A Weird History of The Oscars & This Year’s Nominees…

Forget who won or lost — here’s the dirt on the hottest feuds, most embarrassing moments and strangest backstories in Academy history …
By Kimberly Potts

Betty Boop This: ’20s screen siren Clara Bow added star wattage to the very first Academy Awards.

1929
Oscar’s Itty-Bitty Debut
The first Oscar ceremony runs short — really short. As in five minutes. Held at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel, with tickets going for a mere five spot, Academy president Douglas Fairbanks played host, Al Jolson sang, and the Clara Bow/Gary Cooper World War I action movie Wings nabbed the first-ever Best Picture Oscar.

1934
Frank’s Foibles
When Best Picture presenter Will Rogers opened the envelope and said, "Come on up and get it, Frank!" Lady for a Day director Frank Capra assumed Rogers was speaking to him and rushed to the stage. Too bad Rogers was actually talking to Frank Floyd, director of that year’s actual winner, Cavalcade. Hey, at least the awards weren’t televised then.

How Times Have Changed: FDR praised Hollywood for showing "the American way of life" and the "truths of our democracy" during his speech before the 1941 Oscars.

1938
Oscar Kidnapped
In Old Chicago star Alice Brady won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress but was sick and unable to attend the ceremony. When her name was announced, a stranger took to the stage and accepted the award on her behalf. Unfortunately, Brady didn’t know the man, who absconded with her statue and was never to be found — and Brady, sadly, died before a replacement statue could be issued.
1941
Presidential Approval
Hollywood got a big seal of approval from a very special Oscar guest star: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who became the first U.S. president to participate in the Academy Awards when he kicked off the radio broadcast of the 13th ceremony with a six-minute speech that praised Hollywood movies for showing "the American way of life" and the "truths of our democracy."

1943
Biggest Blowhard
"I am practically unprepared" is how Best Actress winner Greer Garson began her acceptance speech for her role in Mrs. Miniver … kicking off the longest Oscar speech in history. While those in attendance claimed it ran as long as 30 minutes, Garson later insisted was only six minutes, but no one was listening to anything she said at that point anyway.

Chatty Cathy: "I am practically unprepared … " is how Best Actress winner Greer Garson began the longest acceptance speech in Oscars history.

1947
Non-Actor Double Dips
The first person to walk away on Oscar night with two awards for the same performance wasn’t an actor at all: It was Army instructor Harold Russell, who lost both of his hands in WWII. Russell was so moving in William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives that he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and the Academy, convinced he didn’t have a chance at winning a competitive statue, decided to award him an Honorary Oscar "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans." But the Academy underestimated just how powerful Russell’s performance was. In a sad postscript, Russell was forced to sell his Oscar in 1992 to raise cash for his wife’s medical expenses.

1953
Oscar’s TV Debut! Actress’ Public Humiliation
Variety reported that more than 90 million people in the U.S. and Canada watched the first-ever Oscars telecast on NBC, with Bob Hope as host. Unfortunately for Best Actress winner Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba), that meant 90 million people saw her trip up the steps on her way to the podium to accept her little golden guy.

1959
Oscar Comes Up Short
Twenty minutes short, to be exact. Seems the producer of the show was so fearful he would run longer than the budgeted two hours that he began cutting musical numbers. Except he came up 20 minutes short.

Protest Pawn: Marlon Brando sent a D-list actress in Native-American dress to the 1973 Oscars to publicly reject his Best Actor Oscar, citing Hollywood’s treatment of American Indians.

Despite host Jerry Lewis’ best efforts to vamp, the network pulled the plug and left viewers to watch a 15-minute sports reel. Can they hire this guy again?

1962
Gate-Crashin’ Cabbie
A cab driver named Stan Berman stole the spotlight when he walked onto the stage while Shelley Winters and Vince Edwards were presenting the Oscar for Best Cinematography. "Ladies and gentlemen, I’m the world’s greatest gate-crasher, and I just came here to present Bob Hope with his 1938 trophy," Berman said, handing a mini-statue to Winters. "We’ll give it to him," Winters reposted. Later, host Hope quipped, "Who needs Price Waterhouse? All we need is a doorman." P.S.: Berman, who died in 1968, was in fact an accomplished gate-crasher: He not only posed as a waiter to get Queen Elizabeth II’s autograph during her 1957 U.S. visit, he crashed John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Ball in 1961.

1968
Oscar Mourns MLK
The 1968 ceremony, originally planned for April 8, was postponed for two days as the nation mourned the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. It seemed especially appropriate, then, that the year’s Best Picture Oscar would go to In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier as a police detective who forges mutual respect with a racist Southern police chief, played by Best Actor Oscar winner Rod Steiger.

"Hello, gorgeous!": Barbra Streisand was so excited to win Best Actress for Funny Girl she didn’t seem to mind the peep show she was giving the audience in her supersheer outfit.

1969
Babs’ Indecent Exposure
When Barbra Streisand tied with Katharine Hepburn for the Best Actress Oscar at the 1969 ceremony, she was so excited that she tore her Arnold Scaasi bell-bottom pantsuit on the way to the stage. But that’s not why everyone remembers her outfit. While Babs was accepting the statue, the spotlights revealed that her outfit was actually, shockingly, quite see-through. "Hello, gorgeous!" she said as she raised her Funny Girl trophy in the air. Hello, indeed.

1971
Scott Snubs Oscar
Grumpy Patton star George C. Scott, who had refused an Oscar nod for his role in The Hustler in 1961 (and subsequently lost), again refused a Best Actor nomination from the Academy this year, calling the ceremonies a "meat parade" and "offensive, barbarous and innately corrupt." But in some weird reverse psychology move, Scott snagged the Best Actor win. The only man who stood to collect his statue was a Patton producer. Scott was at home, watching a hockey game.

Little Tramp’s Comeback: After a 20-year absence from Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin was greeted by the longest standing ovation in Oscars history.

1972
Chaplin’s Dramatic Return
Legendary comedian Charlie Chaplin had never won an Oscar in competition — and had remained in a 20-year, self-imposed exile from the U.S. after being accused of "un-American activities" by Joseph McCarthy — when he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Academy. So when they turned up the lights after a retrospective of Chaplin’s career to reveal the famed director standing on the stage, the audience stood up and welcomed him with the longest standing ovation in Oscar history … Chaplin won a competitive Oscar the next year for his 1952 flick Limelight— the movie was eligible because it had never been released in Los Angeles until 1972.

1973
Brando’s Boycott
With the buzz that he was a shoo-in to win the Best Actor prize for The Godfather, method man Marlon Brando hatched an elaborate "unacceptance" speech that dwarfed George C. Scott’s earlier refusal. When presenters Roger Moore and Liv Ullmann opened the envelope and declared Brando the winner, a young woman dressed in Native-American attire, calling herself Sacheen Littlefeather, appeared at the podium and refused the Oscar on Brando’s behalf citing "the treatment of the American Indians today by the film industry." Littlefeather turned out to be a D-list actress named Maria Cruz, whose biggest post-Oscar gig included posing for a nude Playboy centerfold.

1974
We’re Going Streaking!
Well, this guy did at least. Presenter David Niven was all ready with the perfect quip on this Oscar night, when a San Francisco photographer and art-gallery owner named Robert Opel suddenly bolted across the stage, completely nude, giving the crowd and the TV audience a look at his, ahem, little golden guy. "Probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off his clothes and showing his shortcomings," Niven ad-libbed. In fact, Niven’s response was so perfect it almost sounded like it had been scripted for the occasion, which, for years afterward, some critics believed is exactly what happened.

1980
Hoffman Takes the High Road
Dustin Hoffman had criticized movie awards for pitting Oscar types against each other and "hurt(ing) the hell out of the ones that lose," so no one knew exactly what he’d say if he took the Best Actor honors for Kramer vs. Kramer. But instead of an anti-Oscar rant, Hoffman took his moment in the spotlight to thank his parents … "for not practicing birth control." His Kramer co-star, Meryl Streep, meanwhile, was the one who gave her Oscar some stinky treatment. After winning the trophy for Best Supporting Actress, Streep left the statue in the bathroom.

1985
And the Nominees Are …
… Eh, never mind. Sir Laurence Olivier was so anxious/grumpy/bored at the podium he forgot to actually read the list of nominated movies for the Best Picture Oscar. Instead, he opened the envelope and shouted, "Amadeus!" For the record, The Killing Fields, A Passage to India, Places in the Heart and A Soldier’s Story were the other nominees.

Snow Whiney: Disney threatened to sue Oscars producers after a musical number featuring Snow White and Rob Lowe bombed big time.

1986
Newman Breaks Jinx
Paul Newman had lost all previous tries at an Oscar statue, so he told reporters that on this night, the night he was nominated for Best Actor in The Color of Money, he’d stay away. "I’m superstitious," he said. "I’ve been there six times and lost. Maybe if I stay away, I’ll win." And he did.

1989
Snow White Number Makes Disney Grumpy
Oscar producer Allan Carr had promised an unforgettable show opener to the 1989 Oscar telecast. And he delivered, though his musical number featuring Snow White; a singing, dancing Rob Lowe; a sashay through the star-studded audience; and the song "Proud Mary" ended up as infamous as it was unforgettable. Disney, in fact, was so horrified by the cheesefest that the company threatened to sue over the unauthorized use of its Snow White character. Cooler heads prevailed in the legal matters, but Carr’s reputation never quite did.

1992
Not Your Grandpa’s Oscars
The night’s biggest scene-stealer, hands down, was 72-year-old cowboy star Jack Palance, who, after decades of more Oscar-worthy performances, finally nabbed a statue for his Supporting Actor gig in Billy Crystal’s midlife-crisis cowboy comedy City Slickers. But not content with a mere speech, Palance dropped to the floor to show the audience that he could still manage a one-handed pushup or two.

Whoops!: 1994 Best Actor winner Tom Hanks did not out his high school drama teacher during his acceptance speech … Well, OK, he sorta did.

1994
Hanks’ Big Outing
Yes, it did inspire the movie In & Out, but despite the hullabaloo at the time, Best Actor winner Tom Hanks did not out his high school drama teacher during his acceptance speech. Well, OK, he sorta did, but with the teacher’s permission. While accepting the trophy for his role in the AIDS drama Philadelphia, Hanks delivered a heartfelt speech that paid homage to Mr. Rawley Farnsworth, "who taught me ‘act well the part, there all the glory lies.’ " Farnsworth had been a closeted gay man his whole life, but he later said Hanks had called him before the ceremony and asked his permission to acknowledge him, and his sexuality, if he won.

1999
Benigni Goes Bonkers

Fugly Twins: The drag dress of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone failed to win any Best Dressed accolades. The duo also lost the Best Original Song statue to Phil Collins — ouch!

Robert Benigni, you’ve just won the Best Actor Oscar for Life Is Beautiful, you’ve run through the audience, jumping over chairs and Steven Spielberg — now how do you want to celebrate? "I am not able to express all my gratitude, because now, my body is in tumult, because it is a colossal moment of joy … I would like to be Jupiter and kidnap everybody and lie down making love to everybody, because I don’t know how to express — it’s a question of love." Or maybe it’s a question of sanity?

2000
Drag Carpet
One of the year’s big pictures was Boys Don’t Cry, about a transgendered teen who winds up murdered. But that didn’t inspire any political correctness from South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who made a spectacular, or rather spectacularly weird, arrival on the red carpet. Stone donned a long pink spaghetti-strapped gown that was reminiscent of Gwyneth Paltrow’s famous Ralph Lauren Oscar dress, while his pal Parker sported a revealing green number that recalled Jennifer Lopez’s infamous Grammy Versace gown. Unfortunately, not only did the boys not win any Best Dressed accolades for their getups, their South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut tune "Blame Canada" also lost out to Phil Collins. Now that’s a drag.

Too Gross for Comfort: As if dressing like a vampire to the Oscars weren’t bad enough, Angelina Jolie freaked everybody out by playing kissyface with her brother.

2000
Angelina’s Over-Affection
She may be a great humanitarian and the prettier half of Brangelina now, but it wasn’t so long ago that Angelina Jolie was getting her freak on by getting a little freaky, and creepy, with her brother. While accepting her Best Supporting Actress statue for Girl, Interrupted, Jolie declared "I am so in love with my brother right now!" Then she proceeded to kiss him, a lingering kiss, on the mouth. Ewww!

2002
Julia’s Me-Me-Me! Moment
Sure, maybe Julia Roberts was just expressing her excitement for her pal and Pelican Brief co-star Denzel Washington. But when she exclaimed "I love my life!" upon opening the envelope that revealed Washington as the Best Actor winner for his role in Training Day — and then proceeded to take up half his acceptance-speech time by hanging on his arm — many critics felt the Pretty Woman was displaying a bit of ungracious, selfish behavior that brought the focus on her instead of, you know, the winner.

2003
The Kiss and the Diss
At least it wasn’t a dull night. First, pot-stirring filmmaker Michael Moore unleashed an anti-Bush rant during his acceptance speech for the Best Documentary Oscar, calling Dubya "a fictitious president" who sparked a war for "fictitious reasons." Many in the liberal Hollywood audience applauded Moore, but the volume seemed to be just as high from those who booed him. Later, there was nothing fictitious about The Pianist star Adrien Brody’s excitement at winning the Best Actor trophy, and there was nothing subtle about the way he chose to celebrate — grabbing presenter Halle Berry and putting her in a liplock, before telling her, "Bet you didn’t know that was in the gift bag."

2005

Yo, MTV Oscars: Three 6 Mafia became the first rap group to take home the gold for their Hustle & Flow anthem, "It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp."

Oscars Redux
In an effort to shake up a staid routine, and cut down on the show’s tendency to run a tad long, producers decided that at the newly opened Kodak Theater in Hollywood, some presentations would be made in the audience, and for others, all nominees would assemble onstage while the winner was announced. The show did run shorter, but it all made the Oscars seem less prestigious. Later, show host Chris Rock summed up the general attitude about the strange experiment when he said, "Next year, they’re going to give out the Oscars in the parking lot."

2006
Pimp My Oscars
It was the first mention of Oscar "mafia" that didn’t involve Robert De Niro or The Godfather. And that was only part of the reason the nomination of, and performance by, rappers Three 6 Mafia made the usually staid ceremony so trippy. The only sight odder than their performance of "It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp," the Best Song nominee from Hustle & Flow, was the sight of the Three 6 Mafia-ers rushing the stage to accept statues when the song actually won. Shout-outs to Jesus and multiple "homies" made for an MTV (read: too hip for Oscars) moment.

 

2007 Oscar Nominations: Complete List

The Associated Press

Complete list of the 79th Annual Academy Award nominations announced Jan. 23 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Calif.:

Best Picture: "Babel," "The Departed," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Queen."

Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, "Blood Diamond"; Ryan Gosling, "Half Nelson"; Peter O’Toole, "Venus"; Will Smith, "The Pursuit of Happyness"; Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland."

Actress: Penelope Cruz, "Volver"; Judi Dench, "Notes on a Scandal"; Helen Mirren, "The Queen"; Meryl Streep, "The Devil Wears Prada"; Kate Winslet, "Little Children."

Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin, "Little Miss Sunshine"; Jackie Earle Haley, "Little Children"; Djimon Hounsou, "Blood Diamond"; Eddie Murphy, "Dreamgirls"; Mark Wahlberg, "The Departed."

Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza, "Babel"; Cate Blanchett, "Notes on a Scandal"; Abigail Breslin, "Little Miss Sunshine"; Jennifer Hudson, "Dreamgirls"; Rinko Kikuchi, "Babel."

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, "Babel"; Martin Scorsese, "The Departed"; Clint Eastwood, "Letters From Iwo Jima"; Stephen Frears, "The Queen"; Paul Greengrass, "United 93."

Foreign-Language Film: "After the Wedding," Denmark; "Days of Glory (Indigenes)," Algeria; "The Lives of Others," Germany; "Pan’s Labyrinth," Mexico; "Water," Canada.

Adapted Screenplay: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips, "Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"; Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, "Children of Men"; William Monahan, "The Departed"; Todd Field and Tom Perrotta, "Little Children"; Patrick Marber, "Notes on a Scandal."

Original Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga, "Babel"; Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis, "Letters From Iwo Jima"; Michael Arndt, "Little Miss Sunshine"; Guillermo del Toro, "Pan’s Labyrinth"; Peter Morgan, "The Queen."

Animated Feature Film: "Cars," "Happy Feet," "Monster House."

Art Direction: "Dreamgirls," "The Good Shepherd," "Pan’s Labyrinth," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest," "The Prestige."

Cinematography: "The Black Dahlia," "Children of Men," "The Illusionist," "Pan’s Labyrinth," "The Prestige."

Sound Mixing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Dreamgirls," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest."

Sound Editing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest."

Original Score: "Babel," Gustavo Santaolalla; "The Good German," Thomas Newman; "Notes on a Scandal," Philip Glass; "Pan’s Labyrinth," Javier Navarrete; "The Queen," Alexandre Desplat.

Original Song: "I Need to Wake Up" from "An Inconvenient Truth," Melissa Etheridge; "Listen" from "Dreamgirls," Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler and Anne Preven; "Love You I Do" from "Dreamgirls," Henry Krieger and Siedah Garrett; "Our Town" from "Cars," Randy Newman; "Patience" from "Dreamgirls," Henry Krieger and Willie Reale.

Costume: "Curse of the Golden Flower," "The Devil Wears Prada," "Dreamgirls," "Marie Antoinette," "The Queen."

Documentary (Feature): "Deliver Us From Evil," "An Inconvenient Truth," "Iraq in Fragments," "Jesus Camp," "My Country, My Country."

Documentary (Short Subject): "The Blood of Yingzhou District," "Recycled Life," "Rehearsing a Dream," "Two Hands."

Film Editing: "Babel," "Blood Diamond," "Children of Men," "The Departed," "United 93."

Makeup: "Apocalypto," "Click," "Pan’s Labyrinth."

Animated Short Film: "The Danish Poet," "Lifted," "The Little Matchgirl," "Maestro," "No Time for Nuts."

Live-Action Short Film: "Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)," "Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)," "Helmer & Son," "The Saviour," "West Bank Story."

Visual Effects: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest," "Poseidon," "Superman Returns."

Academy Award winners previously announced this year:

Honorary Award: Ennio Morricone

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Sherry Lansing