Almost There: Olivia de Havilland in "My Cousin Rachel"

by Cláudio Alves

As you know, Olivia de Havilland passed away on Saturday. She leaves behind a filmography full of immortal classics as well as a legacy that still shapes the American film industry. At first glance, de Havilland might seem like an odd choice for this series. Her most acclaimed roles did nab Oscar nominations and she won twice. Still, there was, at least, one occasion when the great Olivia could have considered herself snubbed by AMPAS. It happened in 1952 when the actress returned to the screen after a short period dedicated to the stage. Surely a wise move since The Heiress (1949) was undoubtedly a tough act to follow.

Her next feature after the break was a Daphne du Maurier adaptation that's noteworthy for at least two reasons: one, it  launched the career of Richard Burton in Hollywood and two, it went on to score four Oscar nominations. We're talking about My Cousin Rachel…

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Sessue Hayakawa: From sex symbol to Oscar nominee

We've been celebrating 1957 for a couple of weeks. Here's one more from Cláudio Alves

In 1957, Miyoshi Umeki became the first and only Asian woman to win an acting Oscar. However, the Best Supporting Actress champion wasn't the only Japanese performer to score an Academy Award nomination that year. Sessue Hayakawa, who played the ruthless Colonel Saito in the Best Picture winner The Bridge on the River Kwai, became the first male actor of Japanese descent to be nominated by the Academy. Unlike Umeki, who had less than a decade of experience in show business by the time she achieved Oscar glory, Hayakawa had a long history with Tinsel Town. Many decades before his nomination, when the American film industry was creating itself and Silent Cinema was entertainment for the masses, Sessue Hayakawa had been one of the first sex symbols… 

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Smackdown '57: Sayonara, Peyton Place, and Witness for the Prosecution

In the Supporting Actress Smackdown series we take a particular Oscar vintage and explore it with a panel of artists and journalists. This time we're talking 1957

THE ACTRESSES & CHARACTERS
In 1957 Oscar voters were in the mood for fresh faces. Four rising stars (Hope Lange, Carolyn Jones, Miyoshi Umeki, and Diane Varsi) were honored along with one Old Hollywood mainstay, the Bride of Frankenstein herself (Elsa Lanchester). The shortlisted characters were a counter culture partygoer, an exasperated nurse, a Japanese newlywed, and two 18 year-old besties in a small town with both love and grief on their minds.

THE PANELISTS
Here to talk about these performances and movies are filmmaker Q Allan Brocka, theater and film critic Kenji Fujishima, Be Kind Reward's Izzy, film critic Kimberly Pierce, writer/ director/ archivist Brett Wood and your host Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

1957
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST  
The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page...

 

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Hepburn, Givenchy and "Funny Face": A Match Made in Heaven

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout the histories of cinema and fashion, there has seldom existed a more glorious collaboration than that of Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy. The English actress and the French couturier first worked together in the 1954 movie Sabrina, a costuming masterpiece whose iconic fashions and contentious crediting have been previously written about at The Film Experience by abstew. After his uncredited contribution to that Billy Wilder classic, Givenchy would go on to dress Hepburn on and off-screen many more times, though he always got the credit he deserved after the Sabrina kerfuffle.

That was wise of him since, in 1957, he received an Academy-Award nomination for what is one of Audrey Hepburn's most stylish screen adventures, the indelible Funny Face… 

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Anna Magnani in Hollywood

by Cláudio Alves

In 1957, the Italian actress Anna Magnani received her second and final Oscar nomination. She had won the Best Actress prize two years before thanks to her first Hollywood movie, the adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo, in which she gives a volcanic performance that's still considered, by many, as one of the best winners in the category's history. Still, despite such a glorious start, her career in American pictures was short-lived, encompassing only four films made between 1955 and 1969.

On one hand, Hollywood's mistreatment of a great actress is heartbreaking. On the other, Magnani's tenure in the American film industry feels right for her legacy, reflecting how one of a kind she was and how this acting titan resisted any and all attempts of assimilating her into the model of traditional stardom…

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