With this year’s Academy Awards almost upon us, it’s the most Oscary time of the year, a season of blubbing, hugging and, as we shall see, spectacular screw-ups. Despite the awards’ declining viewing figures, and the audience’s ignorance of the competing films, in just the past decade the ceremony has unintentionally provided some of the most jaw-dropping (and jaw-rattling) moments in the history of live television. No, we haven’t included last year’s excruciating #OscarsFanFavorite tribute to some DC film or other – not least because only TV viewers saw it – but this list is fairly evenly spread across 97 gushy years.
25
Anthony Hopkins wins best actor
2021
The forever-asterisked “Covid Oscars” were a strange affair. But the sparsely populated ceremony at Union Station went well enough until, in a bizarre decision, the producers, presuming Chadwick Boseman would win posthumously for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, kicked best actor to the end of the evening. Hopkins triumphed for The Father. He was asleep in Wales, and the organisers hadn’t arranged a video link-up.
[ Anthony Hopkins: ‘I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be rich’Opens in new window ]
24
Rob Lowe dances with Snow White
1989
Oscar has had his share of misconceived production numbers, but none was so bizarre as the opening shindig of the 61st show. Just a year after his notorious sex tape did the rounds, Rob Lowe was invited to sing an absurdly refitted version of Proud Mary with an unknown actor squeakily impersonating Snow White. “Used to work a lot for Walt Disney, starring in cartoons every night and day,” poor Eileen Bowman warbled.
23
Greer Garson goes on and on
1943
“My favourite thing is that she gave the longest Oscar acceptance speech ever. They’d never allow that now,” Jamie Dornan told this writer in 2016. Garson, Dornan’s first cousin twice removed, did indeed break the record when she won best actress for Mrs Miniver. A bit disappointing to learn it was only seven minutes.
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22
Tom Hanks doesn’t quite out his teacher
1994
Accepting best actor for Philadelphia, Tom Hanks thanked Rawley Farnsworth, his high-school drama teacher, who, the actor said, was one “of the finest gay Americans”. The incident inspired the film In and Out, during which Kevin Kline’s closeted character is unexpectedly outed at, yes, the Academy Awards. Hanks had, however, obtained Farnsworth’s permission.
21
Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker ignite Irish cinema
1990
Winning the first of his record three best-actor Oscars, Daniel Day-Lewis, incandescent as Christy Brown in My Left Foot, began by saying, “You’ve just provided me with the makings of one hell of a weekend in Dublin.” Brenda Fricker had already carried off her own Oscar for playing Brown’s mother. The current cinematic fecundity all began here.
20
Ellen DeGeneres’ selfie
2014
You may snort, but the selfie – including such stars as Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lawrence and, erm, Kevin Spacey – disabled Twitter and, when the service returned, generated what was then the most shared tweet ever. The previous champion was Barack and Michelle Obama’s post-election hug.
19
Markéta Irglová and Glen Hansard win best song
2008
John Carney shot the loosely structured, low-budget Once on the streets of Dublin with no hopes of international success. By the time Markéta Irglová and Glen Hansard arrived at the Oscars, Falling Slowly was an unstoppable favourite for best song. Jon Stewart, that year’s host, made the moment by calling Irglová back to finish her cruelly truncated speech.
18
Sidney Poitier wins best actor
1964
Notable alone for the fact that Sidney Poitier became the first black man to win best actor, for Lilies of the Field. What really stands out, however, is the uninhibited joy in the room. Anne Bancroft, presenting, scarcely looked happier when she won the previous year. Poitier positively bounds to the stage.
17
Alfred Hitchcock finally gets an Oscar
1968
It remains scarcely believable that Alfred Hitchcock, as prolific as he was admired, never won a competitive Oscar. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made partial recompense when, finally past his durable best, the master picked up the honorary Irving G Thalberg award. His five-word speech – “Thank you ... very much indeed” – felt like an admonishment.
16
William Holden thanks Barbara Stanwyck for everything
1978
Two of Hollywood’s greats were presenting an award when William Holden stopped to tell the audience that, back in 1939, Barbara Stanwyck intervened to stop his being sacked from Rouben Mamoulian’s Golden Boy. Without her, Holden says, he wouldn’t be here. “Oh, Bill!” Stanwyck said with a visible crumble.
15
Halle Berry’s waterworks
2002
She had every reason to be emotional. Halle Berry’s win for Monster’s Ball made her the first black woman to secure the best-actress Oscar. No other person of colour has since managed that feat. Only Gwyneth Paltrow rivalled Berry for epic sobbing.
[ Halle Berry: ‘I was very disheartened after winning the Oscar’Opens in new window ]
14
Ben-Hur breaks the record
1960
Ben-Hur is the Bob Beamon of the Oscars. Like that long-jumper, the film set a record – wins in 11 categories – that proved stubbornly difficult to surpass. Two films, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, equalled Ben-Hur’s total, but none has added to it.
13
Vanessa Redgrave’s ‘hoodlums’
1978
Members of the Jewish Defence League had, in the run-up to the Oscars, burned Vanessa Redgrave in effigy as protest against her funding and narrating a documentary about the Palestine Liberation Organisation. “You have refused to be intimidated by the threat of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums,” she said after winning best supporting actress for Julia. Boos mixed in with the applause.
12
Sally Field gets carried away
1985
Winning her second Oscar, for Places in the Heart, Sally Field, once the Flying Nun, effused: “I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!” The famously good-natured star now admits she sometimes wants to punch people on the nose when they misquote the speech.
11
Shaft!
1972
The Oscars were still in old-school song’n’dance mode when, nominated for best original song, Isaac Hayes was wheeled on astride a glittery wheeled keyboard thing to ask: “Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?” Shaft? Damn right. Would be head-spinning today.
10
Kathryn Bigelow becomes first women to win best director
2010
Barbra Streisand was there to award Kathryn Bigelow – the first woman to win – the best-director prize for The Hurt Locker. The drama was heightened by Bigelow competing (good-naturedly throughout, it must be said) against her former husband, James Cameron, up for Avatar. “The moment of a lifetime,” Bigelow remarked.
9
Hattie McDaniel becomes first black winner
1940
The circumstances surrounding Hattie McDaniel’s win for Gone With the Wind remain controversial. The hotel hosting the ceremony had a colour bar, but “as a favour” McDaniel was allowed to sit at a segregated table towards the rear of the room. “I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race,” she said, accepting the award for best supporting actress.
8
Louise Fletcher thanks her parents
1976
After an amusing start to her acceptance speech for best actress, Louise Fletcher, terrifying as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, asked the audience’s pardon and took to American Sign Language. “For my mother and my father…” she continued. Both Fletcher’s parents were deaf. Most moving Oscar speech ever.
[ Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest star, dies aged 88Opens in new window ]
7
Parasite wins best picture
2020
One last joyous moment before the Covid shutters came down. It took until the 92nd Oscars for a film not in English to win best picture. And it wasn’t a French, Italian, Swedish or Japanese title that finally did it. Bong Joon-ho’s triumph confirmed a surge in Korean popular culture that almost nobody saw coming. Jane Fonda seemed almost as happy as Bong when she announced that Parasite had won the award.
[ Bong Joon Ho: ‘Even among ourselves we wonder why Korean cinema exploded’Opens in new window ]
6
The best-actress tie
1969
“The winner is…” Ingrid Bergman said before doing a double-take at the card. “It’s a tie. The winners are ... Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl.” Two generations were honoured. Hepburn took the third of her four Oscars. No other actor has won so many.
5
David Niven’s streaker
1974
Was it a set-up? In the year of Watergate, conspiracy theories were sure to thrive. As the best-picture award was about to be handed out, one Robert Opel sprinted, with all tackle dangling, behind presenter David Niven. The suave actor didn’t flinch. “The only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping and showing off his shortcomings,” he quipped.
4
Chaplin returns to Hollywood
1972
In 1952, as McCarthyite paranoia swelled, Charlie Chaplin was, after a premiere in London, denied automatic re-entry to the United States. It was another 20 years before the nation, through the agency of the academy, made amends with an honorary Oscar. The 12-minute standing ovation remains profoundly touching. The audience was acknowledging the man who, more than any other, created their industry.
[ Film star, humanist and ... vindictive lover? Who was the real Charlie Chaplin?Opens in new window ]
3
Sacheen Littlefeather comes on for Brando
1973
Space precludes even cursory discussion of the claims and counterclaims that surround Sacheen Littlefeather coming on stage to decline Marlon Brando’s Oscar for The Godfather while that actor, protesting Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans, stayed at home. Were six security guards really required to sustain an angry John Wayne? Harsh words were certainly thrown – and, just last year, shortly before her death, the academy apologised to Littlefeather.
2
La La Land doesn’t win best picture
2017
Here’s what happened. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were mistakenly handed the envelope for best actress. Beatty opened it and, puzzled, showed it to Dunaway, who saw only the words La La Land. It was several minutes before the organisers realised and set about correcting to Moonlight. The famous photograph of the front rows captures a cyclone of confusion. Well, the academy consoled itself, nothing so strange could happen again. Five years later…
1
The Slap
2022
Time will tell if recency bias is playing a role here, but if, in 1940, Clark Gable had walked on stage and slapped Bob Hope in the choppers it seems likely we’d still be talking about it eight decades later. For those watching live at home, it seemed, when Will Smith clobbered Chris Rock for joking about his wife’s hair loss, that we must be experiencing “a bit”. But those who were there knew. “No, you could tell immediately,” Ciarán Hinds told this writer. “You could tell immediately just by looking at Chris Rock’s eyes.” Any doubt was dispelled when Smith began yelling obscenities at the presenter. The academy failed to remove the eventual best-actor winner, allowing a thick, tense atmosphere to clog the rest of the evening. What could possibly dethrone it from the top spot?
