Hollywood's Oscar® Moments—Oscar® By The Numbers

Even though Hollywood is a real place (an area that is actually part of the city of Los Angeles), that piece of real estate has attained almost mythical status world-wide. It conjures up images of make believe and magic. Or, to be more specific, it represents the home of the film industry even though Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Universal Studios, Twentieth Century Fox, and MGM as well as many other major film production companies are not physically in Hollywood. In fact, Disney Studios, Warner Bros., and MGM aren't even in the city of Los Angeles. MGM is in Culver City (south of Los Angeles). Disney Studios, Warner Bros., and NBC television network are in the city of Burbank (north of Los Angeles). Universal is down the street from Burbank in Universal City which is actually part of the city of Los Angeles.

For those of us old enough to remember Rowan & Martin's Laugh In (or watch the reruns on cable tv—the Antenna cable station, I think), they burst that all of show business is centered in Hollywood bubble by letting everyone know their show was coming to you from NBC's studios in Beautiful Downtown Burbank rather than legendary Hollywood.

The Oscar®—Hollywood's annual award for achievement in the film industry. The statuettes for this year's 91st annual awards show are handed out Sunday, February 24, 2019 (which happens to be this evening). So, this seemed like a good time to review some statistics connected to the American film industry's highest award.

The first awards ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (yes, it is actually in Hollywood) in 1929 to honor films released in 1927 and 1928. The first Best Picture award went to the 1927 film Wings. It was the only silent film to receive the honor as the talking picture age was ushered in with the release of Warner Bros. The Jazz Singer in 1927, the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences.

Although, The Artist, a black and white silent film paying homage to the silent movie era, won for Best Picture in 2012.

As the award tradition continued, the ceremony settled into a pattern that has stayed relatively consistent to this day. The following statistics were in an article I read that covered the first 85 years of the award ceremonies.

ZERO:

Number of competitive Oscars® won by a long list of high-profile legendary actors, actresses, and filmmakers (see my blog from February 17, 2019). These include Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Richard Burton, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford among many others. Alfred Hitchcock did finally receive an honorary Oscar® in 1968 and Cary Grant received an honorary Oscar® in 1970, both for their body of work over the span of their careers.

ONE:

Number of dollars for which a winner or his estate must offer to sell his statuette back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences before attempting to sell the statuette anywhere else. Statuettes awarded after 1950 are bound by this agreement as they are considered property of the Academy unless it specifically waives ownership. Orson Welles' 1941 Oscar (therefore not subject to the 1950 agreement) for Citizen Kane was sold at a 2011 auction for over $800,000.

TWO:

Number of words in the shortest acceptance speech ever, delivered by Patty Duke in 1963 after winning the Best Supporting Actress statuette for The Miracle Worker. Her speech was a simple, "Thank you."  [note: I read somewhere else that the same 'thank you' is attributed to Alfred Hitchcock and William Holden.]

THREE:

Number of films that have won all of the big five awards (picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay). They are: It Happened One Night (1934), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), and The Silence Of The Lambs (1991).

THREE:

Number of animated features that have been nominated for Best Picture. 1991's Beauty And The Beast was the first to earn this distinction, followed later by Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010).

FOUR:

Most acting statuettes won by a single individual, a record held by Katharine Hepburn. She won Best Actress statuettes for: Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1982).

FOUR:

The most Best Director wins by one person, a record held by John Ford since 1953, when he won his fourth statuette for The Quiet Man.

FIVE AND A HALF:

Length in minutes of the longest acceptance speech, a distinction held by Greer Garson, who won Best Actress in 1943 for Mrs. Miniver.

EIGHT:

Highest number of acting nominations without a win, a record held by the late Peter O'Toole. He did finally receive an honorary Oscar® in 2003 for the body of his work over the span of his career.

TEN:

Number of musicals that have won Best Picture, the most recent being 2002's Chicago, which ended a 34-year drought. 1968's Oliver! preceded Chicago's win. The Academy took a hard turn away from song-and-dance features with its 1969 Best Picture award to Midnight Cowboy which remains the only X-rated film to claim the biggest prize [and Midnight Cowboy probably would not receive an X-rating if released today].

ELEVEN:

Highest number of statuettes won by a single film. Three movies are tied for this distinction: Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003). Return of the King won all 11 awards for which it was nominated, another Academy record.

ELEVEN:

Highest number of nominations for a film that did not win any Oscars®. Two films share that dubious distinction: The Turning Point (1977) and The Color Purple (1985).

TWELVE:

Highest number of Best Director nominations received by one person, William Wyler, with three of those nominations becoming wins.

FIFTEEN:

Length in minutes of the first, and to this day the shortest, Academy Awards ceremony, held on May 16, 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Awards (the nickname Oscar® didn't come into being for several years) were handed out in 12 categories with the winners having been announced in advance. Today, statuettes are awarded in more than 20 categories, and ceremonies typically run three hours on average with some running even longer.

SEVENTEEN:

Highest number of hosts for one Oscars® telecast. For several years, the Academy used a gimmick dubbed Friends of Oscar® that featured a roster of rotating hosts for each ceremony. The broadcast with the most Friends took place on April 7, 1970, and included stars like Bob Hope, John Wayne, Barbra Streisand, Fred Astaire, Clint Eastwood, James Earl Jones, and Elizabeth Taylor. Packing in so much star power paid off for the Academy: the broadcast was the Awards' highest-rated telecast of all time.

NINETEEN:

Highest number of Oscar ceremonies hosted by one person. Bob Hope holds that title which includes the first televised ceremony in 1953. Billy Crystal is second with nine hosting gigs.

TWENTY-ONE:

Highest number of acting nominations for a single person, a record held by Meryl Streep. She broke the previous record of 12, set by Katharine Hepburn. Jack Nicholson is the most nominated male actor, currently tied with Hepburn's 12.

TWENTY-TWO:

Number of times that the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars® have gone to different films. The most recent split came in 2013, when Ang Lee won Best Director for Life Of Pi and Argo (directed by Ben Affleck who was not nominated) took Best Picture.

TWENTY-TWO:

Total number of Oscars® won by Walt Disney, the most ever for a single person. He was also awarded an additional four honorary statuettes, and holds the record for most wins in one year by a single person (four).

THIRTY-FIVE:

Highest number of nominations earned by a woman in any category and belongs to costume designer Edith Head. She won eight statuettes throughout her career.

FORTY-FIVE:

Maximum number of seconds that Academy rules stipulate for acceptance speeches, a rule established in 2010 and broken multiple times every year.

FIFTY-NINE:

Highest number of nominations for a single person in any category. Over-achiever Walt Disney holds that title, too. Composer John Williams is the most-nominated living person, with 49 nominations to his credit.

NINETY-FOUR:

Length in minutes of the shortest Best Picture winner ever, Marty (1955). Brevity seems to be a theme for this classic film. The 1956 ceremony where the prize was awarded is the second-shortest Oscar® ceremony, lasting just 90 minutes.

TWO HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR is the

Length in minutes (3 hours 44 minutes) of the longest Best Picture winners ever: a tie between Ben-Hur (1959) and Gone With the Wind (1939). But GWTW has a slight edge when you add in the overture, intermission music, and exit music which takes it to 238 minutes (3 hours 58 minutes).

And there you have it—Oscar® by the numbers.

SOME OF HOLLYWOOD'S BEST WHO NEVER RECEIVED AN OSCAR®

The 91st annual Academy Awards ceremony falls on Sunday, February 24, 2019, this year.  Who will win that coveted statuette?  Who will be taking home an Oscar®?

There are many people in the movie industry who are considered legends, those who received multiple nominations over the years and deserved the Academy Award but never received that elusive prize.  Some of the names will even strike you as What? That can't be true. He/She must have won at least once.

So, in no particular order, here is a cross-section of very deserving movie legends who were often nominated but missed out on the grand prize of the movie industry's top award.

1)  Alfred Hitchcock

With a string of directorial masterpieces to his credit, he never won one of the prized statuettes for directing.  However, in 1968 he was presented an honorary Oscar® for his lifetime body of work.

2)  Cary Grant

He made it look easy which sometimes prevented people from realizing just how good he was—adept at drama and light comedy (and even slapstick, after all he started his career as a vaudeville acrobat in England which certainly equipped him with the dexterity and coordination to do physical comedy).  Considered by many to be the epitome of the romantic leading man.  However, in 1970 he was presented an honorary Oscar® for his lifetime body of work.

3)  Peter O'Toole

He holds the record for the most Best Actor nominations (8) without a win with his most famous role probably Lawrence of Arabia.  My personal favorite of Peter O'Toole's films is My Favorite Year, one of his few comedy films.  However, in 2003 he was presented an honorary Oscar® for his lifetime body of work.

4)  Deborah Kerr

With many outstanding roles, certainly From Here To Eternity and also The King And I, she was nominated six times but no wins.  However, in 1994 she was presented an honorary Oscar® for her lifetime body of work.

5)  Richard Burton

Many outstanding performances including an exceptional one in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolfe. Six nominations, five of them for Best Actor, but no wins.

6)  Albert Finney

The British actor is probably best known for Tom Jones, one of his earlier films.  He's garnered five nominations but no wins.  My favorite Albert Finney film is Murder On The Orient Express with his marvelous portrayal of Hercule Poirot (supported by an incredible cast including several Oscar® winners and nominees, among them multiple Oscar® winner Ingrid Bergman who won an Oscar® for Best Supporting Actress in Murder On The Orient Express). Albert Finney died just a few days ago, on February 7, 2019, at age 82.

7)  Angela Lansbury

Today she's best known for her award winning role of Jessica Fletcher, the retired school teacher turned mystery novelist and amateur sleuth in the long running television series Murder, She Wrote.  In addition to television, she has an impressive string of Tony award winning Broadway performances.  But oddly enough, even though she started her career in films, received three Oscar® nominations, and won all the other acting awards, the Oscar® is the one acting award that has remained elusive.  My favorite of her Oscar® nominations was for a riveting performance in the original film version of The Manchurian Candidate with Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey (she played Laurence Harvey's mother even though they were only a few months apart in age).

8)  Fred Astaire

Although best known for a stellar career in a long string of very successful musicals (many with his long time partner, Ginger Rogers), his one and only nomination came for a dramatic role in Towering Inferno.  I remember being pleasantly surprised when I saw his excellent performance in his first dramatic role, 1959's On The Beach—a story of nuclear war aftermath starring Gregory Peck.

9)  Charlie Chaplin

He is one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood.  Even though he never won for either acting or directing, I wasn't sure whether to add him to this list of never won an Oscar® because he did win one for Best Original Musical Score in 1952 for Limelight.  However, in 1972 he was presented with an honorary Oscar® for his lifetime body of work and received the longest standing ovation in Academy Awards history (over twelve minutes).

There are, of course, many more nominated actors/actresses/directors who deserve but haven't yet had their name engraved on an Oscar®.

Chocolate—The Food Of Love

Valentine's Day is when the chocolate industry happily counts its profits.  Certainly other items also come to mind such as flowers, cards, and jewelry.  But chocolate reigns supreme for the holiday.

The history of chocolate goes back more than two thousand years.  Cocoa has long been associated with passion, romance, and love.  It's a concept that traces to the ancient Aztecs.  Archaeological records indicate that before the Aztecs the Mayans were consuming cocoa as long ago as 600 B.C. and possibly even earlier than that.

The Aztecs believed it was a source of spiritual wisdom, energy, and sexual power.  It was widely served at wedding ceremonies.  The ancient civilizations of Central and South America did not know chocolate as we do today.  They consumed cocoa as a drink, its naturally bitter taste possibly altered by adding chili peppers to the water and cocoa.

When the Spanish explorers first brought cocoa home with them in 1585, they experimented by mixing it with sugar and vanilla to make a sweeter tasting drink.  The result was a type of hot chocolate popular among the upper classes who were the only ones who could afford it.  Cocoa was also added to baked goods to give them added flavor.  By the first half of the eighteenth century cocoa production had increased and the price had fallen so that it became affordable to the general population of Europe and also the European colonies in the New World.

By the nineteenth century things were moving along nicely for those involved in the manufacture of chocolate.  In 1828, Conrad van Houton of Holland invented a process to make a refined cocoa powder which increased the output of the usable powder from a given crop of cocoa beans which further lowered the price.

The first chocolate candies as we know them today were invented in the 1860s by Cadbury, a British candy maker, who was also the first to sell them in a heart-shaped box for Valentine's Day.

Another big advance came in 1878 when a Swiss chocolate seller, Daniel Peter, invented a process for making candy out of milk chocolate—a process picked up by Nestle.  In 1913 Jules Sechaud, a Swiss chocolate maker, created the first chocolate candy with cream and other fillings and the modern soft centered chocolate candies were born.

And thus chocolate candies joined the ranks of flowers and jewelry in the courtship ritual.

Chocolate, including chocolate candy, is liked by most people, but women tend to have a somewhat greater affinity for it than men.  Chocolate is more than food.  It not only fills your stomach, it also makes you feel good.  Many people believe that chocolate is an aphrodisiac.  While it is true that chocolate does contain organic substances which have a physical feel good affect on the body, the amounts are not that great.

Critics claim the benefits of eating chocolate are small compared to the sugar and fat contained in a chocolate bar.  However, the best chocolate—dark chocolate with high cocoa butter content rather than milk chocolate—has no added fat with a high percentage of cocoa solids and correspondingly less sugar.  Dark chocolate will never be considered a health food based on its nutritional value, but it is still good for you.  It's good for your heart, relieves stress, and makes you feel good.  What more could you want?  But, like everything, in moderation.

Chocolate has long been associated with passion, romance, and love.  This association goes all the way back to the Aztecs.  Valentine's Day is a celebration of romance.  Chocolate is both an everyday pleasure and a token of love.  Valentine's Day and chocolate make a perfect match.  Men have long known in dealing with women that chocolate is almost always a safe gift. Chocolate is given as a token of love and is equally viable as a peace offering when he has done something to anger his love.

Chocolate—the all purpose taste treat that's good any time of the year.

Valentine's Day—The Good And The Bad

Valentine's Day is a little over a week away. My blog this week presents two people connected to St. Valentine's Day--the good and the bad.

The Good:

Valentine's Day is that time of the year when cards, flowers, candy, jewelry, and other tokens of affection are given to loved ones in the name of St. Valentine.  But who is St. Valentine and why do we celebrate his holiday every year?

One legend says Valentine was a priest in the third century in Rome.  Emperor Claudius II decided single men made better soldiers so he outlawed marriage for young men.  Valentine defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.  Claudius ordered him put to death.

Another story has Valentine killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were beaten and tortured.

And yet another story says Valentine was the one who sent the first Valentine greeting while he was in prison.  He fell in love with a young girl, possibly the jailor's daughter, who visited him while he was imprisoned.  Before his death, he wrote her a letter and signed it From your Valentine, an expression that has transcended time to continue as a common expression for the holiday.

St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, is a combination of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.  One theory says we celebrate Valentine's Day in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial which probably occurred around 270A.D., while others believe that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to Christianize celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia festival.

According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card sending holiday, surpassed only by the exchange of Christmas cards.  Valentine's Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia in addition to the United States.

The Bad:

The St. Valentine's Day massacre—the most spectacular gangland slaying in mob history.

Al Capone (known to be the mastermind, but never charged for the crime) had arranged for his chief rival, Chicago mobster George 'Bugs' Moran and most of his North Side Gang, to be eliminated on February 14, 1929.  The plan was simple and deviously clever, yet Capone's primary target escaped any injury.  Capone distanced himself from the execution of the plan (and the execution of his rivals) by spending the time at his home in Florida thus providing himself with a solid alibi.

A bootlegger loyal to Capone was to draw Moran and his gang to a warehouse to receive a shipment of smuggled whiskey, the delivery set for 10:30AM on Valentine's Day.

The morning of February 14 was cold and snowy.  A group of Moran's men waited for Bugs at the red brick warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street.  Moran was running late.  When his car turned the corner onto Clark Street, he spotted a police wagon pulling up to the warehouse.  Assuming it was a raid, he watched as five men, three of them dressed in police uniforms, entered the building.  Moran and the two men with him, immediately left the area.

Inside the warehouse, the hit men, disguised as police, confronted Moran's men.  Assuming it was a routine bust, they followed instructions when ordered to line up against the wall.  The hit men opened fire with Thompson submachine guns, killing six of the seven men immediately.  The seventh man, with twenty-two bullet wounds, survived the attack but died after arriving at the hospital.

The newspapers instantly picked up on the crime, dubbing it the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  The story appeared on front pages around the country, making Capone a national celebrity.  But to his dismay, this new found notoriety also brought a new level of attention from federal law enforcement culminating in his conviction for tax evasion and his incarceration at Alcatraz.  With all the law enforcement agencies trying to bring down Capone, it was a tax accountant working for the Internal Revenue Service who finally did it.