 Movies.com has an interesting list of some of the weiredest moments in Oscar history (by the way, the Oscars are coming February 25 - you can get coverage right here at Snarky Gossip; well, that is, if you wanna be in the Cool Kids Club. Otherwise, I can’t help you.):
1938
Oscar Kidnapped
In Old Chicago star Alice Brady won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress but was sick and unable to attend the ceremony. When her name was announced, a stranger took to the stage and accepted the award on her behalf. Unfortunately, Brady didn’t know the man, who absconded with her statue and was never to be found — and Brady, sadly, died before a replacement statue could be issued.
1943
Biggest Blowhard
"I am practically unprepared" is how Best Actress winner Greer Garson began her acceptance speech for her role in Mrs. Miniver … kicking off the longest Oscar speech in history. While those in attendance claimed it ran as long as 30 minutes, Garson later insisted was only six minutes, but no one was listening to anything she said at that point anyway.
1947
Non-Actor Double Dips
The first person to walk away on Oscar night with two awards for the same performance wasn’t an actor at all: It was Army instructor Harold Russell, who lost both of his hands in WWII. Russell was so moving in William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives that he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and the Academy, convinced he didn’t have a chance at winning a competitive statue, decided to award him an Honorary Oscar "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans." But the Academy underestimated just how powerful Russell’s performance was. In a sad postscript, Russell was forced to sell his Oscar in 1992 to raise cash for his wife’s medical expenses.
1953
Oscar’s TV Debut! Actress’ Public Humiliation
Variety reported that more than 90 million people in the U.S. and Canada watched the first-ever Oscars telecast on NBC, with Bob Hope as host. Unfortunately for Best Actress winner Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba), that meant 90 million people saw her trip up the steps on her way to the podium to accept her little golden guy.
1968
Oscar Mourns MLK
The 1968 ceremony, originally planned for April 8, was postponed for two days as the nation mourned the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. It seemed especially appropriate, then, that the year’s Best Picture Oscar would go to In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier as a police detective who forges mutual respect with a racist Southern police chief, played by Best Actor Oscar winner Rod Steiger.
1969
Babs’ Indecent Exposure
When Barbra Streisand tied with Katharine Hepburn for the Best Actress Oscar at the 1969 ceremony, she was so excited that she tore her Arnold Scaasi bell-bottom pantsuit on the way to the stage. But that’s not why everyone remembers her outfit. While Babs was accepting the statue, the spotlights revealed that her outfit was actually, shockingly, quite see-through. "Hello, gorgeous!" she said as she raised her Funny Girl trophy in the air. Hello, indeed.
1971
Scott Snubs Oscar
Grumpy Patton star George C. Scott, who had refused an Oscar nod for his role in The Hustler in 1961 (and subsequently lost), again refused a Best Actor nomination from the Academy this year, calling the ceremonies a "meat parade" and "offensive, barbarous and innately corrupt." But in some weird reverse psychology move, Scott snagged the Best Actor win. The only man who stood to collect his statue was a Patton producer. Scott was at home, watching a hockey game.
1972
Chaplin’s Dramatic Return
Legendary comedian Charlie Chaplin had never won an Oscar in competition — and had remained in a 20-year, self-imposed exile from the U.S. after being accused of "un-American activities" by Joseph McCarthy — when he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Academy. So when they turned up the lights after a retrospective of Chaplin’s career to reveal the famed director standing on the stage, the audience stood up and welcomed him with the longest standing ovation in Oscar history … Chaplin won a competitive Oscar the next year for his 1952 flick Limelight— the movie was eligible because it had never been released in Los Angeles until 1972.
1973
Brando’s Boycott
With the buzz that he was a shoo-in to win the Best Actor prize for The Godfather, method man Marlon Brando hatched an elaborate "unacceptance" speech that dwarfed George C. Scott’s earlier refusal. When presenters Roger Moore and Liv Ullmann opened the envelope and declared Brando the winner, a young woman dressed in Native-American attire, calling herself Sacheen Littlefeather, appeared at the podium and refused the Oscar on Brando’s behalf citing "the treatment of the American Indians today by the film industry." Littlefeather turned out to be a D-list actress named Maria Cruz, whose biggest post-Oscar gig included posing for a nude Playboy centerfold.
We’re Going Streaking!
Well, this guy did at least. Presenter David Niven was all ready with the perfect quip on this Oscar night, when a San Francisco photographer and art-gallery owner named Robert Opel suddenly bolted across the stage, completely nude, giving the crowd and the TV audience a look at his, ahem, little golden guy. "Probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off his clothes and showing his shortcomings," Niven ad-libbed. In fact, Niven’s response was so perfect it almost sounded like it had been scripted for the occasion, which, for years afterward, some critics believed is exactly what happened.
1989
Snow White Number Makes Disney Grumpy
Oscar producer Allan Carr had promised an unforgettable show opener to the 1989 Oscar telecast. And he delivered, though his musical number featuring Snow White; a singing, dancing Rob Lowe; a sashay through the star-studded audience; and the song "Proud Mary" ended up as infamous as it was unforgettable. Disney, in fact, was so horrified by the cheesefest that the company threatened to sue over the unauthorized use of its Snow White character. Cooler heads prevailed in the legal matters, but Carr’s reputation never quite did.
2000
Drag Carpet
One of the year’s big pictures was Boys Don’t Cry, about a transgendered teen who winds up murdered. But that didn’t inspire any political correctness from South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who made a spectacular, or rather spectacularly weird, arrival on the red carpet. Stone donned a long pink spaghetti-strapped gown that was reminiscent of Gwyneth Paltrow’s famous Ralph Lauren Oscar dress, while his pal Parker sported a revealing green number that recalled Jennifer Lopez’s infamous Grammy Versace gown. Unfortunately, not only did the boys not win any Best Dressed accolades for their getups, their South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut tune "Blame Canada" also lost out to Phil Collins. Now that’s a drag.
2000
Angelina’s Over-Affection
She may be a great humanitarian and the prettier half of Brangelina now, but it wasn’t so long ago that Angelina Jolie was getting her freak on by getting a little freaky, and creepy, with her brother. While accepting her Best Supporting Actress statue for Girl, Interrupted, Jolie declared "I am so in love with my brother right now!" Then she proceeded to kiss him, a lingering kiss, on the mouth. Ewww!
2002
Julia’s Me-Me-Me! Moment
Sure, maybe Julia Roberts was just expressing her excitement for her pal and Pelican Brief co-star Denzel Washington. But when she exclaimed "I love my life!" upon opening the envelope that revealed Washington as the Best Actor winner for his role in Training Day — and then proceeded to take up half his acceptance-speech time by hanging on his arm — many critics felt the Pretty Woman was displaying a bit of ungracious, selfish behavior that brought the focus on her instead of, you know, the winner.
2003
The Kiss and the Diss
At least it wasn’t a dull night. First, pot-stirring filmmaker Michael Moore unleashed an anti-Bush rant during his acceptance speech for the Best Documentary Oscar, calling Dubya "a fictitious president" who sparked a war for "fictitious reasons." Many in the liberal Hollywood audience applauded Moore, but the volume seemed to be just as high from those who booed him. Later, there was nothing fictitious about The Pianist star Adrien Brody’s excitement at winning the Best Actor trophy, and there was nothing subtle about the way he chose to celebrate — grabbing presenter Halle Berry and putting her in a liplock, before telling her, "Bet you didn’t know that was in the gift bag."
2006
Pimp My Oscars
It was the first mention of Oscar "mafia" that didn’t involve Robert De Niro or The Godfather. And that was only part of the reason the nomination of, and performance by, rappers Three 6 Mafia made the usually staid ceremony so trippy. The only sight odder than their performance of "It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp," the Best Song nominee from Hustle & Flow, was the sight of the Three 6 Mafia-ers rushing the stage to accept statues when the song actually won. Shout-outs to Jesus and multiple "homies" made for an MTV (read: too hip for Oscars) moment.
Tags: oscars, weird oscar moments, oscars 2007
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