Hollywood Studio Magazine (April 1972)

Take it from the topi News notes on the Hollywood scene by Zelda Cini Oscar strikes again It seems impossible that it’s Academy Award time again, but it is, and April 10 is the date for the big bash and the NBC Channel 4 airing of same. So be it. But, for the record, you might as well tuck these incidental pieces of information away in your memory book. This year, at least, there are some genuine “firsts.” For instance, all 10 actors and actresses nominated in the supporting categories are first-time nominees — and this is the first time that’s happened. And here they are: Supporting actors - Jeff Bridges, for the Last Picture Show; Leonard Frey, for Fiddler on the Roof; Richard Jaeckel, for Sometimes A Great Notion; Ben Johnson, for The Last Picture Show; and Roy Scheider for The French Connection. Supporting actresses — Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman, both for The Last Picture Show; Barbara Harris for Who Is Harry Kellerman, and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?; Margaret Leighton for The Go-Between, and Ann-Margret for Carnel Knowledge. Two directors up for awards are first-timers too - Peter Bogdanovich for The Last Picture Show and Bill Friedkin for The French Connection. Norman Jewison is a two-time nominee, this time for Fiddler on the Roof. In 1967, he was nominated for In The Heart Of The Night. Stanley Kubrick gets his third nomination for A Clockwork Orange. His other two were for Dr. Strangelove, in 1964, and 2001: A Space Odessey, in 1968. And John Schlesinger is up for the third time for Sunday Bloody Sunday. He was first nominated in 1965 for Darling; and won an Oscar for his Midnight Cowboy in 1969. In the best performance category, there are also two “firsts” among the men. Peter Finch (Sunday Bloody Sunday) and Topol (Fiddler on the Roof), although Walter Matthau has the distinction of getting his first turn at “best actor” for Kotch. He won an Oscar for his supporting performance in Fortune Cookie in 1966. Gene Hackman is in the Oscar race for the third time, but his role in The French Connection brings him his first nomination as “best actor.” He was previously nominated for his supporting performances in Bonnie and Clyde in 1966 and I Never Sang For My Father, in 1970. George C. Scott is also up for “best actor,” his second in this category, but his fourth nomination since 1959. The other two were for supporting roles in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and The Hustler (1961). In 1971 he won as “best actor” for his performance in “Patton.” This year’s nomination is for his performance in “Hospital.” If he should win, he would be only the second actor to win back-to-back Oscars as “best actor.” Spencer Tracy is the only other star to garner such honors — in 1937 for Captain Courageous and in 1938 for Boys Town. In the “best actress” category, only Janet Suzman (Nicholas and Alexandra) is a first-time nominee. It’s a second nomination for Jane Fonda (Klute). She was also nominated, in the same category, in 1969 for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?. Glenda Jackson is also sweating out her second nomination this year for her role in Sunday Bloody Sunday. She was last year’s winner for Women In Love. Coincidentally, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy’s longtime close friend, is the only actress to win two in a row — in 1967, for Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, and in 1968 for The Lion In Winter, which tied with Barbra Streisand’s Funny Girl. Julie Christie, who won an Oscar in 1965 for Darling, is up again this year for her starring role in McCabe & Mrs. Miller. And Vanessa Redgrave, nominated in the same category twice before, for Morgan in 1966 and Isadora in 1968, is contending for the third time for “Mary, Queen of Scots.” So, there you have the colorful front runners. Mark your own ballots. And watch the exciting returns on television, April 10 ... You may not be one of those “peers” whose votes are so important to these people, but if you didn’t go to the movies, there wouldn’t be any peers. Ever think of that? Notation on word origins Since everybody in the business is so turned on to the imminent Academy Awards, you might as well learn the purported origin of the term “star.” According to Ben Pearson, an agent who’s been compiling a “Dictionary of Theatre Slang,” due for publication this year, the theatrical application of the word comes from Colley Cibber, an English actor-manager (1671-1757) who joined the Theatre Royal in 1690 and made a career of playing fops in Restoration comedy. Pearson explains. “He had one big hit, “Love’s Lost Shift,” which played for several years beginning in 1696. Cibber was a conceited, very unpopular fellow, who was savagely attacked by the critics and even once denounced by the Pope. On the billboards he would put a star after his name, and his dressing room was so marked. At the time, the star was considered a gesture of Cibber’s conceit and, as usual, people laughed at him. However, this was the beginning of the term and the usage.” Yeah, but the guy was working. So let ’em laugh. He who laughs last, etc. *** KTTV gets the smarts Funny that nobody seems to have thought of it before, but there are a lot of deaf people around who simply cannot hear newscasts on television and may not yet have mastered the art of lip-reading. It took KTTV to wise up ahead of everybody else and hire YES, GOLDIE, that’s your finger, and you don’t really need a jeweler’s glass to identify it as such, even in Germany. Which is where Goldie Hawn was working with Warren Beatty in a soon-to-be-released Columbia suspense thriller called “$”, written and directed by Richard Brooks and produced by M. J. Frankovich. 4