As previously noted March 25th and today, March 29th, are the most common days on which to hold Oscar ceremonies. Both dates have seen five Oscar nights in the Academy's 89 year history. But those Oscar anniversaries aren't the only thing worth celebrating today.
On this day in showbiz history...
Colonel James Stewart in 1945
1889 Oscar winner Warner Baxter (In Old Arizona, 42nd Street) born in Columbus Ohio
1919 Oscar winner Eileen Heckart (Butterflies are Free, The Bad Seed) ALSO born in Columbus Ohio. C'mon Columbus! You go with your Oscar winners.
1945 Jimmy Stewart becomes a colonel in the US Air Force during World War II...
1948 Bud Cort, the Harold half of the great Harold and Maude (1971) born in New York
1951 All About Eve takes Best Picture of 1950 and a handful of other statues on Oscar night. But not, famously, the Best Actress prize. Feud poured lemon on that wound recently.
1955 Brendan Gleeson, fine actor and dad o' Domhnall, born in Dublin
1957 French actor Christopher Lambert, of Highlander and Greystoke fame, was actually born in Long Island on this day. He left the US when he was just 2.
1959 The immortal comedy classic Some Like It Hot opens in NYC movie theaters (it hits Los Angeles the following week). On the same day the fine Oscar nominated editor Tim Squyres (who cuts all of Ang Lee's movies) is born in New Jersey
1967 Oscar winning director Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) born in Paris
1971 Charles Manson was sentenced to death on this day after a nine-month long trial for the murder of seven people (including Roman Polanski's actress wife Sharon Tate who was 8 months pregnant). The sentence was later reduced to nine concurrent life sentences. He is 82 years old.) He's been the subject of several films since, especially on television. Gethin Anthony (Game of Thrones) recently played the serial killer on the crime drama Aquarius.
1974 Robert Redford dons the pink suit as The Great Gatsby, new in movie theaters
1976 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) becomes the second film to take the big five Oscars since It Happened One Night (1934) winning Actor, Actress, Picture, Director, and Screenplay prize. The Silence of the Lambs is the only other film to manage that quintet. Of those three pictures, the first and the last make sense as major sweepers but I've never understood it for Cuckoo's Nest.
...Mainly because that might be the best Best Picture lineup of all time so how do you sweep with that many great films surrounding you?
1981 Delicious German actor Alexander Fehling (Labyrinth of Lies, Homeland) born in Berlin
1982 It's a spread the wealth kind of night at the 54th annual Academy Awards when Best Picture contenders Reds, Chariots of Fire, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and On Golden Pond all take home 3 or 4 Oscars. Only Atlantic City went home empty-handed.
1985 Desperately Seeking Susan opens in movie theaters. Wee Nathaniel was there and READY to get into that groove. I took The Film Experience team to see it just last year in Manhattan at the new Metrograph and it really holds up both as a time capsule and as a damn good time.
1989 Rain Man takes Best Picture at the 1988 Oscars while Cocktail wins Worst Picture at the Golden Rasberries so it was kind of a draw for Tom Cruise that night
1993 Unforgiven steals Best Picture from the masterpiece Howards End at the 1992 Oscars and Marisa Tomei surprises with the win in Supporting Actress. This was also the Oscar night which saw Elizabeth Taylor receive her Jean Hersholt Huminatarian Award for her work in the fight against AIDS. Remember when Honorary Oscars used to be part of the ceremony? *sobs*
2002 Panic Room hits theaters. We should revisit that. It's the first of Jodie Foster's unofficial trilogy of thrillers set in enclosed spaces (panic rooms, bank vaults, airplanes)
2013 The Place Beyond the Pines starts its theatrical run. I forget what y'all thought of that one. I was mixed but it sure is stylish in parts
2019 Disney has currently claimed this day for the release of one of their live action versions of a fairy tale. Which one we do not yet know. Perhaps The Little Mermaid? Have you heard that Alan Menken wants Harvey Fierstein to play Ursula? That would be perfection. But if they don't go with a drag queen (which would be a brilliant move) that'd be a hard role to cast. And the movie will live or die based on that role, don't you think?
