99 days til Oscar - let's get drunk
Saturday, November 2, 2019 at 1:31PM The number 99 always makes us think of that roadtrip sing-a-long "99 bottles of beer on the wall" which naturally leads to the question... what's the best booze-soaked performance of all time?
In recent years our answer would totally be Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine (2013) who justly careened right into her second Oscar. Screen drunks are actually rather commonly beloved by the Academy factoring into many Oscar-nominated roles but the list of winners is shorter. After the jump a (complete?) list of completely inebriated Oscar wins. How would you rank them?
Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend (1945)
Claire Trevor, Key Largo (1948)
Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind (1956)
Lee Marvin, Cat Ballou (1965)
Sandy Dennis, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Elizabeth Taylor, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Dianne Weist, Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Nicolas Cage, Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
James Coburn, Affliction (1999)
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart (2009)
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine (2013)
Tilda Swinton in Julia (2009) -- our gold medalist that year -- would've looked so perfect on that list but, alas, she wasn't even nominated.
Reader Comments (43)
Claire Trevor, Key Largo. So, so great.
I'd like to say I really dislike Cage in LLV that film is all about Shue,I don't think he should have got the Oscar either,Why do some considerate a masterclass,is there something i'm missing,I have the same trouble with the equally overly lauded McDormand in both her winning roles.
Anne Baxter in The Razor's Edge! Her descent into alcoholism and attempts at recovery must have been shocking at the time because they still seem so real and honest now.
Terribly unPC these days, but Dudley Moore would have been a worthy winner for "Arthur". Still quotable movie!
Maggie Smith is a wonderful drunk in California Suite - she hits so many emotional beats
I only have seen Bullets Over Broadway from this list so Dianne Wiest would be my #1.
When I read the title of the post inmediatelly think in the movie Drunks wich is actually my favorite film about alcoholism and curiously the ensemble includes Wiest too.
BAXTER4EVA
Martha, Martha, Martha — especially several drunks into the night and she puts on her “Sunday chapel dress,” per George
I just rewatched Blue Jasmine again....GET OUT OF MY HEAD
So many great winners! I think the Woolf women are my favorites of the bunch.
Swinton is absolutely stellar in Julia. AMPAS really dropped the ball there. I’d even put it a notch above Blanchett in Blue Jasmine, though that’s like comparing your favorite Renaissance paintings.
I don’t know if I’d call their characters drunks, but James Stewart and Clark Gable had memorably tipsy *moments* in their Oscar-winning roles.
Lee Remick & Jack Lemmon are superb in Wine & Roses...
Lee Remick was brilliant in Wine & Roses
Missing here are both 1931 Best Actor Wallace Beery for his performance as former heavyweight world champion boxer Andy Purcell in The Champ and James Dunn and 1945 Best Supporting Actor James Dunn for his performance as singing waiter Johnny Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Despite an Academy Award, Dunn's own battle with alcoholism cost him in his career post-Oscar.
Judy Davis was drunk in Husbands and Wives (1992).
To which we can potentially add Renee Zellweger in JUDY in a few months?
Someone had to say it!
Sandy Dennis, always and forever.
My favourite is Marie Dressler in Ana Christie. Can't believe no one said it first.
Oh yeah, supporting actress category didn't exist back then in 1930. My bad
They would run this way for me. I added the three mentioned in the comments as well: Anne Baxter, James Dunn and Wallace Beery.
Dorothy Malone
Claire Trevor
James Dunn
Dianne Wiest
Cate Blanchett
Ray Milland
Elizabeth Taylor
Anne Baxter
Lee Marvin
James Coburn
Jeff Bridges
Wallace Beery
Nicolas Cage
Sandy Dennis
Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in 'Ironweed'. Both were nominated.
I also liked Ari Graynor as the drunk friend Caroline in “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist”. So recognizable, and a great comedy turn.
Cate can play almost anything:)
Hey, guys, can't you read? Nathaniel is asking Academy Award Drunk Performances! JUST PLAY IT RIGHT EVERYONE, PLEASE!
1) Cate Blanchett
2) Elizabeth Taylor
3) James Coburn
4) James Dunn
The others were all fine, with one exception: Nicolas Cage is pretty horrible and won in a relatively weak year for Leading Actors (Dreyfuss, Troisi, Hopkins all hammy...This should have been Sean Penn's FIRST Oscar).
Even an innocuous comment by an imposter is still a phoney. I will link to my previous comment on the issue when I see it occurring, I have pledged silence under this system and my honor will not be undermined.
Sinatra is drunk a lot in From Here To Eternity and really great at it.
Thomas Mitchell is an interesting case. One of the stars of the supporting actors team of the golden age like Claude Rains and Charles Coburn. An "expert" at playing drunks and alcoholics at every stage of drunkenness.(In real life he was a great drinker).In 1939 he won the Oscar for playing the constantly drunk doctor in John Ford's western masterpiece, Stagecoach, one of the nine films that lost the main statuette for Gone With The Wind. In that year's Oscar winner he plays another hard drinker, Gerald O'Hara, the antiheroine's father. In the epic's main contender, another Frank Capra masterpiece, Mr Smith Goes To Washington, he is another hard drinker, a journalist who witnesses the title character's saga. In addition to the three of the top ten competing films that year he also plays key roles in two other Oscar-nominated wonders: The Hunchback of Note Drame, the best version of Victor Hugo's story with Charles Laughton and Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wing.
If we didn't have the Blanchett or Swinton performances, some other decent actress would do balls to the wall drunk ham and we'd be saying the same about them. A minus performances are praiseworthy, but in this case not exactly difficult to be enthralling for most actresses worth their salt.
Robert Duvall in TENDER MERCIES.
Should have won - Eileen Heckart / The Bad Seed :P
Malone and Taylor are the all-time greats. Milland is probably underappreciated. As you note, Swinton was amazing and should've been nominated. Same with Theron in Young Adult.
Jack Lemon and Lee Remick of course for Days of Wine and Roses
Lesley Manville in ANOTHER YEAR would be great on this list.
Blanchett is so terrible in Blue Jasmine.
It's so strange that Claire Trevor won her Oscar for Key Largo in a year in which she gave a monumental performance - in another movie! She's so MESMERIZING in Raw Deal.
In 1931's A Free Soul, Lionel Barrymore winning the Oscar as an alcoholic defense attorney who has a famous courtroom monologue, falling dead shortly after finishing it. He steals the film from star Norma Shearer, who plays his daughter, and takes the award home with an obviously supporting role, the shortest performance to win the category award to date. If there was a category of supporting, he would probably be nominated and win. Film is very good and what today sounds cliche was daring in the beginning of that decade.
Blasphemy! Heresy! No mention of Bette Davis and her first Oscar for Dangerous in the role of "self-destructive alcoholic actress"? It's not a great movie, but the actress is sensational with all her mannerisms, looks, and faces that we fans love. In the Halloween post I said What Ever Happened to Baby Jane ? was a disguised sequel to All About Eve. Dangerous is like a preview, the beginning of Margo Channing. No one smokes or drinks or gets drunk like Bette Davis. She could give Cate Blanchett some classes ...
oh,
maxnathaniel...the number 99 always makes me think of barbara feldon
[you know, like a true actressexual]
Cate and Nic Cage. Easy. Although had she been nominated, JULIA's Tilda would whoop them both. Also, I'd rank Sharon Stone's CASINO turn very high among the nominees. I’m always baffled when people say she “over did it”. Read the true crime book. Plus, there’s videos of police cornering screaming, inebriated addicts on youtube that make her character look tame.
And I love Stone’s explanation in the film's commentary; Ginger knew Ace clung to an image of being in control so the louder/uglier/vulgar she acted, the deeper she could hurt him.
Affliction was 1998, not '99.
Kate Reid in A Delicate Balance was also aces when/especially not sober.
Still haven’t gotten around to seeing Barfly? How have I not seen this?