TINSELTOWN'S ANNUAL TURMOIL

At Hollywood’s very first academy award presentation affair in 1929, Janet Gaynor was accorded best actress honors for the past two-year period. With radio only an infant back then, and television no more than a gleam in David Sarnoff’s eye, the surrounding publicity could have been minimal at the most. We’ve also learned that Miss G went straight home and to bed following the ungala ceremony, because she had to be on another film set early in the morning.

In absolute contrast today, this whole Oscar business begins around January each year, as a covert buzz-buzz over who the nominees and winners might be. The hubbub then steadily grows and the suspense mounts considerably until that climactic early spring evening when Hollywood’s answer to the Super Bowl takes place in regal splendor, with far more pizzazz and hoopla than we feel is deserved.

Please don’t misunderstand, Folks. This fellow actually likes good movies, and thoroughly appreciates superb acting performances. We can’t help having reservations, though, about the overblown importance of the final winner names read from the heretofore closely-guarded secret envelopes, followed by gasps and shrieks, not to mention some “oh, nuts” shrugs.

Although we never fail to watch the annual spectacle, to us it’s just a show, not a nail-biter while waiting to see who has won out, category-by-category. Furthermore, our interest focuses solely upon the actors, actresses, and directors. We couldn’t care less about the color cinematography, the sound level monitoring, the dialogue editing, or whatever else the industry chooses to honor.
As for those select groups that capture our attention, we don’t really cheer over which persons end up emoting to the audience, but rather all five nominees in each case. We deem each one a winner, simply for the worthiness consideration bestowed by his or her peers.

According to what we once heard, actor Jack Oakie burst into tears at the ceremony, upon learning that someone else had been awarded the male supporting role Oscar for 1940, thus purportedly exceeding his performance in The Great Dictator. Why a grown man should become so unduly unglued over a lousy mantelpiece token lies beyond our comprehension, when simple nomination constitutes an honor unto itself in our book.

With such reasoning in mind, for some years we’ve been maintaining a private record, subject to annual update, of course, showing each actor, actress, and director nominee’s name. Who won? The hell with that. Our files don’t even mention which persons took the little bronze gizmos home with them.

We’re quite aware, though, that petty politics, personal rivalries, and fabricated prejudices often play a part in the yearly nominating and voting process, with deserving parties occasionally being overlooked. There has long seemed to be strong collective feeling against Barbra Streisand, for whatever small-minded reasoning might apply. Madonna failed to earn the slightest recognition for her memorable Evita role. Perhaps the moralist viewpoint held sway there, since she’s not exactly a candidate for casting as the Virgin Mary. We’ve never managed, however, to fathom why Debbie Reynolds was completely shunned, despite her performance in Mother.

One of Bette Davis’ many nominations was for her obnoxious characterization in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? We’ve read that if co-star and sworn enemy Joan Crawford had had her way, Miss Eyes would have received nary a mention, actually launching a hate campaign against her. It’s also unlikely that inimical sisters Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland would ever have supported or voted for each other.

Anyway, the dirty end notwithstanding, we hold to the opinion that the film industry’s worthiest actors, actresses, and directors are best determinable by the relative number of nominations received over the years.

Unfortunately, such simplified methodology disqualifies the Gables, the Stewarts, the Bogarts, and a wide array of competent actresses. Still, that’s how the mop happens to flop.

In case any reader isn’t so aware from other available sources, our private list by chosen category appears below, the sole criterion being five or more yearly nominations.

ACTORS
Jack Nicholson (12)
Laurence Olivier (10)
Paul Newman, Spencer Tracy (9)
Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Peter O’Toole, Al Pacino (8)
Richard Burton, Dustin Hoffman (7)
Michael Caine, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Paul Muni (6)

ACTRESSES
Meryl Streep (15)
Katharine Hepburn (12)
Bette Davis (11)
Geraldine Page (8)
Ingrid Bergman, Jane Fonda, Greer Garson (7)
Ellen Burstyn, Judy Dench, Deborah Kerr, Jessica Lange, Vanessa Redgrave, Thelma Ritter,
Norma Shearer, Maggie Smith, Sissy Spacek, Kate Winslett (6)

DIRECTORS
William Wyler (12)
Billy Wilder (8)
David Lean, Fred Zinneman (7)
Woody Allen, Clarence Brown, Frank Capra, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg (6)
Robert Altman, George Cukor, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Elia Kazan, George
Stevens, King Vidor (5)

Despite our unalterable rules, we must apologize for any reader’s favorites who’ve been left off.