Showbiz History - an Oscar night only edition!
Saturday, February 27, 2021 at 9:30AM 5 random things that happened on this day, February 27th, in OSCAR history...
Shirley Temple presenting Best Actress to Claudette Colbert for IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)
Yup, it's just Oscar history today, because today is a special date. February 27th is currently tied for second place with "most Oscar ceremonies held on this date" a distinction it shares with March 24th. Both dates have seen four Oscar ceremonies (to date). But that will soon change. More on that after the jump...
1935 The 7th Oscars are held at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles honoring the Best of 1934. It Happened One Night has a clean sweep triumph becoming the first (of only 3 films in history) to win all five top prizes: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, and Screenplay. The opera musical One Night of Love had gone into the night with the most nominations, six, but emerged with only two wins Sound and Score along with a special Technical Achievement Oscar, also for its sound)
Fontaine and Hitchcock. They both lost but REBECCA won.
1941 The 13th Oscars are held at the Biltmore again, honoring 1940. Rebecca, which we've written about in depth here at TFE, becomes the first and only Alfred Hitchcock film to win Best Picture but perhaps just barely! It went into the big night with 11 nominations but won only one additional Oscar in the form of Best Cinematography.
2005 The 77th Oscars are held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Million Dollar Baby swipes Best Picture / Best Director from the early frontrunner The Aviator but The Aviator still wins the most Oscars due to its dominance in the craft categories.
2011 The 83rd Oscars are held with The King's Speech triumphant but sharing "most wins" with Christopher Nolan's Inception. (More on this later today for this 10th anniversary.)
2022 The 94th Oscars are currently scheduled for this date honoring the best of 2021. Hmmm. What will we see nominated for Best Picture: West Side Story? In the Heights? Nightmare Alley? King Richard? The Last Duel? Dune? There are a lot of giant films coming since most of the expensive biggies were delayed from 2020 due to the pandemic.
If this 2022 ceremony date holds February 27th will then tie the record for "most Oscar ceremonies". That's a record currently held by March 25th alone which has hosted five Oscar nights in total. If you're born on either of these two days you should definitely brag about this factoid. And if you are a February 27th baby, HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Or if you know someone that is... share this post with 'em, won'cha?
Today's Birthday Suits
OSCARS ONLY EDITION
Two time Best Actress winner and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian honoree Elizabeth Taylor (BUtterfield 8, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf)
Happy 91st birthday today to Best Actress winner Joanne Woodard (Three Faces of Eve)
Best Actor nominee Franchot Tone (Mutiny on the Bounty)
Best Actor nominee Dexter Gordon (Round Midnight)
Other Oscariffic birthdays today:
Thrice nominated Screenwriter John Steinbeck (Lifeboat, A Medal for Benny, Viva Zapata!)
Best Cinematography nominee Roger Pratt (The End of the Affair)
Best Screenplay winner Peter Stone (Father Goose)
Reader Comments (11)
year in advance... In the Heights sweeps the Oscars, thanks to the Hamilton buzz this year and the inegibility for 2020's Oscars...
Hopefully this year will be seen as a significant blip and by the time 2022 comes calling vaccines will have been rolled out and normal life resumed.
King Richard could go either way but they do like biopics and Will Smith.
Give the schefuled date of the 2022 ceremony, are we thinking that the next Oscar eligibility period will be just 10 months? I hope so, to get things back to the calendar year. And there will surely be more than enough movies to choose from.
Ah yes that white bathing costume that caused Liz's Suddenly, Last Summer character such anguish.
That picture of Shirley and Claudette is adorable.
It kills me that it's Joan Bennett's birthday today as well and she can't be included in an Oscar post! Bad job Academy, so many missed opportunities-Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window, The Reckless Moment, The Macomber Affair to name a few-where she should have scored at least a nomination.
When we will get a bulges only edition?
I love the 1940s floral hair arrangements. Love love.
Dexter Gordon! Now there's a serious jazz artist whose embodiment of Dale Turner is like adaptive realism -- clearly fictionalised but the gravitas is as close as you can get to the real thing, of a jazz musician with a precarious life in a foreign land. I love 'Round Midnight a lot and although I equally love Ennio Morricone's score for The Mission, the score for the former is elegiac, bluesy-poignant, and very much in line with the loneliness of musicians living abroad. Lonette McKee gets to sing a powerful "How Long Has This Been Going On" in the film, too.
I admire Cate Blanchett a lot too but I never warmed up to her Kate Hepburn portrayal. Obviously a minority opinion.
@ Owl
I adore Blanchett, but it's among my least favorite of her performances.
(And Lonette McKee's fictional take on Billie Holiday in Round Midnight—not her only one—is glorious.)
@ Working stiff
As soon as you mentioned that McKee played Billie Holiday, I checked her bio online and found out that she played Billie in " Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" before Audra McDonald. Wouldn't it be great to have McKee revisit this role as a mature woman? Audra is great but McKee will be unbelievable in the film version.
Some of Blanchett's rarely-discussed performances that for me are worthier than her The Aviator role:
Thank God He Met Lizzie
The Gift
Bandits
Charlotte Gray
The Good German
Truth
Virginia Madsen should’ve won in 2005.
Happy Birthday, John Steinbeck! My favorite writer.
@ Owl
Re: Billies
The thing is, Holiday died when she was 44 and although she was in a wretched physical state (like Garland at 47) there'd still be something off to me about an actress of 67 (McKee) playing her onscreen. I will watch Andra Day's interpretation, no matter how iffy the film seems, because she has "it."
Re: Blanchett
Thank God He Met Lizzie - need to find this
The Gift - that cast scares me ;-)
Bandits - mmhm
Charlotte Gray - ditto
The Good German - ditto
Truth - ditto
But when I think about her win in The Aviator, I recall my favorite supporting performances of hers that were worthier IMO:
The Talented Mr Ripley
I'm Not There
Coffee and Cigarettes
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou