No, to be fair to Grace, even she didn't know what turn her life was about to take when the 1954 Oscars were voted on in the spring of 1955. I don't believe she had yet even met Rainier, or if so, she certainly wasn't dating him and had no marriage plans. Actually, if it was known at that time that she would soon leave pictures I suspect the voters would have been more inclined to vote for her, as a farewell present, their last-ever chance to reward her. But all that lay in the future.
I think Judy was the victim of an ongoing rap against her by many in the Academy: that she was a drug addict, unstable, all that rubbish. Some of it was unfortunately true, or at least had a basis in fact, but people were very cruel and vindictive. You hear a lot about how so many people loved Judy, but less heard is that there were a lot of people who privately, and hypocritically, disparaged her.
A Star is Born was actually her first-ever Oscar nomination. Seven years later, when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Judgment at Nuremberg (which was her first film since ASIB!), they bypassed her again in favor of Rita Moreno for West Side Story. Rita was good, but there too, Judy should have had it on the merits. That same rap was still working against her.
Curiously, perhaps, the New York Film Critics, the second-most prestigious film society in the U.S., gave its award for Best Actress to Grace Kelly too. But they made it an award for her performances in three films: The Country Girl, Rear Window and Dial M for Murder. Nevertheless, they made a mistake.
You may be right that the fact that this film was independently produced hurt Judy's chances. Warner Bros. certainly didn't seem to promote it. I find it astounding that though Judy and Mason got nominations, the film and director, George Cukor, were not nominated.
Look at the 1954 nominees: only two films (the winner, On the Waterfront, and The Country Girl) also had their directors nominated for Best Director. The other three films were The Caine Mutiny, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and -- are you ready for this -- Three Coins in the Fountain! I'd debate a couple of those picks but Three Coins in the Fountain? A stupid, clichéd soap opera of no distinction whatsoever, and a total embarrassment as a Best Picture nominee. Yet Academy voters deemed it better than A Star is Born.
As to Best Director, Elia Kazan won for OTW, and George Seaton was nominated for The Country Girl, which I don't particularly agree with. But the directors of the other three picture nominees -- respectively, Edward Dmytryk, Stanley Donen and Jean Negulesco -- were all snubbed, justifiably (except maybe Dmytryk) in favor of Alfred Hitchcock for Rear Window, Billy Wilder for Sabrina and William A. Wellman for The High and the Mighty. Hitch and Billy were good choices but Cukor should have been among them, along with his picture. Astonishing all around.
Point is, there were a lot of bad selections made for the 1954 Oscars, and I have to think you're right that one reason was the Academy's grudge against anyone involved in an independent production starring a drug addict. They really seemed to go out of their way to avoid nominating ASIB. Yet even aside from that some of their nominations were ridiculous.
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dollvalley
10 years ago
Holy moly you're right, those nominations are ridiculous. I love the Three Coins theme song and find the movie cute to a degree, although I was often a bit bored by it. But nominatated for an Oscar? wow.
Wasn't the ceremony for the 1954 Oscars the one where Bette Davis presented Marlon Brando, and she wore that headpiece to cover her partially-shaved head for her role in The Virgin Queen? Has nothing to do here but I thought she looked fab.
Was Judy in attendance? I think this is one of the few shows from that era that survives taped.
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hobnob53
10 years ago
The title song from Three Coins won the Oscar and that's fine, but its nomination as Best Picture is simply unfathomable.
I never heard that bit about Bette Davis having a shaved head or presenting Marlon with the Oscar. Ordinarily back then the previous Best Actress winner presented the present Best Actor award. (All four of the previous year's acting winners would normally present the opposite sex's award the following year.) Usually that would have meant Audrey Hepburn presenting the Actor Oscar for 1954, but I never heard that she was there or who presented Brando. That's a great story, and I'll have to look it up.
Judy wasn't in attendance. She was in the hospital having just given birth. The Oscar contest was considered a race between her and Grace, and Judy was actually considered the favorite. They made way for TV crews and reporters to be in her room when the AA was announced. When it turned out to be Grace, everyone quickly packed up their equipment and stole away, leaving Judy to her own regrets. Pretty tactless all around.
Back to Brando for a moment. He had lost three AAs in a row and in 1954 was considered to be in a tight two-way race with Bing Crosby for The Country Girl. In contrast to his surly behavior 18 years later, when he didn't show up for the ceremony at which he won for The Godfather (and sent that fake "Indian", actually an actress of Italian descent, to protest, without irony, the treatment of the American Indian), in 1955 Marlon was gracious in his victory speech. Afterward he told reporters he "was sure it was going to be Bing." I was never a Crosby fan but I have to say his performance in TCG was excellent, and if anyone from that film deserved the Oscar it was him. (He certainly didn't deserve the one he won, for Going My Way in 1944.) But Brando's win for On the Waterfront was the right choice.
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dollvalley
10 years ago
Well in the end I think Judy did win.
Who the heck even knows what The Country Girl is nowadays? I think I've seen it shown once on tv.
History corrected the AA's mistake for sure.
Made me think that while today watching The Holiday, where Eli Wallach's character is an Oscar winner for best screenplay, I thought, winning an Oscar makes you a permanent historic figure and always remembered. Then I thought about poor Luise Rainer!
Anyway, yes, Bette Davis presented Brando with his Oscar. She looked fantastic in a big ball gown (I think it was green) and that shiny white hat that reminds me of Garbo's Ninotchka hat.
Here it is! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_VJtDZBttY
Did Judy ever attend a filmed Oscar night?
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hobnob53
10 years ago
That was a great clip -- thanks for the link! What surprises me is that they didn't recap the five nominees -- Bette just asked for the envelope and announced Marlon. Plus of course none of that having cameras focused sadistically on all five nominees so we can see the losers' reactions!
Also on the plus side -- short acceptance speeches! Today they'd drone on and on and drag every damn family member they have into it. What bores!
Notice also how Bette got quite an ovation herself, and how she pointedly said it was great to be back working again. This was at a time when her career had stalled and she even took ads out in the trades advertising her availability for roles -- kind of pathetic and demeaning for a ten-time Oscar nominee, someone who in 1955 had had two nominations earlier that same decade.
Yes, in a way Judy is a winner now, but on the other hand it really is a day late and a dollar short. First, she's not here to see it. Second, there are still a lot of people who feel Grace deserved the award. And last, the obvious: whatever contemporary opinion says (and it varies anyway), Grace is the one who won the Oscar. Nothing can ever change that, take it away from her or give it to Judy. In the Academy records, Judy is simply on a back page, a two-time unsuccessful nominee. In good company, to be sure, but still. (Not counting her honorary Oscar for Oz, which was only a miniature one anyway.)
I don't know if Judy ever attended a televised Oscar night. My guess would be not, unless she performed a number at one, which I never heard. She was away from more than involved in movies during the television era, so probably had no reason or desire to expose herself to that melee.
Interestingly, Eli Wallach was given an honorary Oscar the other year but never even had a nomination during his career. At least Judy fared better than that.
The late Luise Rainer got her two successive Oscars and saw her career collapse within a couple of years. Frankly, overexposed and ill-used or not, I can't see why her career ended, even if it had dropped to the routine. That fate is one that seems just too improbable, yet it happened. There too, Judy at least fared better, even if left Oscar-less. I'm very sorry Ms. Rainer didn't live just another 13 days and make it to her 105th birthday.
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dollvalley
10 years ago
Oh no, I just saw now that you said it, Luise Rainer died 3 days ago! That's sad, that was yet another record she held. RIP
As for Bette's welcome back, wow indeed I forgot to mention it in my post, that was a long applause she received!
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Doghouse-6
10 years ago
I don't know if Judy ever attended a televised Oscar night. My guess would be not, unless she performed a number at one, which I never heard.
Garland did attend at least one ceremony, in 1965, and indeed as a performer (doing a medley of songs by Cole Porter, who had died the year before).
I was privileged to have been in the audience that night (the Academy was a big client of my father's business, and throughout the '60s, he got tickets to the presentation). I remember two things about her performance: the uncanny way that tiny woman was able to fill the venue with her personality and reach all the way to the back rows, making you feel she was singing only to you, and the way it affected my mother. She'd never been a Garland fan (hated "belters," she said), but from the moment Garland began singing, I heard Mom whispering to herself, over and over, "Isn't she wonderful...isn't she wonderful."
I shared her impression at the time, but the weird thing is that I've seen a kinescope of that performance in succeeding years, and was surprised to note that Judy was not at all in great voice that night. But in her presence, she cast a spell that somehow convinced you that she was at her best. Pure magic, the like of which I've seldom experienced.
Poe! You are...avenged!
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dollvalley
10 years ago
the uncanny way that tiny woman was able to fill the venue with her personality and reach all the way to the back rows, making you feel she was singing only to you // But in her presence, she cast a spell that somehow convinced you that she was at her best. Pure magic, the like of which I've seldom experienced.
These are things that are very often said about her :)
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hobnob53
10 years ago
Yes, but my friend Doghouse-6 was there and experienced it. Wouldn't it have been great to have seen her live? No matter what you were expecting, I imagine it would have been quite an experience. Everyone who worked with Judy said how amazing she was, not only in the breadth of her talent but in her ability to do a song or a scene without even a run-through.
Sorry you hadn't heard about Luise Rainer. TCM had scheduled a daylong birthday tribute to her for January 12. It'll still be on, of course, but now as a memorial. She's still the longest-lived Oscar winning performer, but 105 (or more) would have been nicer than 104.
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Doghouse-6
10 years ago
I can only imagine the electrifying effect of having seen her when she was really on her game; during the Carnegie Hall engagement, for instance.
I had a friend (now late) who once toured with her as one of her dancing boys (the "Get Happy" number and so forth), and he of course saw her at her best and worst. He told me about one night when he and another of the boys went to her dressing room during intermission to call her for the second act. They found her face-down on a couch, one arm dangling to the floor.
Mac (my friend) said to the other dancer, "Uh-oh, what are we gonna do now?" Judy's head snapped up and, clear-eyed and clear-voiced, she said, "We're gonna do the *bleeping* second act, whaddaya think?"
I had a revelation similar to that of my mother's; that is to say, seeing a performer for whom I'd never cared and being blown away by their power and charisma. I was dragged by a friend in the late '70s to a show with Anthony Newley, whom I'd always found rather off-putting on TV. But the magnetism he radiated onstage was astonishing, and he just seemed to wrap the audience up in his arms. I've heard Jolson possessed such a do-no-wrong quality onstage.
As a longtime resident of your region, I'd wager you've seen your share of performers who had "that little something extra," and unexpectedly bowled you over with their talent.
Poe! You are...avenged!
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dollvalley
10 years ago
That's funny to read that story of your dancer friend.
By the way, just to make it clear, my post before was made to read as, it confirms basically what everybody usually says, that she was that kind of performer, not that it's nothing new to hear she was like that :)
Actually great to have one more live-feedback that she was actually like that, and of course, I think many people would give their right arm to have been in the audience at the famous Carnegie Hall concert! Aka The Greatest Night In Show Business History!
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Doghouse-6
10 years ago
I getcha, dollvalley.
And if there are any rivals for the title you bestow, they have to be darn few in number. Gotta envy all those who were there.
Poe! You are...avenged!
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hobnob53
10 years ago
You made a revealing point as usual D-6 when you mentioned seeing Anthony Newley. I always found him off-putting too, but obviously he had to have something that made him popular with a live audience, where he did his best work. Different media bring out different sides, even different personas, in performers. Maybe the distance of the stage made Newley's less attractive qualities, magnified or brought out by the camera, less evident, or as something different.
Judy had a talent that was too large even for motion pictures. Carnegie Hall, the London Palladium, those were the kinds of venues that really brought her talent into focus I imagine.
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dollvalley
10 years ago
I always thought Carnegie was big, but if Me And My Shadows is faithful, it was pretty small, or not?
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gbennett5
10 years ago
Hobnob, you ARE kidding about "Three Coins" winning Best Song, aren't you??
Over Harold Arlen's "The Man That Got Away?????" Another snub for
ASIB.
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