Alternative Film Guide

Answers to the Oscar Quiz - Part I.

Before looking at the answers, you may want to test your Oscar knowledge — or lack thereof — by checking out the questions first.

 

Answer No. 1: William Wyler (right). From Brennan (Walter)* to Barbra (Streisand), Wyler has guided 36 Oscar-nominated performances. (Wyler’s Oscar list.)

Elia Kazan comes in second place, with 24 nominations (Kazan’s Oscar list); George Cukor in third, with 21 (Cukor’s Oscar list); and both Fred Zinnemann and Martin Scorsese in fourth, with 20. (Zinnemann’s Oscar list; Scorsese’s Oscar list.)

* Wyler co-directed with Howard Hawks the 1936 family saga Come and Get It, for which Walter Brennan won the first ever best supporting actor Oscar.

 

Answer No. 2: Henry Fonda, from The Grapes of Wrath (1940, above, with Jane Darwell) to On Golden Pond (1981), a total of 41 years. Fonda lost the 1940 Oscar to James Stewart for The Philadelphia Story, but he won the statuette the second time around.

Helen Hayes, Jack Palance, and Alan Arkin tie for second place, with a 38-year nomination gap. Hayes from The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931-32*) to Airport (1970), Palance from Shane (1953) to City Slickers (1991), and Arkin from The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) to Little Miss Sunshine in 2006.

Ralph Richardson comes in fifth, from The Heiress (1949) to Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), 35 years; and Lynn Redgrave in sixth, from Georgy Girl (1966) to Gods and Monsters (1998), 32 years.

* The Oscars only began covering films released during a calendar year in 1934.

 

Answer No. 3: John Huston (left), from Moulin Rouge (1952) to Prizzi’s Honor (1985), a total of 33 years. Huston lost out in 1952 to John Ford for The Quiet Man, and in 1985 to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa. Huston, however, did win for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Roman Polanski comes in second, from Tess (1980) to The Pianist (2002), 22 years; and Joseph L. Mankiewicz in third, from Five Fingers (1952) to Sleuth (1972), 20 years.

In fourth, with a 19-year gap between nominations, it’s a tie: Otto Preminger, from Laura in 1944 to The Cardinal in 1963; and David Lean, from Doctor Zhivago in 1965 to A Passage to India in 1984.

 

Answer No. 4: Katharine Hepburn, from Morning Glory (1932-33*, top, with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) to On Golden Pond (1981, above, with Henry Fonda), a total of 48 years. She won for both of these, and also for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) and The Lion in Winter (1968), the latter in a tie with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl.

Paul Newman comes in second, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) to Road to Perdition (2002), 44 years; and Henry Fonda in third, from The Grapes of Wrath (1940) to On Golden Pond (1981), 41 years.

Mickey Rooney comes in fourth, from Babes in Arms (1939) to The Black Stallion (1979), 40 years; and tying for fifth place with a 39-year-span, are Laurence Olivier, from Wuthering Heights (1939) to The Boys from Brazil (1978), and Jack Palance, from Sudden Fear (1952) to City Slickers (1991).

* This particular year covered 18 months, from mid-1932 to December 1933, in order to allow the Oscars to cover films released during each calendar year from 1934 on.

 

Answer No. 5: Michael Curtiz (above right) in 1938, for the tough crime melodrama Angels with Dirty Faces and for the surprisingly touching family flick Four Daughters, and Steven Soderbergh (above left) in 2000, for the hard-hitting drug epic Traffic and for the maudlin biopic Erin Brockovich.

Curtiz lost out to Frank Capra for You Can’t Take It With You, whereas Soderbergh won for Traffic.

Note: Actors are only allowed one nomination per acting category. (See below.)

 

Answer No. 6: That’s Barry Fitzgerald (above, with Bing Crosby and Rise Stevens), who received best actor and best supporting actor nominations for his role as the cranky but golden-hearted priest in Leo McCarey’s saccharine tearjerker Going My Way (1944). Fitzgerald lost the best actor Oscar to Bing Crosby, the official star of Going My Way, but he won the supporting award.

Academy rules were changed thereafter to prevent such same-role double nominations.

Other performers who have been nominated in the same year, but for different films, are:

• Fay Bainter in 1938 (lead in White Banners, supporting in Jezebel);
• Teresa Wright in 1942 (lead in The Pride of the Yankees, supporting in Mrs. Miniver);
• Sigourney Weaver in 1988 (lead in Gorillas in the Mist, supporting in Working Girl);
• Al Pacino in 1992 (lead in Scent of a Woman, supporting in Glengarry Glen Ross);
• Holly Hunter in 1993 (lead in The Piano, supporting in The Firm);
• Emma Thompson also in 1993 (lead in The Remains of the Day, supporting in In the Name of the Father);
• Julianne Moore in 2002 (lead in Far from Heaven, supporting in The Hours);
• Jamie Foxx in 2004 (lead in Ray, supporting in Collateral).

Bainter and Wright won in the supporting category. Pacino, Hunter, and Foxx won as leads. Weaver, Thompson, and Moore lost in both categories.

Note: Actors can’t be nominated in the same category for different performances in the same year.

For example, let’s say Meryl Streep delivered two Oscar-caliber lead performances in 2006. No matter how superb Streep was in both films, she can be nominated for only one of them.

Here are four possible scenarios:

 

Oscar Quiz - Part I

FALKENBERG FAREWELL Interview at european-films.net

Golden Globes’ Firsts and Mosts

Oscar’s Foreign-Language Film Potential Contenders: 2nd Round

Palm Springs Film Festival Awards - 2007 Winners

 

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