Paul Newman dies

[Kasept]

Originally Posted by docicu3

BEN KINGSLEY in "Gandhi", Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie", Jack Lemmon in "Missing", Paul Newman in "The Verdict", Peter O'Toole in "My Favorite Year"


Steve was it looked at as a" poltical" Oscar when Kingsley won for Ghandi that year?

The AA have always had a sort of flakiness to some of it's victors. The sentiment at the time was probably that PN was not the actor you gave Oscar to as he was never a "yes" man despite his many acts of charity and selflessness. The politics of the movie industry has always played a huge role in who gets the spoils. This was one time that sentiment would grow louder in protest as time went on and now that Mr N is gone the voice just turned up the volume on this one.

Actually all of the movies for best actor in 1982 were pretty damn good.

The Academy has always been suckers for 'epics'... You make an epic, and Hollywood rallies around it. That's all I remember about Gandhi doing as well as it did. Best Picture, Best Director for Attenborough and Best Actor for the little known Kingsley.

As usual, a small character driven film like The Verdict was ignored. Among those nominees, Kingsley, O'Toole and Newman had not previously won. (Interestingly Jack Lemmon's statue for Leading Actor came in the little seen 'Save the Tiger' in a character role slightly similar to Newman's in The Versict. He won Best Supporting years earlier as Ensign Pulver in 'Mr. Roberts'.) Comedic roles rarely score among Academy voters, so O'Toole and Hoffman seemed doubtful. Many thought 1983 was to be Newman's year after a series of tough losses dating back five nominations to 1959 (Cat/Roof). But no...

Also run over by the Gandhi steamroller was Sidney Lumet. Like Newman, he was a favorite Academy punching bag as he watched contemporary after contemporary win Best Director Oscars over the year before settling for a lifetime achievement type recently. Lumet's career parallels Newman's almost identically. Both started in 50's live drama TV before earning their screen success converting famous playwright works into legendary cinema. (Lumet with O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night and Newman with Williams' Cat and Long, Hot Summer). Lumet went on to direct amazing darmatic films like The Hill, The Pawnbroker, Fail-Safe, Serpico, Network, and the wonderful Garbo Talks. In fact, according to IMDB, Lumet has directed 17 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances:

Katharine Hepburn, Rod Steiger, Al Pacino, Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Chris Sarandon, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Beatrice Straight, William Holden, Ned Beatty, Peter Firth, Richard Burton, Paul Newman, James Mason, Jane Fonda and River Phoenix. (Bergman, Dunaway, Finch and Straight won oscars for their performances in Lumet movies.)

Anyway, if anyone would ask which films from 1983 are best remembered, Tootsie, My Favorite Year, E.T., The Verdict, Sophie's Choice, Officer and a Gentleman, Blade Runner, Diner, Das Boot and World According to Garp would ALL be appreciated more than the torpid Gandhi.