The 1961 Oscars (for 1960 films) | Syracusefan.com

The 1961 Oscars (for 1960 films)

SWC75

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1960 was not Hedda Hopper’s favorite year. The blacklist, which she’d helped to stich to get through her column and something called “The Motion Picture Alliance for the preservation of American Ideals” was falling apart. (See the 2015 movie “Trumbo” for the full story behind this.) Dalton Trumbo had been hired both by Kirk Douglas to write his film “Spartacus” and Otto Preminger’s film “Exodus” and he had been properly credited for his work. In addition, Stanley Kramer had hired another blacklisted writer, Nathan Douglas to write the script for his film, “Inherit the Wind”. Poor Hedda didn’t think much of the new circumstances, decrying “Spartacus” as “one of the worst films I’ve ever seen” and not even bothering to see “Exodus”. One final thorn in her side was that the Pantages Theater was remodeled to show “Spartacus” on a wide screen and so much seating was removed that the Oscar ceremony was moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. “I’m so mad, I’d like to broadcast from the highest mountain. We have so little glamour any more- let’s cling to what we have left. “

She also couldn’t have been pleased that so many films also challenged the conservative Hollywood standards of taste that had ruled the movies since the Production Code came in in the 30’s: Elmer Gantry, Butterfield 8, The Apartment, Sons and Lovers, Psycho and Never on Sunday, (directed by still another blacklistee, Jules Dassin). A lot of envelopes were being pushed on. In a way, it was the beginning of modern cinema in America.

Hooper’s colleague at the Alliance, John Wayne, said “I think we’ve all been getting soft, taking freedom for granted”. That’s why he made his film of The Alamo, “the most expensive picture made entirely on US soil. Wayne complained about the “runaway” productions made abroad, like Spartacus and Exodus. He was in Africa, making Hatari, when he made that complaint.

(I’ve done some reading on HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was formed to investigate Nazis in 1938. They decided to go after Communists, too and investigated the Federal Theater Project, asking, among other things if Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe was a Communist and who this “Mr. Euripides” was. It was suggested that they investigate the Klu Klux Klan but a representative from Mississippi insisted there was no need because, "After all, the KKK is an old American institution." I guess that much is true.)

There was a record amount of campaigning for Oscars this year. Sammy Cahn complained about Dimitri Tiomkin, (both composers had best song nominees): “The reason I’ve become so avidly competitive this year is that Tiomkin has made it a fight for life. Have you noticed what he’s been doing with the ads and interviews and cocktail parties? The feud between Tiomkin and me began when he wrote the theme music for “The High and the Mighty”. It would have been better if he had just gracefully accepted the fact that my song for “Three Coins in the Fountain” was better and let it go at that. Tiomkin has stimulated a virus that has infected every branch of the industry.” Mr. Kahn was kind of confused. Tiomkin won for best score for the “The High and the Mighty” in 1954. Mr. Kahn and Julie Styne did win the award for best song that year.

Meanwhile Wayne filled magazines and newspapers with ads for the opening of “The Alamo”, an advertising budget totally $1 million. “One smart-alec remark from a newspaper on opening day could cost us plenty”. The blitz continued for the Oscars. Los Angeles Mirror columnist Dick Williams complained that “The impression is left that one’s proud sense of Americanism may be suspected if one does not vote for the Alamo.”

Best supporting actor nominee Chill Wills wasn’t satisfied. He began his own advertising campaign and hired his own press agent who started a letter-writing campaign to the Academy voters, complete with a plug from Hedda Hooper. Then an ad appeared in the trade papers showing Wills in his buckskin costume and the Alamo cast: “We of the Alamo cast are praying harder than the real Texans prayed for their lives in the Alamo for Chill Wills to win the Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. ”Finally an ad was placed listing every Academy member with a picture of Chill and a caption that read, “Win, lose or draw, you’re all by cousins and I love you all.” Groucho Marx placed a counter-ad: ”Dear Mr. Chill Wills: I am delighted to be your cousin, but I voted for Sal Mineo.”

Neither Cahn or Tiomkin nor Wills or Mineo won anything this year.

Meanwhile the best Actress race was thrown into confusion when Elizabeth Taylor got nominated for playing a prostitute in the potboiler Butterfield 8, a film she called, “the most pornographic script I have ever read. I’ve been here for seventeen years and I’ve never been asked to play such a horrible role.” She’d done it to complete her MGM contract so she could be free to play Cleopatra. Even after it was a success, she said “I still say it stinks”. But then she was hospitalized with a mysterious ailment. variously described as “Malta Fever, an abscessed tooth, a virus and meningism”. (It’s an ism?) It turned out to be the flu, which turned into pneumonia. The doctors had to do a tracheotomy to save her life. Per “Inside Oscar”, “All other nominees abandoned hope”.

The show again opened with a medley of songs by Andre Previn’s orchestra, this time of Arthur Freed songs. But this time there were shots of celebrities, mostly nominees in the crowd: Peter Ustinov, Greer Garson, (who had played Eleanor Roosevelt in “Sunrise at Campobello”, another film that Hopper and Wayne could not have liked), Hugh Griffith’s bushy eyebrows, Sal Mineo with Tuesday Weld, Chill Wills, Shirley Knight with Richard Burton, Peter Falk, Jack Lemmon and his wife, Felcia Farr. It gave the viewer a greater sense of occasion than the previous year’s telecast, which focused entirely on the stage.

There was a TV show hosted by Milton Berle called “Jackpot Bowling” so Bob Hope referred to the ceremony as “Jackpot Praying”. The Russians had launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit, so Bob joked that the ceremony was being recorded so he could watch it later. He joked that “Exodus” was about the Republicans and “Sons and Lovers” was about Bing Crosby’s family. Sam Spiegel, a producer of big epics, “has more men under arms than NATO”.

Bob introduces Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh as “an imposter and a psycho”, as they’d both starred in movies by those names. The presented the documentary awards. Barbara Rush and Robert Stack, then starring in the Untouchables, announced the costume awards. Bob said, “You announce them and I’ll investigate them.” The only starlet I recognized was Elizabeth Allen, who was in a few movies and a bunch of TV episodes during the 1960’s. Edith Head won another Oscar but nobody seemed to know where she was.

Eva Marie Saint presented Peter Ustinov with an Oscar for Spartacus, which must have made Hopper and Wayne unhappy but then The Alamo won an Oscar for best sound. Ironically both films are about people fighting for freedom. One is seen from the left, the other form the right, but aren’t they rather similar, at least in theme?

The Great Stan Laurel got an honorary Oscar from Danny Kaye. Oliver Hardy had, unfortunately died in 1957 and Stan wasn’t healthy enough to accept his Oscar so Kaye accepted it. Significantly, Laurel had chosen Jerry Lewis to accept the award for him but the Academy insisted on Kaye.

Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring” won best foreign film but he wasn’t there, either. It was a night of honorary Oscars and Hayley Mills was given one for the best performance by a juvenile, presented by Shirley Temple. Hayley wasn’t there, either. So A Net Full of Jello, sorry Annette Funicello, accepted for her. Bob Hope tried to convince her to give the Oscar to him as she left, to the laughter of the audience.

Hugh Griffith apologized for not coming to the previous year’s Oscars to accept his supporting actor award, saying that it’s a long ways to come from England to Hollywood on “a one in five chance”. He presented the best supporting actress award to Shirley Jones, who acknowledged Oscar Hammerstein who, with Richard Rodgers had got her career started. Hammerstein had died the previous August.

Tony Randall and Tina Louise presented the art direction awards. One recipient was very timid and froze up in the middle of his speech. Bob Hope said “that fellow was my diction coach”. Cyd Charisse and Tony Martin did the cinematography awards. The recently married Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee did the musical score awards. Sandy officially was supposed to turn 19 six days later but she was in fact two years younger than that, as revealed years later by her mother).

Another happy couple, Steve Allen and Jane Meadows came on to present the best song award. It went to “Never on Sunday” but the composer never showed up to collect it so Bob Hope tried to take that one, too. Jayne still had the Oscar on “I’ve Got a Secret” two days later and mailed it to Manos Hadjidakis, the composer, in Greece.

Billy Wilder won for directing “The Apartment” to wild applause and said “Thank you so much, you lovely discerning people”. Moss Hart and Kitty Carlisle presented the best adapted screenplay award to Richard Brooks for Elmer Gantry, who said “The Bible says, “First Came the Word”. I.A. L. Diamond and Billy Wilder won for best original screen play for “The Apartment” and thanked each other.

William Wyler came on to introduce Jimmy Stewart, who was accepting a special award to the dying Gary Cooper. Wyler thanked the voters for giving Billy Wilder two Oscars because now he’ll be getting congratulations for it all week. Then Stewart came on for the hugely emotional acceptance by Stewart, an old friend of “Coop“s. People didn’t realize how seriously ill Cooper was until they saw Stewart’s tears. He died a month later.

Greer Garson, whom Hope said had played Eleanor Roosevelt “so convincingly that Westbrook Pegler now hates her”, gave the Best Actor Oscar to a very humble Burt Lancaster. Then Yul Brynner announced that a tearful Elizabeth Taylor was the Best Actress winner. She’d gone in three years from the grieving widow of Mike Todd to the vampire who stole Eddie Fisher frrm that nice Debbie Reynolds to a sympathetic figure again, her tracheotomy scar visible on her neck. In fact, her doctor was in attendance with a tuxedo rented for him by Eddie Fisher. Billy Wilder telegrammed Shirley MacLaine, one of the hopeless nominees, to say “You may not have a hole in your windpipe but we love you anyway.”

Finally, Audrey Hepburn, recognizably in her “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” coiffure, announced that “The Apartment” had won best picture and so Billy Wilder had still another speech to make, (and even more congratulations for William Wyler). Not shown here was another cut to the press tent, where Mitzi Gaynor and Wendell Corey, (who may have been standing there since last year), engaged in some small talk.

Somewhere Hedda Hopper wasn’t smiling. But a lot of other people were.

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