Showbiz History: Shirley & Bill, Julianne & Eddie, Slumdog & Oscars
Monday, February 22, 2021 at 9:33AM 6 random things that happened on this day, February 22nd in showbiz history...
1921 Fellini's muse Giulietta Masina (Nights of Cabiria, La Strada) is born in San Giorgia di Plano, Italy. But more on her tonight for her Centennial.
1935 The Little Colonel opens in theaters. The movie featured the first interracial dance in an American movie in the famous staircase tap dance scene between tiny Shirley Temple and trailblazing entertainer Bill Robinson. The innocuous scene was somehow controversial (the 1930s, natch) and was reportedly cut out of the movie when it played in the South...
1951 The 4th annual BAFTAs are held honoring the films of 1950 All About Eve wins Best Film and The Blue Lamp wins Best British film. But there were only five prizes at that point in BAFTA's history (and none for acting!) The acting prizes were added two years later.
Burl Ives and Elsa Lanchester at the Globes
1958 The 15th Golden Globes are held honoring the films of 1957. Bridge on the River Kwai (Drama) and Les Girls (Comedy/Musical) taking the Best Picture prizes. We recently revisited the 1957 film year. Miyoshi Umeki won Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars (and at the Smackdowm right here) but at the Globes that particular prize went to Elsa Lanchester's delightful comic work in Witness for the Prosecution.
2009 The 81st Oscars are held honoring the films of 2008. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button went into the ceremony with the most nominations (13) but the night belonged to Slumdog Millionaire which won 8 of its 10 categories. No film has won that many Oscars since though several had won that many or more in earlier years The number of wins per film has been trending downward as sweeps are less common. We're happy about that though it seems like nomination totals are trending upward which we're not happy about. It's a curious reversal perhaps showing us that voters are watching fewer films than they used to but feeling less utter besottment about any of them?
2015 The 87th Oscars honoring the films of 2014 are held. Grand Budapest Hotel and Birdman won 4 Oscars each with Birdman taking Best Picture. It was also the night when ginger queen Julianne Moore and her former incestuous screenson Eddie Redmayne (they'd co-starred in the queer/racy indie Savage Grace) took the lead acting trophies. Boyhood had been the critical darling of the year bu emerged with only 1 statue: Best Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette. She holds the non official record for 'Oscar performance with the longest shoot' (haha) since she filmed her scenes across a 13 year time span!
Today's Birthday Suit
Showgirls (1995)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Happy 62nd birthday to Kyle Maclachlan, one of the most consistently employed actors of our lifetime. Projects range from major classics, to tiny indies, cult classics, and obscure forgotten titles in tv and film. He also seems to like being naked onscreen, most infamously in Showgirls but then there's David Lynch's deranged Blue Velvet (1986) and his sexual collision of sorts naked with a knife wielding Isabella Rossellini. Imagine filming that scene with your director's new girlfriend! Being an actor must be quite strange at times.
Thomas JaneOther birthdays today: Thomas Jane (Hung, Boogie Nights), Oscar nominee Julie Walters (Billy Elliott, Educating Rita), Drew Barrymore (Never Been Kissed, Charlie's Angels), Jeri Ryan (Star Trek Voyager), Elodie Young (The Hitman's Bodyguard, Daredevil), Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse, Jurassic World: Dominion), James Hong (Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China), Stage legends Ellen Greene (Little Shop of Horrors, Pushing Daisies) and Lea Salonga (Mulan, Miss Saigon), Sheila Hancock (Discovery of Witches, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas), Rachel Dratch (SNL, Spring Breakdown), Paul Dooley (Hairspray, Breaking Away), Jeremy Shamos (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Better Call Saul), Spain's Fele Martínez (Bad Education, Thesis), and France's Miou-Miou (Entre Nous, The Science of Sleep).
And late greats like dubbing artist extraordinaire Marni Nixon (West Side Story, My Fair Lady), director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Married to the Mob), musical star Jules Munshin (On the Town, Sillk Stockings), Sir John Mils (Hobson's Choice, Great Expectations), and one of the greatest auteurs of all time Luis Buñuel (Belle de Jour, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie).
Reader Comments (22)
The Bush of a generation.
That Chanel dress Moore was wearing when she won was beautiful.
The Moore win will always stick with me. I'm sure like many who visit this site the wait for Julianne to win was long. I personally never believed would happen just because Moore never struck me as a performer who made projects based on winning an oscar. I distinctly remember the film coming out of nowhere at that years TIFF and once seen the narrative stuck and no one was bound to beat her.
Maclachlan is an iconic actor solely based on Twin Peaks where he was robbed of an emmy nomination for the most recent season a couple of years ago.
Can we already discussed of how rigged Oscar 2008 was? Slumdog Millionaire is a good, not great film, for starters, but the background of that race was that a HUGE 2,5 billion dollars agreement was signed between Hollywood and Bollywood and it was the year to bet hard to introduce american films into the market of India. It was then, only a mild surprise, that the two juggernauts of the year (The Dark Knight and Wall·E) that were called to make Oscar history, somehow got underperforming results at nomination time... and how a just good film like Slumdog started scoring everything, everywhere (if I remember correctly it lost only 2 Oscars, Sound Editing and one of their Original Songs - the other one, won it... so it could only really win 9 Oscars, and technically only lost ONE).
It's even surprising that it managed to defeat the overdue Fincher... with a film that was baity beyond belief and could have easily won 8-10 Oscars as well...
Bird Man is one of my favorite wins for Best Picture, not ony because I love the movie, but it's such an unusual choice for Oscar to honor such a daring, eclectic piece of art. Keaton was robbed of Best Actor, and I know it's not fair to say that because I didn't see all the nominees--sorry, but I still cannot bring myself to sit through The Theory of Nothing. Sigh.
Moore's win was the best of that decade simply because we'd been waiting a long time for it to happen and most thought she was done with Oscar after her 2009 snub for A Single Man.
If Keaton had won, that would have been an all-time group of acting winners. Eddie had to ruin it, though!
brookesboy -- i agree. love that movie so much and it's so weird to me how film twitter decided it was the devil. it reminds me of when people were suddenely declaring The Artist (a silent french film in black and white) some kind of tired generic oscar bait. lol.
jesus -- this is the first time i've hearing of this. I really doubt slumdog was teh reason WALL-E and Dark Knight didn't make it. The real reason I'd wager is typical genre bias PLUS the recency bias problem the academy often has, rejected triumphs from earlier in the year to honor whatever was just released in December (aka The Reader)
Julianne Moore made the 2014 Oscar season such a treat. It was such a delight seeing a deserving actress finally win. It's so easy to write off her win as a career one, but she knocks the part out of the park, and was much better than her competition.
Kyle MacLachlan is such a strange star. He's unconventional and fits all the roles he plays like a glove. Not necessarily a character actor, but not a leading man either. I'm glad we've gotten him in so many projects. It's still a bit strange that he was never able to land an Emmy for his work. He just feels like he should have one.
@Nathaniel... the whole race that year was focused on Slumdog... I think that the only times both Wall·E and The Dark Knight were consistently appearing, were in Animated and Supporting Actor, respectively.
The 2,5 billion deal was discussed at Oscarwatch, back then, and how it was probably key in Slumdog's sweep to, well, an Oscar sweep as well. It was ridiculous, specially when people were clearly thinking that they were rewarding India... with a non-Indian film! I remember quite well the attempts to even score noms for Patel and Pinto...
But both The Dark Knight and Wall·E were constantly discussed as the best of the year, reviews and box-office wise, also audiences loved them... Slumdog, in comparison, was an underdog... that somehow sweeped all through the awards race... the only viable explanation of why this "sudden love" for Bollywood style, was right there...
I know we love conspiracy theories, but I remember the Slumdog Millionaire hoopla. The film was too loved and hyped. As you said it was the underdog but the kind of underdog which was actually loved by anyone. Even my grandma really liked it.
Fincher's films are usually cold and abbrasive in treatment, and as we know with The Social Network, Fincher is not precisely liked or widely respected (Just look what's happening with Mank). And if we go for rumors and conspiracy theories, I believe more part of Hollywood simply detest Fincher (And we have small snaps on it. Robert Downey Jr and Jake Gyllenhaal for example).
Benjamin Button was beautifully made, but it added up to ... nothing substantial or spectacular in the least. I'm thankful it didn't win.
peggy sue -- thanks for noticing my picture selections -- i hope people are clicking on the links ;)
leon -- yup. Slumdog was very loved. I remember even Anne Hathaway on tv saying Dev Patel's performanece was her favourite of the year. WTF? I've met Oscar voters. They aren't a monolithing secret cabal. They just are people who workin the film industry. Some of them see a lot of movies like us. Others just watch whatever has the buzz at the end of the year when they get all the screeners. You cant control how thousands of people vote... other than to campaign and try to influence them. Now conspirancies involving the Globes are much easier to believe because it's only 97 people. When you have a small group its much easier to bend the collective will.
My father was so upset that Eddie Redmayne beat Michael Keaton and to see Keaton put his speech back in his pocket was probably the most heartbreaking thing I had ever seen at the Oscars. That one hurt and it hurt my dad greatly as he never got over that and he did see The Theory of Everything later on and didn't like it yet he was annoyed by the fact that this little shit beat one of the all-time greats in Michael Keaton and my dad never got over that.
Giulietta Massina, one of the greatest actresses that ever lived as her performance in Nights of Cabiria is an all-time great and no one was better than her in those times. She is Fellini's greatest actress to ever grace the screen as I also have a fondness for her performance in Ginger and Fred with Marcello Mastroianni as they just killed it.
I love when actors show a huge bush on screen. Sexy!
Julianne Moore winning was a truly great Oscar moment.
Kyle is so sexy, even in Sex and the City.
Pike should have won the Oscar for Gone Girl.
I have a theory that Slumdog Millionaire won because it was made in 2008. The recession slammed us, people lost their jobs, their retirement accounts took a hit, and/or they took a pay cut. Life wasn't great, but then here came this little hopeful movie. It rode the Obama "hope" wave to victory, as it were. People were primed to award a film like that. I'm not sure it would have happened in another year.
Oh Eoin of such little faith, Julianne has been a member of 'The Inevitables' since long before Still Alice.
Nathaniel--I never understood that Twitter assault either. Really weird. Makes me very glad I'm not on Twitter. LOL
That SLUMDOG conspiracy up there is absurd. I am not at all surprised that a website like Oscarwatch run by that deranged loon would come up with something that ridiculous. Anybody who was paying attention at all that show saw how beloved that movie was everywhere. It was a box office behemoth and all sorts of people loved it. Get your hand off it.
As for Kyle, that Emmy snub the other year was crazy, but then I was surprised they nominated Twin Peaks: The Return for anything at all considering how very unlike anything on TV it was.
Michael Keaton should've won Actor, but Boyhood should've won at least Director, if not Director and Picture.