61st Academy Awards

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
61st Academy Awards
61st Academy Awards.jpg
Date Wednesday, March 29, 1989
Site Shrine Auditorium
Los Angeles, California
Host None
Producer Allan Carr
Director Jeff Margolis
Highlights
Best Picture Rain Man
Most awards Rain Man (4)
Most nominations Rain Man (8)
TV in the United States
Network ABC
Duration 3 hours, 19 minutes
Ratings 42.77 million
 < 60th Academy Awards 62nd > 

The 61st Academy Awards were presented on Wednesday, March 29, 1989 at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles. The date had been moved from its usual Monday telecast due to Easter, which was on March 26. For this show, there was no "official" host, as the show opened with a stage-show featuring Merv Griffin, Eileen Bowman as Snow White and Rob Lowe. Another innovation was that the producers changed the traditional line "And the winner is..." to "And the Oscar goes to...", a change that has remained in place since. This broadcast is also noted for being the final public appearance of actress Lucille Ball, who died less than one month later.

Contents

Awards

Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.1

Best Picture Best Director
Best Actor Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actress
Best Original Screenplay Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Foreign Language Film Best Film Editing
Best Documentary Feature Best Documentary Short
Best Live Action Short Best Animated Short
Best Original Score Best Original Song
Best Sound Mixing Best Visual Effects
Best Art Direction Best Cinematography
Best Makeup Best Costume Design
Best Sound Editing

Multiple nominations and wins

These films received multiple nominations:

The following films received multiple awards:

Academy Honorary Awards

Special Achievement Award

Production

The producers of the ceremony attempted to change established Oscar traditions for this year's show. One noticeable difference was that instead of an award presenter saying, "and the winner is.." they'd say, "and the Oscar goes to...". Many, however, continued announcing winners with the traditional line.

In addition, there was no official host for the ceremony that year. Producer Allan Carr, who had wanted to bring more showmanship to the ceremony, constructed an opening number based on the long-running San Francisco musical revue Beach Blanket Babylon, of which he had been a longtime fan, and hired its creator, Steve Silver, to co-create the act.2 The act consisted of an elaborate stage-show centered around the character Snow White (portrayed by actress Eileen Bowman), who comes to Hollywood and is entranced by its glamour. This borrowed directly from Beach Blanket Babylon, where Snow White is the main character, who travels the world in search of love. Like Beach Blanket Babylon, the opening act also featured dancers wearing giant, elaborate hats.2

Merv Griffin sang the song "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" (of which he had had a hit recording in 1949), surrounded by legendary Hollywood actors such as Doris Day and Cyd Charisse in a simulation of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. This was followed by Bowman (as Snow White) and actor Rob Lowe singing a rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary", with lyrics rewritten to refer to the film industry.3

Another act, halfway through the ceremony, was a song called "I Wanna Be an Oscar Winner", featuring 20 young actors billed as "stars of tomorrow", including Corey Feldman, Christian Slater, Patrick Dempsey and Ricki Lake.2

The response to the opening act was overwhelmingly negative. Actors such as Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, and Julie Andrews, and director Billy Wilder, signed an open letter deriding the telecast as "an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry."4 The Los Angeles Times described it in 2005 as "by consensus, the Worst Oscars Show Ever."2 Bowman claimed later that she was made to sign a gag order the next day prohibiting her from speaking to the press about her performance for the next 13 years. She finally spoke about it publicly in a 2013 interview, in which she described the performance as looking "like a gay bar mitzvah".4

The Walt Disney Company filed suit for copyright infringement for use of the likeness of Snow White,5 but dropped the suit two weeks later after the academy formally apologized for the copyright violation at a press conference.2

The production was said to have killed Allan Carr's career; he never had a film job again before his death in 1999.4 The results convinced Academy Awards producers to rely more on film clips than live production numbers,2 and future ceremonies would not open again with a lavish "Broadway-style" opening number until 2002.

Other innovations of Carr's had more success, including bringing in corporate sponsors for the first time, and hiring comic writer Bruce Vilanch, who would become a mainstay of the Oscars ceremony.2

Additional notes

Lucille Ball at the 61st Academy Awards, her last public appearance.

This was the last public appearance for Lucille Ball, who died less than one month later. Ball introduced a musical number along with her long-time friend and frequent co-star Bob Hope. Future Oscar winners Alan Menken and Howard Ashman wrote a song called "The Nightmare" which references all the eligible films of that year, but was never used.6

Right before Cher was to present the award for Best Picture, she had an anxiety attack. Jack Nicholson was brought backstage to help calm her down and almost had to present the award with her.citation needed

Best Actor winner Dustin Hoffman, upon realizing that he had forgotten to thank his Rain Man co-star Tom Cruise and the film's director Barry Levinson in his acceptance speech, asked Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn (who were presenting next) to thank them for him before presenting their award, which Russell did. Then, when Hoffman and Cruise took the stage later in the show to present the Best Actress award, Hoffman said "In my nervousness, I left out the director's name, and I left out Tom's name. Tom, thank you very much. I love you very much."

Presenters

Performers

See also

Portal icon Academy Award portal

References

  1. ^ "The 61st Academy Awards (1989) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-16. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Pond, Steve (February 27, 2005). "And the loser is...". The Los Angeles Times, "The Envelope". 
  3. ^ Finke, Nikki. "Rob Lowe Explains His Infamous 1989 Oscars Opening Number With Snow White". Deadline. 
  4. ^ a b c Abramovitch, Seth. "'I Was Rob Lowe's Snow White': The Untold Story of Oscar's Nightmare Opening". The Hollywood Reporter. 
  5. ^ Easton, Nina (March 31, 1989). "Disney Sues Over Use of Snow White at Oscars". Los Angeles Times. 
  6. ^ Gillespie, Sarah Ashman. "An Oscar Nightmare - Da Doo - Blog". Retrieved 20 August 2012. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 61st Academy Awards
Merit awards
Special awards
Retired awards
Ceremonies
(Book)