Oscars 2020: Hidden facts about the Academy Awards
AS Hollywood prepares for its biggest night of the year, we look back on the secrets behind the Oscars. Here’s what you don’t know about the Academy Awards.
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AS Hollywood gets ready for the biggest night of the year, we look back on the secrets and scandals behind the Oscars. From shock winners to behind-the-scenes dramas, here’s what you don’t know about the Academy Awards.
1. There is not host anymore. ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke confirmed at the TCA Press Tour the Academy Awards will go on without an official host. "Let me confirm it now, together with the Academy, that there will be no traditional host this year," Burke said. She thought 2019's host-free telecast worked. Last year marked the Academy’s first break with hosting tradition, after Kevin Hart dropped out after he made homophobic comments on Twitter.
2. In 2018, there were two acting nominees who have a child together. Gary Oldman won Best Actor for his immersive portrayal of Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour. His first wife, the respected British actress Lesley Manville, was up for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Phantom Thread. In 1988, the pair had a son, Alfie, who has also gone into acting. The couple divorced after Oldman left Manville — when Alfie was just three months old — for his soon-to-be second wife Uma Thurman. Oldman recently revealed that he proposed to his fifth wife, Gisele Schmidt, while he was dressed as Churchill on the set of the movie.
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3. Also keeping it in the family was Liza Minnelli. She became the only Oscar recipient whose parents were Oscar winners too after winning best actor for Cabaret in 1972. Her mother, screen legend Judy Garland, received an honorary award in 1939 for The Wizard of Oz. Her father Vincente Minnelli, the man behind some of Hollywood’s most classic movie musicals, won best director for Gigi in 1958.
4. In 2000, Whitney Houston was set to perform Somewhere Over The Rainbow in what was expected to be a show-stepping medley. But the music superstar was fired during rehearsals by composer Burt Bacharach, who was producing the segment. Houston’s dramatic last-minute exit, which was attributed to her lack of punctuality and alleged drug abuse, threw the production into chaos. It also marked the beginning of her ultimate downfall in the eyes of her peers. She was replaced by country singer Faith Hill.
5. Comic legend Eddie Murphy was pipped to breathe new life into the Oscars when he was appointed host in 2012. But with just weeks to go until the ceremony, the star walked. His decision to quit came after the forced resignation of his “creative partner” Brett Ratner, who was producing the ceremony. The controversial director was forced out after making a homophobic slur during a promotional interview about his film Tower Heist.
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6. Four-time Oscar winner Woody Allen, who has been nominated 24 times, has famously avoided attending the Oscars for decades. The only year he attended was in 2002 following the September 11 attacks when he thanked Hollywood for its support of his hometown of New York City.According to his biographer Eric Lax, there’s a reason why Allen doesn’t attend: he doesn’t believe in it. “The whole concept of awards is silly,” Allen said in 1973. “I cannot abide by the judgement of other people, because if you accept it when they say you deserve an award, then you have to accept it when they say you don’t.” In light of his recent controversies, he’s unlikely to be attending any time soon.
7. In 2002, Adrien Brody became the youngest actor to be given the Best Actor award, for his heartbreaking portrayal of Władysław Szpilman in The Pianist, Roman Polanski’s harrowing film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Brody’s record could well be overturned at the 2018 Oscars if Timothee Chalomet causes a major upset and wins Best Actor over red-hot favourite Gary Oldman. Chalomet, aged just 22, has been nominated for his breakout role in Call Me By Your Name.
8. The youngest Oscar winner ever was Tatum O’Neal, who won Best Supporting Actress at the age of 10 for Paper Moon. O”Neal’s star shone bright in the 1970s but quickly unravelled as she battled heroin and cocaine abuse. She lost custody of her three children when her tumultuous marriage to tennis star John McEnroe ended in 1995. In her 2011 memoir, Found: A Daughter’s Journey Home, she talks of seeking forgiveness from her kids and her father — who admitted in Vanity Fair magazine that he tried to hit on his own daughter, whom he didn’t recognise, after the 2009 funeral of his wife, actress Farrah Fawcett.
9. The oldest winner is Christopher Plummer, who was 82 when he won Best Supporting Actor for Beginners in 2010. Plummer could better his own record if he wins again at this year’s ceremony. The 88-year-old has been nominated in the same category for his role as the ruthless billionaire John Paul Gertty in All The Money In The World. Plummer was drafted in at the last minute by director Ridley Scott to replace Kevin Spacey, who had already completed his scenes when the scandal that brought him down was made public.
10. One of the shortest Oscar speeches of all time came from the least likely candidate. In 1991, Joe Pesci won the best supporting actor award for his staggering portrayal of Tommy DeVito, the wisecracking, foul-mouthed psychopathic mobster in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. When Pesci took to the stage to collect his statuette, the visibly shocked actor appeared overcome with emotion. He took a moment to collect himself before uttering only five words: “It’s my privilege. Thank you.”
11. We’re all familiar with the gold Oscar statuette but what exactly is that earnest little guy holding in his hands? The Oscar statue was originally designed in 1928 by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons and was first realised in three dimensions by LA sculptor George Stanley. The statue is a stylised figure of a knight holding a crusader’s sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes signifying the five original branches of the Academy (actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers). There are various theories about how the nickname “Oscar” was termed, but our favourite is Bette Davis’s claim that she coined it because the rear end reminded her of her husband when he got out of the shower in the morning.
12. There has been some shockers over the years (we’re looking at you, James Franco) but David Letterman is still widely considered to be the worst Oscars host ever. In 1995, the then Late Show host was at the peak of his career. But almost from the minute the Oscars began, it became clear that Letterman was failing to read the room. Noting a similarity between the names of Uma Thurman and Oprah Winfrey, Letterman launched into a trancelike routine. “Oprah. Uma. Oprah. Uma. Oprah. Uma. Have you kids met Keanu?” Few laughed. And things only got worse. The critical reception was savage. The New York Times accused Letterman of leaving the show’s “pacing in shambles,” and added that “glamorous people waiting for awards announcements aren’t terribly interested in New York City cabdrivers or stupid-pet tricks.”
13. When it comes to posthumous acting Oscars, only two have even been handed out — and both went to Australians. In 1977, Peter Finch was posthumously awarded Best Actor for his role as the crazed TV executive in Network. His wife collected his Oscar on his behalf. The Sydney-raised actor had died of a massive heart attack in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel just months earlier. In 2008, Heath Ledger won the Best Supporting Actor award for his mesmerising performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. The award was accepted by Ledger’s parents and his sister. Kim Ledger, the actor’s father, thanked the Academy and director Christopher Nolan for “allowing Heath the creative licence to develop and explore this crazy Joker character”.
14. Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro — two of Hollywood’s greatest acting legends — share an intriguing bond. They are the only actors who have won an Oscar for playing the same character, that of Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) respectively. For Brando, who had become almost unhireable after a series of flops, the role became one of his defining portrayals in the middle part of his career. With the help of make-up, the then 47-year-old he was transformed into the character of the ageing Mafia boss. In the sequel, Robert De Niro played the younger Vito Corleone in flashback sequences that covered the character’s journey from Sicily to New York City. De Niro’s career was just starting to take off and the role shot him to major stardom. Both actors were absent from their respective ceremonies when they won. Brando famously sent Native American actor Sacheen Littlefeather up on stage to refuse the Oscar. Director Francis Ford Coppola accepted De Niro’s award when was he was unable to attend.
15. Daniel Day-Lewis is the only actor to have won three Best Actor Oscars. The first was in 1990 for My Left Foot and the second was in 2008 for There Will Be Blood. In 2013, he made history by winning for his role in Lincoln. The enigmatic Day-Lewis, won in 2018 for his role in Phantom Thread.
16. The Oscars red carpet is a special, patented shade of garnet red dubbed ‘Academy Red’. The shade doesn’t appear on any other official red carpet in the world. It’s about 50,000 square feet of carpet and it takes 18 workers about 900 man-hours to install. It’s also widely known that carpet is never reused. Every year it gets destroyed, and company Georgia’s Signature Systems Group makes another one.
17. To even have your film considered for an Oscar nod it has to meet some extremely precise standards. Firstly, It has to be at least 40 minutes long, on 35mm or 70mm film, or 24-or 48-frame progressive scan Digital Cinema format at a minimum resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels, and must be screened for paid admission in Los Angeles for at least seven days. What a criteria.
18. The 7000 voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have finally voted for women in the best director category which has been insanely male dominated since the Oscars inception. Greta Gerwig, recognised for Lady Bird, was only the fifth female best director nominee, and the first since Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker in 2010. Rachel Morrison, the director of photography on Mudbound, was the first woman to receive a nomination for cinematography.
19. She’s queen of the big screen, and it is evident in the amount of Oscar nods she has under her belt. Meryl Streep is the most nominated performer in the history of the Academy Awards, with her 2018 Best Actress nominee for The Post bringing her up to the magic number of 21. Her three wins in the category were for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Sophie’s Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011).
20. Reports this year suggest the Oscars official goodie bag - which is known as the 'Swag Bag' is valued at nearly $US215,000, and includes a 12-day yacht vacation valued at about $US80,000. Nominees will receive a bath bomb with 24 karat gold and hyaluronic acid and an amethyst crystal as well as a stay at the Faro Cumplida lighthouse in Spain’s Canary Islands, and at-home cannabis-infused chocolate tasting for eight adults. It also includes a bottle of Rita Ora’s Próspero Tequila, two Exploding Kittens-Exploding Kittens and Throw Throw Burrito games, and a Pepperidge Farm Dark Chocolate Milano two-pack.
21. Traditionally, the previous year’s acting winners present the same categories for the opposite gender at the Oscars. But in January 2018, it was revealed that last year’s lead actor winner Casey Affleck had withdrawn as a presenter from this year’s ceremony, reportedly to avoid becoming a distraction due to two sexual harassment lawsuits he’d previously settled with the producer and cinematographer of his 2010 film I’m Not Here. As a result 2018 broke with tradition in the midst of an awards season that has come to colloquially become known as “the year of the woman”. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tapped four actresses to present lead acting awards at the 90th annual Oscars. Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster announced the lead actress prize winner while Jane Fonda and Helen Mirren presented lead actor.
22. Most A-listers wear between US$200,000 (A$258,000) to US$1 million (A$1.29 million) worth of jewellery on the Oscars red carpet. Stylists often choose four or six different looks per gown picked for a celebrity client. That can mean they’ve collected hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, worth of jewels. At the 2014 Academy Awards, Margot Robbie dyed her blonde hair dark brown and wore a stunning classic diamond necklace.
“It was her first time there. It was right after ‘(The) Wolf of Wall Street’ and she came out channelling old Hollywood glamour and she was wearing a 60-carat diamond Riviera necklace as well as a 14-carat ring, and her overall look, I would say, was about US$2.5 million (A$3.22 million),” Kristen Trustey from Forevermark Diamonds told AP.
23. Long and boring acceptance speeches are the bane of any awards night and the Oscars organisers have that covered. Oscar award winner’s speeches are restricted to 45 seconds. After that play-off music begins and reminders are put on the teleprompter. If the winners take too long the microphone simply cuts out. Greer Garson’s speech after she was named Best Actress for her role in Mrs Miniver in 1942 lasted six minutes and is said to be the longest ever acceptance speech. It prompted organisers to bring in the 45 second time limit.
Originally published as Oscars 2020: Hidden facts about the Academy Awards
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