Award ceremony for films of 1968
The
41st Academy Awards
were presented on April 14, 1969, to honor the
films of 1968
. They were the first Oscars to be staged at the
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
,
Los Angeles
,
[1]
and the first with no host since the
20th Academy Awards
.
[2]
Oliver!
became the only
Best Picture
winner to have received a
G-rating
prior to winning, the ratings system having replaced the old
Hays Code
on November 1, 1968 (though a number of Best Picture winners have received the rating retroactively). It was the last British film to win Best Picture until
Chariots of Fire
in
1981
, and the last musical to win until
Chicago
in
2002
.
The year was notable for the first—and so far, only—tie for
Best Actress
:
Katharine Hepburn
and
Barbra Streisand
shared the award, for their performances in
The Lion in Winter
and
Funny Girl
, respectively.
[3]
Hepburn became the second actress and third performer to win an acting Oscar two years in a row (having won for
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
the
previous year
), after
Luise Rainer
in
1936
(
The Great Ziegfeld
) and
1937
(
The Good Earth
), and
Spencer Tracy
in 1937 (
Captains Courageous
) and
1938
(
Boys Town
). She also became the first to win three acting Oscars in lead categories (an achievement later matched by
Daniel Day-Lewis
and
Frances McDormand
).
Stanley Kubrick
received his only career Oscar this year, for
Best Visual Effects
as special effects director and designer for
2001: A Space Odyssey
.
[4]
Cliff Robertson
's performance in
Charly
, which had received a mixed-to-negative reception from critics and audiences, engendered controversy when he won the
Academy Award for Best Actor
. Less than two weeks after the ceremony,
TIME
mentioned the Academy's generalized concerns over "excessive and vulgar solicitation of votes" and said "many members agreed that Robertson's award was based more on promotion than on performance."
[5]
A few people griped over the failure of
Paul Newman
to get an Academy Award nomination for his direction of the film
Rachel, Rachel
, despite him receiving a Best Director award from the
New York Film Critics Circle
.
[6]
Also notable this year was the only instance to date of the Academy revoking an Oscar after the ceremony:
Young Americans
won the award for
Best Documentary Feature Film
, but on May 7, 1969, it was discovered that it had premiered in October 1967, thus making it ineligible.
Journey into Self
, the first runner-up, was awarded the Oscar the following day.
[7]
A minor controversy was created when, in a sketch on
The Tonight Show
, which was recorded three hours before the awards ceremony,
Johnny Carson
and
Buddy Hackett
announced
Oliver!
as the winner for Best Picture and
Jack Albertson
as
Best Supporting Actor
.
[8]
Columnist
Frances Drake
claimed that most observers believed Carson and Hackett "were playing a huge practical joke or happened to make a lucky guess".
[9]
Referring to it as "The Great Carson Hoax", PricewaterhouseCoopers stated in a 2004 press release that it was "later proven that Carson and Hackett made a few lucky guesses for their routine, dispelling rumors of a security breach and keeping the integrity of the balloting process intact".
[10]
Carson would go on to host the ceremony five times.
[2]
The televised ceremony
[
edit
]
On the day after the broadcast, the live
ABC
television audience was estimated at 60 million in the United States.
[11]
It was the first Oscars to be widely telecast throughout the world, licensed in 37 countries.
[12]
[13]
The show opened outdoors at night in downtown Los Angeles. English actors
Ron Moody
and sixteen-year-old
Jack Wild
were in character as
Fagin
and the
Artful Dodger
, from Best Picture nominee
Oliver
!.
Fagin assured Dodger that if they didn’t win the golden statuette, they would “pinch it.”
[14]
[15]
The president of the Academy,
Gregory Peck
, opened the show in the oddly empty lobby of the new venue, the
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
.
[16]
Peck introduced
Ingrid Bergman
, the first of ten
friends of Oscar
.
[11]
Each actor presented the next in turn, with
Jane Fonda
introducing
Frank Sinatra
as “
Nancy Sinatra
’s dad.” Sinatra responded by thanking “
Henry Fonda
Junior.”
[15]
Tony Curtis
was a last-minute replacement for
Warren Beatty
, who had the mumps.
[14]
[17]
Jack Albertson
was presented by
Frank Sinatra
with the first award of the night ? Best Supporting Actor. Albertson was emotional thanking
Frank D. Gilroy
, the screenwriter of his film
The Subject Was Roses
,
which was based on Gilroy’s 1964 award winning play.
[18]
The
teleprompter
was not yet invented, so the presenters read off of handwritten
cue cards
. During the Best Original Screenplay presentation (which was won by
Mel Brooks
for
The Producers
), comedian
Don Rickles
carried a cue card up to Frank Sinatra at the podium.
[19]
A surprise friend of Oscar was revealed by
Walter Matthau
; a little monkey dressed in a tux brought
John Chambers
the statuette for special achievement in makeup for
Planet of the Apes
.
[11]
[20]
Ten-year-old
Mark Lester
, who portrayed the title role of
Oliver!
, handed an honorary Oscar to the musical’s Canadian choreographer,
Onna White
.
[21]
Towards the end of the ceremony,
Bob Hope
presented an emotional
Martha Raye
with the
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
. Hope, the host of seventeen previous Oscar shows,
[2]
quipped “I finally made it,” adding that he had been waiting at the
Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
, the Oscar home from 1961 to 1968.
[17]
[22]
Hope later observed that “Oscar is more naked than usual…They’re doing things on the screen today I wouldn’t do in bed…even if I had the chance.”
[23]
Ruth Gordon
won Best Supporting Actress as the nosy neighbour in
Roman Polanski
’s
Rosemary’s Baby
.
[11]
The 72-year-old actress exclaimed, “I can’t tell you how encouraging a thing like this is! …and thank all of you who voted for me, and all of you who didn’t ?please excuse me.”
[24]
[25]
The director and choreographer
Gower Champion
wanted the show to appeal to a younger audience.
[14]
[16]
He relaxed the dress code from
white tie
and tails to
black tie
and tuxedos.
[26]
He reduced the show’s length to two hours, partly by easing access to the stage with a wide center ramp over the orchestra pit.
[17]
The brevity of several speeches also contributed to the overall running time.
[11]
[27]
[28]
Champion also targeted the youth market with a little help from Jane Fonda’s friends,
The Soul Rascals
. The rock group played cover songs to choreographed dancers decked out in each of the Best Costume designs.
Danilo Donati
, the costume designer for
Franco Zeffirelli
's
Romeo and Juliet
, was not present, so Fonda handed the Oscar to the dancers portraying the star-crossed lovers as a “symbolic” gesture.
[29]
[30]
[31]
Throughout the ceremony Champion introduced rear-screen projection of photos and film excerpts onto five movable screens that filled the stage.
[14]
[32]
This rear projection was used effectively to set-up the Best Actress category. An impressive photo montage of
Katharine Hepburn
in
The Lion in Winter
,
Patricia Neal
in
The Subject Was Roses
,
Vanessa Redgrave
in
Isadora
,
Barbra Streisand
in
Funny Girl
and
Joanne Woodward
in
Rachel, Rachel
, was displayed on the massive screens. The orchestra, conducted by musical director
Henry Mancini
, played an instrumental arrangement of
Lew Spence
and
Alan Bergman
’s 1957 song
That Face.
[33]
Announcing the best actress winners, Ingrid Bergman gasped “It’s a tie!”
[33]
According to an Academy spokesperson in 1969, the actual vote count by the 3,030 eligible Academy members was "never divulged."
[11]
Hepburn was not in attendance, so
Anthony Harvey
, the director of
The Lion in Winter,
accepted on her behalf.
[34]
Streisand briefly tripped, stepping on the leg of her
Arnold Scaasi
-designed pantsuit, en route to the stage.
[24]
[35]
[36]
Streisand was subsequently shocked to discover the Scaasi suit appeared transparent under the bright stage lights and still photographers’ flashes.
[34]
[35]
[37]
Looking down at her Oscar, Streisand recited “
Hello, gorgeous
!” the opening words from
Funny Girl.
[14]
She acknowledged the honor of “being in such magnificent company as Katharine Hepburn.”
[26]
Sidney Poitier
had the distinction of presenting Best Picture, the final award of the night, declaring that “1968 was a vintage year for motion pictures.”
[38]
Later that night at the Governor’s Ball held in the
Beverly Hilton
Hotel, the show’s director Champion was applauded for his achievement.
[39]
The show earned mostly favourable reviews for its informality, look and pace, but some critics lamented the lack of glamour of previous Oscar nights.
[16]
[29]
[32]
[34]
[39]
[40]
Winners and nominees
[
edit
]
John Barry
, Best Original Score (Not a Musical) winner
Nominees were announced on February 24, 1969. Winners are listed first, highlighted in
boldface
and indicated with a double dagger (‡).
[41]
[3]
Multiple nominations and awards
[
edit
]
These films had multiple nominations:
- 12 nominations
:
Oliver!
- 8 nominations
:
Funny Girl
- 7 nominations
:
The Lion in Winter
and
Star!
- 4 nominations
:
2001: A Space Odyssey
,
Rachel, Rachel
, and
Romeo and Juliet
- 3 nominations
:
Faces
and
Planet of the Apes
- 2 nominations
:
The Battle of Algiers
,
Bullitt
,
Finian's Rainbow
,
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
,
Ice Station Zebra
,
The Odd Couple
,
The Producers
,
Rosemary's Baby
,
The Shoes of the Fisherman
,
The Subject Was Roses
,
The Thomas Crown Affair
, and
War and Peace
|
The following films received multiple awards:
|
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
[
edit
]
Martha Raye
Honorary Awards
[
edit
]
Presenters
[
edit
]
- Ingrid Bergman
(Presenter: Best Actress and Best Cinematography)
- Ingrid Bergman
,
Diahann Carroll
,
Jane Fonda
,
Rosalind Russell
and
Natalie Wood
(Presenters: Best Director)
- Diahann Carroll
(Presenter: Best Special Visual Effects, Documentary Awards & the Honorary Award to Onna White)
- Tony Curtis
(Presenter: Best Supporting Actress, Short Subjects Awards and Documentary Awards)
- Jane Fonda
(Presenter: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Costume Design and Short Subjects Awards)
- Bob Hope
(Presenter: Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Martha Raye)
- Burt Lancaster
(Presenter: Best Actor, Best Special Visual Effects and the Scientific or Technical Awards)
- Mark Lester
(Presenter: Honorary Academy Award to Onna White)
- Henry Mancini
and
Marni Nixon
(Presenter: Best Original or Adaptation Score)
- Walter Matthau
(Presenter: Best Film Editing)
- Gregory Peck
(Presenter: Best Original Score for a Motion Picture (Not a Musical))
- Pink Panther
(Presentation: Best Short Subject ? Cartoons)
[42]
- Sidney Poitier
(Presenter: Best Picture)
- Don Rickles
(Presenter: Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen)
- Rosalind Russell
(Presenter: Best Original Score for a Motion Picture (Not a Musical), Best Sound and Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Awards)
- Frank Sinatra
(Presenter: Best Supporting Actor, Best Song Original for the Picture and Writing Awards)
- Natalie Wood
(Presenter: Best Art Direction and the Scientific or Technical Awards)
Performers
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Champlin, Charles (April 15, 1969). "Streisand and Hepburn Tie; Robertson Voted Best Actor".
Los Angeles Times
. p. 1.
- ^
a
b
c
"Every Oscar Host in History: See the Full List From Douglas Fairbanks to Jimmy Kimmel"
.
Oscars.org
. January 22, 2024.
Archived
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. Retrieved
May 27,
2024
.
- ^
a
b
"The 41st Academy Awards (1969) Nominees and Winners"
.
oscars.org
.
Archived
from the original on December 21, 2014
. Retrieved
October 13,
2011
.
- ^
Internet Movie Database.
"Awards for Stanley Kubrick"
.
IMDb
.
Archived
from the original on January 7, 2009
. Retrieved
September 6,
2009
.
- ^
"The Trade: Grand Illusion"
.
TIME
. April 25, 1969. Archived from
the original
on September 14, 2012
. Retrieved
November 19,
2013
.
- ^
Wallechinsky, David; Wallace, Irving (1975).
The People's Almanac
. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. p. 845.
ISBN
0-385-04060-1
.
- ^
Breznican, Anthony (January 29, 2014).
"
'Alone Yet Not Alone': The OTHER Oscar nominees who lost their bids"
.
Entertainment Weekly
.
- ^
"Carson Names 'Oliver!' Long Before It's Official".
New York Times
. April 15, 1969. p. 40.
- ^
"Hackett, Carson On Inside Track?"
.
Galveston Daily News
. April 21, 1969. p. 7.
Archived
from the original on March 4, 2016
. Retrieved
October 22,
2015
.
- ^
"PricewaterhouseCoopers Celebrates 70th Anniversary Managing Academy Awards(R) Balloting"
. February 12, 2004.
Archived
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. Retrieved
March 1,
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.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
"Hepburn and Streisand Share Top Oscars".
New York Times
. April 15, 1969. p. 40.
- ^
"This Day in History April 14 Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand tie for Best Actress Oscar"
.
History Channel
History.com
.
A&E Television Networks
. June 6, 2024
. Retrieved
June 11,
2024
.
- ^
Szalai, Georg; Roxborough, Scott (February 23, 2016).
"Oscars: How Many People Watch the Ceremony Worldwide?"
.
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. Archived from
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a
b
c
d
e
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The Atlantic
.
- ^
a
b
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.
Youtube
. February 4, 2016
. Retrieved
May 24,
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– via
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.
- ^
a
b
c
Schulman, Michael (January 10, 2023). "How the Oscars Got Groovy - The unlikely alliance that rescued the Academy Awards".
The New Yorker
.
- ^
a
b
c
Warga, Wayne (April 15, 1969). "Old Excitement Lives as Oscar Finds New Home".
Los Angeles Times
. p. 29.
- ^
"Jack Albertson Wins Supporting Actor: 1969 Oscars"
.
Youtube
. May 29, 2024
. Retrieved
May 29,
2024
– via
Oscars.org
.
- ^
"Mel Brooks Wins Original Screenplay: 1969 Oscars"
.
Youtube
. May 24, 2024
. Retrieved
May 24,
2024
– via
Oscars.org
.
- ^
"John Chambers Receives an Honorary Award: 1969 Oscars"
.
Youtube
. May 24, 2024
. Retrieved
May 24,
2024
– via
Oscars.org
.
- ^
"Onna White Receives an Honorary Award: 1969 Oscars"
.
Youtube
. May 24, 2024
. Retrieved
May 24,
2024
– via
Oscars.org
.
- ^
Lenker, Maureen Lee (March 18, 2021).
"All the locations the Oscars have called home"
.
Entertainment Weekly
. Archived from
the original
on May 27, 2024.
- ^
"Martha Raye Receives the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: 1969 Oscars"
.
Youtube
. May 24, 2024
. Retrieved
May 24,
2024
– via
Oscars.org
.
- ^
a
b
Skolsky, Sidney (April 15, 1969). "Quake ? And a Kiss!".
Hollywood Citizen-News
. p. 5 Academy Awards Section.
- ^
"Ruth Gordon Wins Supporting Actress: 1969 Oscars"
.
Youtube
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– via
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.
- ^
a
b
Scott, Vernon (April 15, 1969). "Katie, Barbra Tie in Rare Oscar Vote".
Philadelphia Daily News
. p. 56.
- ^
Scott, Vernon (April 15, 1969). "Katharine and Barbra Tie; Robertson 'Best Actor'
".
Pittsburgh Press
. p. 15.
- ^
"Oliver! Wins Art Direction: 1969 Oscars"
.
YouTube
. May 30, 2024 – via
Oscars.org
.
- ^
a
b
Gerstel, Judith (April 15, 1969). "Aging Oscar show goes teeny-bopper".
Minneapolis Star
. p. 9.
- ^
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Hollywood Citizen-News
. p. 10 Academy Awards Section.
- ^
Vary, Adam B (February 28, 2014).
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.
BuzzFeed
.
Archived
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. Retrieved
May 25,
2024
.
- ^
a
b
Allen, Rich (April 15, 1969). "Oscar TV Show Missed Bob Hope".
Hollywood Citizen-News
. p. 12 Academy Awards Section.
- ^
a
b
"Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand Tie for Best Actress: 1969 Oscars"
.
Youtube
. October 26, 2010
. Retrieved
May 24,
2024
– via
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.
- ^
a
b
c
Warga, Wayne (April 15, 1969). "Old Excitement Lives as Oscar Finds New Home".
Los Angeles Times
. p. 3.
- ^
a
b
Streisand, Barbra (2023).
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.
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an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. pp. 314?315.
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.
- ^
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- ^
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.
Streisand Style Files
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Archived
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. Retrieved
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2024
.
- ^
"Oliver! And Carol Reed Win Best Picture and Directing: 1969 Oscars"
.
Youtube
. May 24, 2024
. Retrieved
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2024
– via
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.
- ^
a
b
Greenberg, Abe (April 15, 1969). "Best Actress Tie Brings Gasps".
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. p. 2 Academy Awards Section.
- ^
Champlin, Charles (April 15, 1969). "Top Oscars Won by 'Oliver!', Robertson, Streisand, Hepburn".
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. pp. 1, 3.
- ^
"The Official Academy Awards Database"
.
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- ^
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.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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.
External Links
[
edit
]