Award ceremony for films of 1988
The
61st Academy Awards
ceremony, organized by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
(AMPAS), honored the best
films of 1988
and took place on Wednesday, March 29, 1989, at the
Shrine Auditorium
in Los Angeles, beginning at 6:00 p.m.
PST
/ 9:00 p.m.
EST
.
[1]
During the ceremony, AMPAS presented
Academy Awards
(commonly referred to as Oscars) in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by
ABC
, was produced by
Allan Carr
and directed by Jeff Margolis.
[1]
Ten days earlier, in a ceremony held at the
Beverly Hills Hotel
in
Beverly Hills, California
, the
Academy Awards for Technical Achievement
were presented by host
Angie Dickinson
.
[2]
Rain Man
won four awards, including
Best Picture
. Other winners included
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
with four awards,
Dangerous Liaisons
with three, and
The Accused
,
The Accidental Tourist
,
A Fish Called Wanda
,
The Appointments of Dennis Jennings
,
Beetlejuice
,
Bird
,
Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
,
The Milagro Beanfield War
,
Mississippi Burning
,
Pelle the Conqueror
,
Tin Toy
,
Working Girl
, and
You Don't Have to Die
with one award each.
The telecast drew in over 42 million viewers in the United States, making it the most-viewed ceremony up to that point, until it was surpassed by the
70th Academy Awards
in 1998, which garnered a viewership of over 57 million.
[3]
[4]
The ceremony featured changes such as the introduction of the phrase "And the Oscar goes to..." and the absence of a traditional host. The ceremony's opening number, featuring
Snow White
and
Rob Lowe
, received heavy criticism. Allan Carr faced significant backlash, leading the Academy to form a committee to address the criticisms and evaluate the ceremony's production.
Winners and nominees
[
edit
]
The nominees for the 61st Academy Awards were announced on February 15, 1989, at the
Samuel Goldwyn Theater
in
Beverly Hills, California
, by Richard Kahn, president of the Academy, and actress
Anne Archer
.
[5]
Rain Man
led all nominees, with eight;
Dangerous Liaisons
and
Mississippi Burning
tied for second with seven each.
[6]
The winners were announced at the award ceremony on March 29, 1989.
[7]
Best Actress winner
Jodie Foster
became the eighth person in history to win the aforementioned category for a film with a single nomination. The last person to achieve this feat was
Sophia Loren
when she won for
Two Women
in
1961
. Best Actor winner
Dustin Hoffman
was the fifth person to win the aforementioned category twice.
[8]
Sigourney Weaver
became the fifth performer to receive
two acting nominations in the same year
[9]
but did not win in either category.
[10]
John Lasseter
and
William Reeves
won Best Animated Short Film for
Tin Toy
, which was
Pixar
's first Oscar ever and the first
CGI
film to win an Oscar.
[11]
Awards
[
edit
]
Winners are listed first, highlighted in
boldface
and indicated with double dagger (‡).
[12]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Bird
?
Les Fresholtz
,
Dick Alexander
,
Vern Poore
, and
Willie D. Burton
‡
- Die Hard
?
Don Bassman
,
Kevin F. Cleary
,
Richard Overton
, and
Al Overton Jr.
- Gorillas in the Mist
?
Andy Nelson
,
Brian Saunders
, and
Peter Handford
- Mississippi Burning
?
Robert J. Litt
,
Elliot Tyson
,
Rick Kline
, and
Danny Michael
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
?
Robert Knudson
,
John Boyd
,
Don Digirolamo
, and
Tony Dawe
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Academy Honorary Awards
[
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]
Films with multiple nominations and wins
[
edit
]
Presenters and performers
[
edit
]
The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or performed musical numbers:
[16]
Presenters
[
edit
]
Performers
[
edit
]
The ceremony
[
edit
]
In an attempt to attract viewers to the telecast and increase interest in the festivities, the Academy hired film producer and veteran Oscar ceremony executive talent coordinator
Allan Carr
to produce the 1989 ceremony.
[17]
[18]
In interviews with various media outlets, he expressed that it was a dream come true to produce the Oscars.
[19]
Notable changes were introduced in the production of the telecast. For the first time, presenters announced each winner with the phrase "And the Oscar goes to..." rather than "And the winner is...".
[20]
The green room where Oscar presenters, performers, and winners gathered backstage was transformed into a luxurious suite complete with furniture, pictures, refreshments, and other amenities called "Club Oscar".
[21]
Instead of hiring a host for the proceedings, Carr heavily relied on presenters, often grouped in pairs that had some connection, either through family or the film industry (a theme he billed as "couples, companions, costars, and compadres");
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
not until
2019
would another ceremony lack a host.
[26]
Several other people were involved in the production of the ceremony. Jeff Margolis served as director of the telecast.
[27]
Lyricist and composer
Marvin Hamlisch
was hired as musical supervisor of the festivities.
[28]
Comedian and writer
Bruce Vilanch
was hired as a writer for the broadcast, a role he filled until 2014.
[29]
Carr had also rounded up eighteen young stars, including
Patrick Dempsey
,
Corey Feldman
,
Ricki Lake
, and
Blair Underwood
, to perform in a musical number entitled "I Wanna Be an Oscar Winner".
[30]
Unlike in most Oscar ceremonies, however, Carr announced that none of the three songs nominated for Best Original Song would be performed live.
[24]
The telecast was also remembered for being the final public appearance of actress and comedian
Lucille Ball
, where she and co-presenter
Bob Hope
were given a standing ovation.
[31]
On April 26, almost a month after the ceremony, she died from a
dissecting aortic aneurysm
at age 77.
[32]
Opening number
[
edit
]
In an effort to showcase more glamour and showmanship in the ceremony, producer Carr hired playwright Steve Silver to co-produce an opening number inspired by Silver's long-running musical revue,
Beach Blanket Babylon
.
[33]
The segment consisted of an elaborate stage show centered on actress Eileen Bowman, dressed as
Snow White
from
Disney's
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
, who comes to Hollywood and is entranced by its glamour.
[33]
Like
Beach Blanket Babylon
, the opening act also featured dancers wearing giant, elaborate hats.
[33]
In a setting designed to resemble the
Cocoanut Grove
nightclub, Hollywood dignitaries such as actresses
Alice Faye
,
Dorothy Lamour
,
Cyd Charisse
, her husband
Tony Martin
, as well as
Buddy Rogers
and
Vincent Price
were prominently featured, while singer and television producer
Merv Griffin
sang a rendition of the song "
I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
" (of which he had had a hit recording in 1949). Bowman and actor
Rob Lowe
then sang a reworked version of
Creedence Clearwater Revival
's "
Proud Mary
", with lyrics rewritten to refer to the film industry; it is this song for which the act is infamously remembered.
[33]
Critical reviews and public reaction
[
edit
]
The majority of media outlets panned the show.
Los Angeles Times
television critic
Howard Rosenberg
lamented, "the Academy Awards telecast on
ABC
was surprisingly devoid of magic. It was on the musty side, and compared with
last month's Grammycast
, absolutely moribund."
[34]
Film critic
Janet Maslin
chastised the opening number, saying it "deserves a permanent place in the annals of Oscar embarrassments". She also bemoaned that the "I Wanna Be an Oscar Winner" number "was confusingly shot and inspired no confidence in Hollywood's future".
[35]
Television editor Tony Scott of
Variety
complained, "The 61st Annual Academy Awards extravaganza?seen in 91 different countries including, for the first time, the
Soviet Union
?turned out to be a TV
nyet
" He also observed that the "Break-Out Superstars number" looked like they were "cavorting around a giant Oscar as if it were the
golden calf
".
[36]
The telecast also received a mixed reception from professionals within the show business industry. Talent agent
Michael Ovitz
praised Carr, saying that he had "brought show business back to the movie business". Actress
Jennifer Jones
thanked Carr in a written letter to the producer, which read, "You delivered."
[37]
On the other hand, seventeen people, including actors
Paul Newman
,
Gregory Peck
, and
Julie Andrews
, and directors
Billy Wilder
and
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
, signed an open letter deriding the telecast as "an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry".
[38]
Just outside the auditorium, on Jefferson Boulevard, a group of San Francisco
drag queens
, calling themselves the Sisters of Perpetual Indignity, stood in
Mae West
wigs and gowns, saying that they had come “to show our support for Allan Carr” for producing the first “
gay Oscars
.”
[39]
There has been speculation that some of the blowback against the ceremony, which was the first produced by an
openly gay
person and which prominently featured a musical number based on a
gay nightclub
show, was
homophobic
in nature,
[40]
although others, such as Bruce Vilanch and David Geffen, have challenged that assessment.
[41]
In addition,
The Walt Disney Company
filed suit against
AMPAS
for use of the likeness of Snow White.
[42]
The lawsuit demanded unspecified damages for "copyright infringement, unfair competition, and dilution of business reputation".
[4]
Academy President Richard Kahn immediately issued an apology to the studio, and the lawsuit was subsequently dropped.
[43]
Bowman has claimed that she was made to sign a
gag order
the next day, prohibiting her from speaking to the press about her performance for the next 13 years. She finally spoke about it publicly in a 2013 interview, in which she described the performance as looking "like a gay
bar mitzvah
".
[44]
Ratings and aftermath
[
edit
]
Despite the criticism regarding the production of the ceremony, the American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 42.68 million people over its length, which was a 1% increase from the
previous year's ceremony
.
[3]
[45]
The show also drew higher
Nielsen ratings
compared to the previous ceremony, with 29.81% of households watching over a 50.41 share.
[3]
It was the highest-rated Oscar broadcast since the
56th ceremony
, held in 1984.
[4]
Nevertheless, AMPAS created an Awards Presentation Review Committee to evaluate and determine why the telecast earned such a negative reaction from the media and the entertainment industry.
[4]
The committee later determined that Carr's biggest mistake was allowing the questionable opening number to run for 12 minutes. Producer and former
Directors Guild of America
president
Gilbert Cates
, who headed the committee, said that Carr would not have received such harsh criticism if the number had been much shorter.
[4]
Cates was subsequently hired as producer of the
succeeding year's telecast
.
[46]
According to various showbiz insiders and reporters, the criticism and backlash from the ceremony resulted in Carr never again producing a film or theatrical show. He died from complications resulting from
liver cancer
on June 29, 1999, at the age of 62.
[33]
[4]
Box office performance of nominees
[
edit
]
At the time of the nominations announcement on February 15, the combined gross of the five Best Picture nominees at the US box office was $188 million, with an average of $37.7 million per film.
[47]
Rain Man
was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees, with $97 million in domestic box office receipts.
[47]
The film was followed by
Working Girl
($42.1 million),
The Accidental Tourist
($24.2 million),
Mississippi Burning
($18.6 million), and finally
Dangerous Liaisons
($6.69 million).
[47]
Of the top 50 grossing movies of the year, 52 nominations went to 13 films. Only
Big
(3rd),
Rain Man
(5th),
Working Girl
(21st),
The Accused
(32nd),
The Accidental Tourist
(38th),
Gorillas in the Mist
(40th),
Mississippi Burning
(45th), and
Tucker: The Man and His Dream
(50th) were nominated for Best Picture, directing, acting, or screenwriting. The other top 50 box office hits that earned nominations were
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
(1st),
Coming to America
(2nd),
Die Hard
(7th),
Beetlejuice
(9th), and
Willow
(12th).
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
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Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Hofler, Robert (2010).
Party Animals : A Hollywood Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll Starring the Fabulous Allan Carr
. Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States:
Da Capo Press
.
ISBN
978-0-306-81655-0
.
OCLC
779680732
.
- Levy, Emanuel (2003).
All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards
. New York, United States:
Continuum International Publishing Group
.
ISBN
0-8264-1452-4
.
- Osborne, Robert (2008).
80 Years of the Oscar: The Complete History of the Academy Awards
. New York, United States:
Abbeville Publishing Group
.
ISBN
978-0-7892-0992-4
.
- Pond, Steve (2005).
The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards
. New York, United States:
Faber and Faber
.
ISBN
0-571-21193-3
.
- Wiley, Mason; Bona, Damien (1996).
Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards
(5 ed.). New York, United States:
Ballantine Books
.
ISBN
0-345-40053-4
.
OCLC
779680732
.
External links
[
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]
Official websites
[
edit
]
Analysis
[
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]
Other resources
[
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]