Jean Simmons, Paul Newman in Until They Sail
Jean Simmons, who died this past January, was remembered in this year's In Memoriam segment at the 2010 Oscar ceremony. Well, great. Simmons was a fantastic actress. As far as I'm concerned, she stole Hamlet from Laurence Olivier, Elmer Gantry from Burt Lancaster, and Spartacus from Kirk Douglas.
But why an image of Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (right) above Simmons' name? Oops!
That mistake reminded me of another homage a few years back, when on the occasion of the Oscar's Grand 75th Anniversary the Academy honored every Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress winner with a one-minute (or whereabouts) montage.
The very first actress to win the Oscar was Janet Gaynor, who bagged the statuette for her performances in three movies: Sunrise, 7th Heaven, and Street Angel. The Oscar's Best Actress montage, however, featured only one: Sunrise. But let's not be picky. I mean, just imagine if the Oscarcast ran for 3h45m4s as opposed to just 3h45m.
So, what do the homage creators do to honor Janet Gaynor in Sunrise? Well, they carefully pick a moment from the most famous sequence found in the film. And that's great. It's a striking bit. The only problem is that the woman featured in it is Margaret Livingston, who never won nor was ever nominated for an Oscar.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T3mBsA7yTM[/youtube]
And that's how the very first Best Actress Oscar winner was left out of the Oscar's 75th Anniversary Homage to its Best Actresses. Margaret Livingston is seen above, dressed all in black (she's a city girl…) while embracing bumpkin George O'Brien.
Photos: Until They Sail (MGM); The Song of Bernadette (20th Century Fox)
I'm still annoyed at overlooking Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur: I'm sure someone devised some very smart criteria, but I struggle to see which: if it was relative weight of the number of films vs. other media, then Michael Jackson wouldn't be there either; if it was never having been nominated for an Academy Award, that would eliminate the likes of Errol Flynn or Bela Lugosi; if it was total number of films, where would James Dean be? Quite annoying. Overall, this year's 'In Memoriam' was probably the least inspired ever (of the ones I've seen). No worries pioneers and celluloid stars, we'll remember and honour you.
It is really sad for the families of these Hollywood pioneers. With unemployment so high, maybe the greed of corporate profit should be set aside for the hiring of people who do their research and are over 30 years old.