Just read in this morning's paper that the two PWC representatives present Sunday night have been permanently removed from any future Oscar duties.
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Hmm..both of them. A woman and a man were assigned the tasks; evidently it was the man who made the mistake. But I guess its a "team thing."
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This public relations bandage for PWC's black eye is, I'd guess, as far as any punishment will go.
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Once it was determined that it was the man's fault, this entered into things: punishment? We're all adults here, and as Jimmy Kimmel said "its just an awards show"(no, Jimmy...THE awards show) and...that sounds about right to me.
But it has gotten worse: the man and woman have gotten death threats and need security. The accounting company is letting us know this(including photos of the man's wife with her new bodyguard) as a means, I suppose, of letting us know that punishment is being meted out...by those wild and crazy psychos out here in 'net land. I mean, death threats for WHAT sin?
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But the man who handed Beatty the wrong envelope will henceforth be a party to enduring Oscar lore, and I'm willing to bet that, say, 20 years from now, he'll be claiming his role in that history: "Remember when the wrong Best Picture winner was announced? Well, I was the guy responsible for that."
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And he's a self-professed Matt Damon lookalike, too. I expect the horror of it will shift into comedy...and the entertainment press will conduct yearly/decade-ly "check ins" on him. He's famous now.
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Considering how long that accounting house has been handling the awards (somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 years, I think), they've had a remarkable track record, and human fallibility being what it is, it's probably a miracle this is their first big slip-up.
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Exactly what I was thinking. They reviewed Oscar history and found that the closest was Laurence Olivier announcing the Best Picture winner(Amadeus) without naming the other four nominees and it, first. That's not as bad as this one.
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Just as well it was the beaut that it was. If it had happened on the Sound Mixing award, for instance, who'd remember even 5 years from now?
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Absolutely. That would have just been a generic "Oscar goof" of which there have been many over the years.
Indeed, the Oscars as a live show used to have all SORTS of gaffes, usually in the presenters bad readings of names(that is now solved by playing the presenters perfect, pre-recorded enunciations.)
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These gasp-inducing moments are really good for the entire enterprise in the long run: Goldie Hawn announcing the vocal Oscar refusenik as the winner ("Oh my god, it's George C. Scott!"); Sasheen Littlefeather and the streaker a few years later; earlier occurrences such as the L.A. paper that jumped the gun and printed the winners in its early evening edition before they'd been handed out (in the days when those results were still furnished to the dailies as a courtesy, and the last time it was done); a presenter announcing the Best Director winner with, "Come and get it, Frank," and poor nominee Capra getting halfway to the stage before realizing the "Frank" in question was Lloyd; Capra himself getting the bright idea of gathering all the directing nominees onstage for the announcement (Hitchcock among them) like beauty pageant contestants only to discover the winner was the one no-show; Claudette Colbert being snatched moments before boarding a train and whisked to the Biltmore Hotel to accept her unexpected It Happened One Night award in her traveling suit and so on.
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All great. I think I love "come and get it Frank" the best. Though the back-to-back Littlefeather and streaker incidents in the 70's suggested the whole show was collapsing.
Like "come and get it Frank," but "personal":
Anthony Perkins was up for Best Supporting Actor in 1956. Friendly Persuasion.
He heard announced "and the winner is ..Anthony..."
...and he got up and...it was finished "Quinn." (for Lust for Life.)
But no one saw him get up evidently. Back then, the camera wasn't on him. Or hell, maybe he didn't get up at all. I may have misrembered that part.
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In the end, it all merely adds to the cachet.
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Yeah, I think so. Years from now. In the "immediate," it carries a lot of unfortunate baggage, it seems.
Someone has written that Beatty and Dunaway should be invited back next year to get a "do-over" with a new Best Picture. I wonder if they will accept?
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ecarle (14979)
8 years ago
PS. Speaking of Bonnie and Clyde, I had dreamed of some sort of "Salute to 1967 Best Pictures" of which Warren and Faye would just be a part. But...didn't happen. No Dustin Hoffman for The Graduate, there. No Sidney Poitier(age 90) for Guess Who 's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night. No, uh...Samantha Eggar for Dr. Doolittle. And no Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons from B and C(is Michael J. Pollard still alive?)
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Doghouse (447)
8 years ago
Sorry, ec, that I didn't catch this PS earlier. I rather like that idea, not only for '67, but 50th anniversaries could be a regular feature along with the In Memoriam. I can think of two things that might put a damper on enthusiasm for any such thing, however: complaints about too many time-consuming segments already, and the likely dearth of living participants.
To answer your question, yes, Pollard's still around, and it's quite remarkable that the rest of the major players are too. Of the smaller supporting roles, only Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor and Gene Wilder have passed. Even Evans Evans is still with us.
I had to proofread that last sentence carefully. Although correct, "Even Evans Evans" just don't look right, huh?
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ecarle (14979)
8 years ago
Sorry, ec, that I didn't catch this PS earlier.
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That's OK. Shorter posts are the rule around here. I'm splitting stuff up.
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I rather like that idea, not only for '67, but 50th anniversaries could be a regular feature along with the In Memoriam.
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In Memoriam is always great. And this year there were some great clips reviews of past winners coming up to get their awards and some great movie clips.
The Apartment clips of MacLaine were the best, but that cry-your-eyes-out clip from Madision County is very subversive to me: how many women screamed to Meryl "Leave your husband!" when her hand was on that truck doorknob. And she doesn't. And I've had some tricky conversations with married men and women about that scene. A scene which, I might note, was evidently edited and overseen for Eastwood by Steven Spielberg! Word.)
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I would like to note that this years show producer, Michael DeLuca, announced that he wanted "more clips from the past on the show." That went against recent years demands that such clips NOT be on the show. I think they SHOULD be on the show. We are meant to celebrate all of movie history at the Oscars, I think.
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I can think of two things that might put a damper on enthusiasm for any such thing, however: complaints about too many time-consuming segments already, and the likely dearth of living participants.
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As for time consuming...cut out any dance numbers and dumb stunts like the tour bus waste of time.
Dearth of living participants is the problem. Think of it with Bonnie and Clyde though: all five main leads are still alive. To see them on stage would have been great. Especially Gene Hackman, who has now been gone from movies for almost 15 years.
People live longer nowadays. Hopefully future 50-year later casts will be more available?
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To answer your question, yes, Pollard's still around, and it's quite remarkable that the rest of the major players are too.
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Amazing. Though one worries: around doing WHAT? Estelle Parsons was on Rosanne and other shows. Hackman's rich and retired.
Something weird I remember: Michael J. Pollard "starring" in...of all things...a Playboy "comic book still frame layout" where he interacted with various naked women. Around 1968 I think, when I "snuck" views of the magazine.
I recall this weird frame by frame:
FRAME ONE:
Pollard and beautiful librarian in glasses and dress:
Pollard: Can I see you without your glasses?
NEXT FRAME:
Pollard: You certainly look different without your glasses. (She's wearing no glasses and no clothes.)
Yes, Michael J. Pollard made the most of HIS 15 minutes of fame.
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Of the smaller supporting roles, only Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor and Gene Wilder have passed.
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Gene Wilder. Bittersweet to remember he was in that too. And very much "Gene Wilder" in it.
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Even Evans Evans is still with us.
I had to proofread that last sentence carefully. Although correct, "Even Evans Evans" just don't look right, huh?
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Pretty hilarious!
Some trivia on Evans Evans. She was married, I think all the way to his death, to director John Frankenheimer(The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, Black Sunday.)
And she is in the first scene of the ONLY episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour(that is, of the HOUR shows) directed by Hitchcock himself: "I Saw the Whole Thing."
So Evans Evans was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and in Bonnie and Clyde, and married to John Frankenheimer.
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movieghoul (213)
8 years ago
One additional Oscar gaffe I actually saw was in 1964, when Sammy Davis presented the awards for both best original and adapted score. He read the nominees in one category, then opened the wrong envelope and read the winner of the other category. He quickly corrected this, and then, as if nothing had gone wrong, proceeded to read the nominees in the second category, and had the aplomb to smile and say: "Guess who won".
And this year's incident once and for all squashes the urban rumor that Marisa Tomei did not win the BSA but Jack Palance accidentally announced her being that she was the last listed nominee. They would obviously not have allowed that to go uncorrected.
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