Top Ten Biggest Oscar Snubs – Nominations #8
8
Clip posted by maureenbuendia
- Audrey Hepburn for My Fair Lady (1964, above)
- Cher, Eric Stoltz, and Peter Bogdanovich for Mask (1985)
- Al Pacino for The Godfather Part III (1990)
- Catherine O’Hara for For Your Consideration (2007)
Once again, I could add dozens of names to the list above, as performers and directors are snubbed every single year for obvious reasons — there are only five Oscar slots while there are many more potential — in some cases, even likely — contenders.
Here’s what makes those four instances especially remarkable:
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn’s landing the role of Eliza Doolittle in Warner Bros.’ film version of My Fair Lady sparked an outrage because people believed that the role belonged to Julie Andrews, who’d played it onstage, and none other. Jack Warner, however, felt that Andrews’ stage-star wattage wouldn’t translate as movie-star box office magnetism — and his megaproject needed a Hollywood Star that would attract lots of butts to fill lots of movie theater seats.
Hepburn was reportedly hurt by the naysayers. Adding insult to injury, her voice — much to the actress’ disappointment — was deemed below par. Enter Marni Nixon to provide Eliza’s singing.
Rubbing salt on the insulted injury, at the time of the Oscar 1964 announcements Hepburn was left nominationless despite the fact that My Fair Lady — which turned out to be a major box-office success — got 12 nods, including best picture, best director (George Cukor), best actor (Rex Harrison), best supporting actor (Stanley Holloway), and best supporting actress (Gladys Cooper).
It gets worse: Squeezing liquid hot pepper on the salted, insulted injury, the Academy gave My Fair Lady 8 Oscars while picking Julie Andrews as the best actress of the year for (the even bigger box-office hit) Mary Poppins.
(Hepburn later said that she initially refused the role of Eliza, telling Warners that it should go to Andrews, but eventually relented when told that the role would then go to another actress.)
Cher, Eric Stoltz, and Peter Bogdanovich
In the case of Cher, Eric Stoltz, and Peter Bogdanovich, the problem may well have been the much-publicized finger-pointing that followed the 1985 release of Mask, which pitted Bogdanovich against the film’s distributor, Universal, and Cher against Bogdanovich, with the actress complaining that her best scenes were left in the cutting-room floor and that the Bruce Springsteen compositions for the film weren’t included in the final release prints.
"If Cher would have stood behind me and fought for the Springsteen music and the lost footage," Bogdanovich was quoted as saying, "I think we would have won. Furthermore, if she had just taken no sides at all, I think she would have been nominated, Eric would have been nominated, the film would have been nominated, and I would have been nominated."
Al Pacino
Al Pacino was The Godfather Part III. The film received 7 Oscar nominations, but Pacino’s performance — unlike those in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II — didn’t make the cut.
He did, however, get a best supporting actor nod that year for his heavily madeup (and very effective) cameo in Dick Tracy.
Catherine O’Hara
Now, Catherine O’Hara is here because of the irony about her nominationlessness. After all, For Your Consideration is about a bunch of performers obsessed with getting touched by the Oscar god. Instead of getting touched, however, they all get screwed. Considering how good O’Hara is in the role, it’s really too bad that life imitated art in this instance.
Peter Bogdanovich quote: Oscar Dearest by Peter H. Brown and Jim Pinkston. (True, the book is filled with errors, but there is a lot of solid, referenced information as well.)
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Dubbed or not Audrey Hepburn should have been nominated. She was a delightful Eliza. Other dubbed actresses had been nominated before. Audrey should have been NO exception!