6 random things that happened on this day, March 7th, in showbiz history
1946 The 18th Academy Awards are held honoring the films of 1945 with The Lost Weekend taking Best Picture. We'll discuss this Oscar night later today given that it's the 75th anniversary.
1955 The 7th annual Primetime Emmys are held. Loretta Young becomes the first Best Actress Oscar winner to then win a Best Actress Emmy prize for a continuing series. Only one other actress ever did this with Shirley Booth following her the next decade (Sally Field would make this a three person list except she actually won an Emmy before her Oscars and subsequent Best Actress Drama series Emmy). In those days TV and Movies were very separate showbiz forms and once you started doing television on the regular, the movie offers dried up. It's different nowadays though not completely; almost everyone who wins the Oscar first and then an Emmy wins the latter for a miniseries or one-off appearance of some kind...
If you include all Emmy & Oscar categories but still go the "Oscar first then Emmy" route, the list expands considerably and includes:
- Katharine Hepburn - Oscar for '33 and '67 and '68 / Emmy in '75
- Bette Davis - Oscar for '35 and '38 / Emmy in '79
- Ingrid Bergman - Oscar for '44 and '56 and '74 / Emmy (posthumously) in '82
- Claire Trevor - Oscar for '48 / Emmy in '57
- Joanne Woodward - Oscar for '57 / Emmy in '78
- Simone Signoret - Oscar for '59 / Emmy in '66
- Patty Duke - Oscar for '62 / Emmy in '70
- Ruth Gordon - Oscar for '68 / Emmy in '79
- Maggie Smith - Oscar for '69 and '78 / Emmy in '03
- Glenda Jackson - Oscar for '70 / Emmy in '72
- Cloris Leachman - Oscar for '71 / Emmy in '73
- Jane Fonda - Oscar for '71 and '78 / Emmy in '84
- Faye Dunaway - Oscar for '76 / Emmy in '94
- Vanessa Redgrave - Oscar for '77 / Emmy in '81
- Jessica Lange - Oscar for '82 / Emmy in '09
- Dianne Wiest - Oscar for '86 and '94 / Emmy in '08
- Cher - Oscar for '87 / Emmy in '03
- Frances McDormand - Oscar for '96 / Emmy in '15
- Nicole Kidman - Oscar for '02 / Emmy in '17
- Kate Winslet - Oscar for '08 / Emmy in '11
For women at least (haven't studied the men) in our current era, it's more common to win the Emmy first and later win an Oscar. Examples include Helen Hunt, Viola Davis, Patricia Arquette, Geraldine Page, Halle Berry, Allison Janney, Jessica Tandy, Holly Hunter, Meryl Streep, Lee Grant, Julianne Moore, Maureen Stapleton, Helen Mirren, and more. This isn't just because Emmys have more categories though that is definitely part of it. It's also because with the increasing fluidity of the mediums and TV rising in prestige, a lot of actors are able to build their "great actor" rep on TV which often leads to juicier movie roles. We expect these stats will all start to blur and the order will become meaningless as TV and Movies become more and more like each other, not just in distribution form but in public perception. Maybe in the future everyone will be more like Sally Field and Regina King who both won multiple Emmys but stuck an Oscar (or two) in the middle?
1975 Supposedly Andrei Tarkovsky's much-lauded art film The Mirror opened on this date though that's hard to verify as the release was small and it took years to build its reputation.
1988 Divine dies at just 42 years of age just one week after her biggest success, John Waters Hairspray, arrives in theaters. Have you ever seen the doc I Am Divine (2013)? Look it up. Good overview.
1999 Stanley Kubrick dies at 70, four months before his final film Eye Wide Shut hit theaters.
James Cameron pretending to strangle Kathryn Bigelow after her win
2010 The 82nd annual Academy Awards are held honoring the films of 2009. The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture and Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win Best Director; the media loved that she was up against her ex-husband James Cameron (Avatar) in the category... the only time ex-spouses had been nominated against each other in any category (we think). Who is ready for Kathryn Bigelow to have another great critical success again? *Raises hand*
Today's Birthday Suit:
Happy 50th birthday to Peter Sarsgaard, one of the best somehow still underappreciated Gen X actors. We blame the Oscars for not nurturing his career with a nomination for Shattered Glass (2003). Other films and tv credits include: Kinsey (pictured below) wherein he seduced both Kinseys, Laura Linney & Liam Neeson, Black Mass, An Education, Sound of Silence, The Center of the World, The Magnificent, Night Moves, The Killing, Jarhead, Interrogation, Jackie. He'll next be seen in The Batman (2021) as District Attorney Gil Colson.
Remember this scene in "Kinsey"?
Other showbiz birthdays today: Oscar winner Rachel Weiz (The Constant Gardener, The Favourite), Bel Powley (Diary of a Teenage Girl, The King of Staten Island), Haley Lu Richardson (Support the Girls, Five Feet Apart), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, Trumbo), Broadway diva Donna Murphy (Tangled, Spider-Man 2), Tobiaz Mensies (Outlander, Casino Royale), Jenna Fischer (The Office), Laura Prepon (Orange is the New Black, The Hero), Freddie Thorp (Fate: The Winx Saga, Overdrive), Brandon T Jackson (Tropic Thunder, Mr Robinson, actor/writer/director Jay Duplass (Transparent, Search Party), Wanda Sykes (The New Adventures of Old Christine, Monster-in-Law), Emmy winner Daniel J Travanti (Hill Street Blues, Boss), Darryl Stephens (Noah's Ark, Boy Culture), South Korea's Jang Dong-Gun (Tae Guk Gi, Friend), actress/writer/director Mona Fastvold (The World to Come, The Sleepwalker) , Director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, Looking, 45 Years), novelist Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho, Less than Zero), Spain's Nathalie Poza (Julieta, Rosa's Wedding), Sweden's Andreas Wilson (Evil, Real Humans), executive Michael Eisner (of Paramount Pictures, than Disney fame), and singer Taylor Dane.
And late greats like: Oscar winner Anna Magnani (The Rose Tattoo, Wild is the Wind), the underrated John Heard (Beaches, Awakenings), and televangelist Tammy Faye Baker who will be played by Jessica Chastain in the upcoming feature The Eyes of Tammy Faye due in theaters this September from Searchlight Pictures.