On: 1/29/08 at 09:56 PM

Updated On: 4/12/08 at 01:28 AM

The testimony is fabulous, really. But to me every scene in MY COUSIN VINNY that features Tomei is pure gold. Honestly, her reading of the last line alone "a burp is spontaneous, and a burp isn't romantic" leaves me with no doubt that she deserved that award. It is just a precious performance.

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"And I have read that Warner was the reason Davis didn't get nommed--he was angry that she went to RKO to do the film, and it's not like they ever got along anyway...but maybe I'm wrong--it's Jack Warner, there's about four sides to every story."

lildogs---First of all, Jack Warner agreed to loan Bette Davis to RKO for "Of Human Bondage," so he wouldn't have been angry that she went to do the film. He negotiated the deal. This movie made her a star, and Jack couldn't have been happier, because she was under contract to him. Both Warner Bros. and RKO were sure Davis was going to win the Oscar that year. But the Academy was run (mostly) by MGM back then. They dominated the early awards and nominations... and this was the "straw that broke the camel's back," as far as Jack Warner was concerned. He basically told them to stop their little "MGM party" or he would withdraw his studio from the Academy.

I'm not saying I was there and heard all this... but my grandfather was. He was the first Executive Vice President and Treasurer of Warner Bros. He was with the studio from the very beginning until he retired in 1955. He was in charge of all the money, and he ran the NY office with Albert Warner, as well as handled all European distribution for the studio. He decided Davis's salary, Crawford's, and the budgets for all the films.

To this day, I wear the gold watch that Jack Warner gave him when he retired in 1955. His last project with the studio was Garland's "A Star Is Born."

I'm not claiming to have all the facts straight, but this is the story, as I heard it. I was 18 when my grandfather died, so I never did get to ask him all the questions I wanted to. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time. It's only now, years later, when I see all these films, that I realize what an incredible era he lived and worked in.

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Jack Warner was "a piece of work," there's no denying it. And yes, I have stories (most of them are well-known already) that would curl your toes. But that article (and many speculative historians) seem to paint Davis as a "diva bitch" from the start. She wasn't. This move "Of Human Bondage" is what made her a star. She was fairly new at Warner Bros. and had starred in only a couple of films prior to this one. She asked Jack Warner if she could do it, and he did think it was an inferior project, but he agreed because they offered decent money for her (and she was BARELY known back then).

That's the difference between this "Davis loan-out" and the "Gable loan-out" that happened at MGM. Gable was a HUGE established star, and to loan him out for (what was perceived by Mayer as) a throw-away, light romantic comedy WAS punishment in Louis B. Mayer's eyes.

For Jack Warner, it was a so-so film project that wanted one of his up-and-coming, leading lady contract players for it. When the film came out, he was thrilled because she was HIS. She was under contract to Warner Bros., and this "mediocre" film had made her a star. He figured if she could take crappy material like that and turn it into gold, he really had something there. So Warner Bros. along with RKO helped spin the buzz about her. He wanted her to win the Oscar, and was in her "corner" if for no other reason than she was a new hot commodity for him.

Of course AFTER this film, she got handed "Dangerous" and a few other so-so Warners projects, and that's when the fighting began between them. She knew she was worth something at this point, and she complained loudly about the roles he was giving her. Even after she won the Oscar for "Dangerous." And yes, it's true, they fought a LOT. Jack wanted to fire her, but she was making too much money for Warner Bros. My grandfather and Harry Warner usually jumped in and told him he couldn't let her go. She had the powerful ability (at that point) of turning so-so "women's pictures" into big box office hits.

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Updated On: 1/29/08 at 11:36 AM