by Nathaniel R
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1985 is our "Year of the Month", as we work towards the Supporting Actress Smackdown (Sunday October 1st!). We'll be periodically peppering the blog with takes on showbiz from that year. But first a "TOTALLY 80s" overview of the year that was in movies, music, theater, and tv after the jump...
1985 IN MOVIES
Out of Africa was the fifth biggest hit of 1985 (yes in the 80s adult aimed dramas became blockbusters!), inspired fashion trends, kept Meryl's hot 80s streak growing, and won 7 Oscars!
Oscar: Out of Africa (11 nominations/7 wins), The Color Purple (11 nominations), Witness (8 nominations/2 wins), Prizzi's Honor (8 nominations/1 win), and the unlikely indie arthouse sensation Kiss of the Spider-Woman (4 nominations/1 win) made up the Best Picture shortlist.
...but if there'd been 6-10 nominees? 1985 presents a really tough challenge in this popular what-if game since the actual Best Picture nominees were so dominant. A Chorus Line had plenty of pre-release hype but then it opened for Christmas and disappointed critics and audiences -- and yet it still managed 3 nominations. Akira Kurosawa's Ran was the more likely just-miss with a very healthy nomination tally for a foreign language film (4 nods including Best Director). But perhaps the list would have ended with 6 pictures because unlike Ran none of the other films seem all that likely. Other films that had pockets of support but nothing like across-the-board momentum: the actor's branches liked Agnes of God and Runaway Train (3 noms each), Brazil was a critics darling (2 nominations), and the pop smashes Cocoon (2 nominations but it won both) and Back to the Future (4 nominations) were not taken as seriously at the time as they are now... isn't that always the case?!
Golden Globe: (drama) Out of Africa*, The Color Purple, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Runaway Train, and Witness (comedy/musical) Prizzi's Honor*, Back to the Future, A Chorus Line, Cocoon, The Purple Rose of Cairo
Top Box Office Hits:
- Back to the Future
- Rambo
- Rocky IV
- The Color Purple
- Out of Africa
- Cocoon
- The Jewel of the Nile
- Witness
- The Goonies
- Spies Like Us
- Police Academy 2
- Fletch
- A View to a Kill
- European Vacation
- Mask
- The Breakfast Club
- White Nights
- Pale Rider
- Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
- Brewster's Millions
Nathaniel: Because 1984-1986 is when I really became a movie mad nut, I have a hard time doing top ten lists... so much nostalgia for this falling in love with the movies time. But the movie I think about the most from this year are (in rough order of mental real estate): The Purple Rose of Cairo, Witness, The Breakfast Club, Ladyhawke, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Desperately Seeking Susan, Prizzi's Honor, Clue and Ran.
1985 IN TELEVISION
ad from the premiere of The Golden Girls (September, 1985)
Most Popular Shows:
The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Murder She Wrote, Cheers, Dallas, Dynasty, The Golden Girls, Miami Vice, Who's The Boss and the mini-series North and South was a ratings smash.
Debuting Series: Moonlighting, Jem and the Holograms, Mr Belvedere, Larry King Live, 227, The Golden Girls, Growing Pains, Misfits of Science, The Equalizer.
Series Finale of Long-Running Programs: Alice, The Jeffersons, The Dukes of Hazzard, and two animated series Super Friends and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
Emmy Winners
Drama Series: Cagney & Lacey finally knocks Hill Street Blues from its Emmy throne. Other nominees that year were: Magnum PI, St Elsewhere, and freshman Murder She Wrote (replacing Fame in the perennial lineup); Drama Actor: William Daniels, St. Elsewhere (1st of 2 consecutive wins); Drama Actress: Tyne Daly, Cagney & Lacey (3rd of 4 wins); Drama Supporting Actor: Edward James Olmos, Miami Vice (his only win); Drama Supporting Actress: Betty Thomas, Hill Street Blues (her only win from 7 nominations for this series - by the end of the decade she was transitioning to Directing and would later win an Emmy for that, too); Comedy Series: The Cosby Show unseats Cheers for its only win in this category (debut season) also beating Family Ties, Kate & Allie, and Night Court; Comedy Actor: Robert Guillaume, Benson (sixth and final nomination and second win for this character, though the first time was as a Supporting Actor before the character spun-off from the short lived but brilliant Soap); Comedy Actress: Jane Curtin, Kate & Allie (2nd consecutive win but this category was about to get a major overhaul with the steamrolling arrival of the The Golden Girls; Comedy Supporting Actress: John Laroquette, Night Court (1st of 4 consecutive wins for this character); Comedy Supporting Actress: Rhea Perlman, Cheers (2nd of 4 wins for this show); MINISERIES: The Jewel in the Crown; TV MOVIE: Do You Remember Love starring Joanne Woodward as a professor with Alzheimers
1985 IN THEATER
Tony Awards
Musical: Big River won against a category of otherwise forgotten musicals: Grind, Leader of the Pack, Quilters. It was such a dire year for musicals that they cancelled the Best Actress and Best Actor categories in musicals. No, really. They did!!! Featured Actress Musical: Leilani Jones in Grind; Featured Actor Musical: Ron Richardson in Big River; Play: Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues triumphs over a very famous group. The other nominees were As Is, Hurlyburly, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; Actress, Play: Stockard Channing in A Day in the Life of Joe Egg; Actor Play: Derek Jacobi in Much Ado About Nothing; Featured Actress Play: Judith Ivey in Hurlyburly; Featured Actor Play: Barry Miller in Biloxi Blues.
Yul Brynner was given a special Tony for his 4,525 performances in The King and I, a role for which he had previously won both the Tony and the Oscar. He would die just a few months later of lung cancer.
Lindsey Duncan and Alan Rickman were the original Merquise & Valmont. Close & Malkovich replaced them for the film version
Other New Plays: Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses premiered in London, and was quickly followed by both a Broadway transfer with the same leads (1987) and then the Oscar nominated movie adaptation (88) with a whole new cast. Wallace Shawn's Aunt Dan and Lemon opened Off Broadway.
1985 IN MUSIC
Top Singles of the Year
- "Careless Whisper" - George Michael
- "Like a Virgin" - Madonna
- "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" -Wham!
- "I Want to Know What Love Is" - Foreigner
- "I Feel For You" - Chaka Khan
- "Out of Touch" - Hall & Oates
- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -Tears for Fears
- "Money For Nothing" - Dire Straits
- "Crazy For You" - Madonna
- "Take on Me" - a-ha
- "Everytime You Go Away" - Paul Young
- "Easy Lover" - Philip Bailey and Phil Collins
- "Can't Fight This Feeling" -REO Speedwagon
- "We Built This City" - Starship
- "The Power of Love" - Huey Lewis *Oscar Nominated Original Song*
- "Don't You (Forget About Me)" - Simple Minds
- "Cherish" - Kool & The Gang
- "St Elmos Fire (Man in Motion)" - John Parr
- "The Heat is On" - Glenn Frey
- "We Are the World" - USA for Africa
Grammy Wins (held in February 86)
Album: Phil Collins "No Jacket Required" won over a field that included "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits, "Whitney Houston" by Whitney Houston, "The Dream of the Blue Turtles" by Sting, and "We Are the World" by USA for Africa (That was a whole album?! Weird); Record/Song of the Year: "We Are the World"; Best New Artist: Sade took the prize over a-ha, Freddie Jackson, Katrina and the Waves, and Julian Lennon. Curiosity: Whoopi Goldberg won a Grammy for Comedy Recording, one fourth of her EGOT.
Pulitzer: Stephen Albert for "Symphony No 1 RiverRun"
Music Video of the Year The Grammys voted for "We are the World" which is a silly music video to name as best. Best intentions, sure. The MTV Video Awards went with Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" (a hugely popular video at the time. Though weirdly it's not available on either YouTube or Vimeo)
1985 IN LITERATURE
Some Best Sellers: (no particular order) "Contact" (Carl Sagan), "The Class" Erich Segal, "The Cider House Rules" (John Irving), "If Tomorrow Comes" (Sidney Sheldon), "Family Album" (Danielle Steele), "Thinner," and "Skeleton Crew" (Stephen King), "Lucky" (Jackie Collins), "Lake Wobegone Days" (Garrison Keillor), "Texas" (James Michener), "The Mammoth Hunters" (Jean M Auel).
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: "Foreign Affairs" (Alison Lurie); Drama: "Sunday in the Park With George" (James Lapine & Stephen Sondheim); Biography "The Life and Times of Cotton Mather" (Kenneth Silverman); Poetry: "Yin" (Carolyn Kizer); Non-Fiction "The Good War: An Oral History of World War II" (Studs Terkel)