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Voting starts March 3rd.
Anne Bancroft
Birth Name: Anna Maria Louise Italiano
Tourney Bracket and Seeding: "All-American Girls" #1
Birth Date: September 17, 1931
Birthplace: The Bronx, New York City, New York
Height: 5' 6½"
Academy Awards: 5 nominations, 1 win (actress, The Miracle Worker)
Signature Role: Annie Sullivan (The Miracle Worker)
versus
Julie Harris
Birth Name: Julie Anne Harris
Tourney Bracket and Seeding: "All-American Girls" #8
Birth Date: December 2, 1925
Birthplace: Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan
Academy Awards: 1 nomination
Signature Role: Eleanor "Nell" Lance (The Haunting)
with the winner to take on the winner of
Patricia Neal
Birth Name: Patricia Louise Neal
Tourney Bracket and Seeding: "All-American Girls" #4
Birth Date: January 20, 1926
Birthplace: Packard, Kentucky
Height: 5' 8"
Academy Awards: 2 nominations, 1 win (actress, Hud)
Signature Role: Alma Brown (Hud)
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Geraldine Page
Birth Name: Geraldine Sue Page
Tourney Bracket and Seeding: "All-American Girls" #5
Birth Date: November 22, 1924
Birthplace: Kirksville, Missouri
Height: 5' 8"
Academy Awards: 8 nominations, 1 win (actress, The Trip to Bountiful)
Signature Role: Mrs. Carrie Watts (The Trip to Bountiful)
Note: Of all the actresses in the 1960s bracket, Geraldine Page received the most Oscar nominations—and yet she might be the least known of the bunch.
One of the Monkey's favorite fixtures on the Washington Post op-ed page is Alexandra Petri, who is, by turns, amusing, thoughtful, insightful and deep but always non-ax-grinding, which is why the non-ax-grinding Monkey likes to read her.
Today, Ms. Petri suggests that the Academy Awards ceremony would improve with "better categories than Best Actor and Best Actress." Categories such as "Best Performance in an Arty Movie No One Saw" and "Best Appearance in Movie Where the Dog Dies." It's a funny column and you can read it for yourself here.
But, of course, I couldn't help but start wondering who in movie history might actually deserve to win these awards. Here are my suggestions. Feel free to offer up your own in the comments section below.
Although there are 34 categories in the online edition, I'm strictly a read-the-paper-over-breakfast-print-man, so I'm going with the Sunday edition's 26 (assuming I counted correctly). This is going to take the rest of the week.
Best Performance by Someone Old Who Deserves to Win Something
There have been many such Oscars handed out over the years, some deserved, some not (Don Ameche's win for Cocoon being perhaps the most egregious—to quote my late mother: "Don Ameche?! He never could act!"). The best such Oscar-winning performance was probably by Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful. Did you know she was nominated eight times, winning in her last chance? She died the next year.
Of those who were nominated but didn't win, I'd probably go with Peter O'Toole in Venus—hard to believe the guy has never won anything. But then the Academy has a history of neglecting great actors—not only did Cary Grant never win, Edward G. Robinson was never even nominated! Imagine that.
Best Performance in a Biopic of a Person the Audience Actually Recognizes
Which counts out Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, I'd think. Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc is pushing it—we all know who Joan of Arc was, but would we actually recognize her if we saw her on the street? So I'm going with George C. Scott in Patton.
Best Performance in an Arty Movie No One Saw
Now that would be Maria Falconetti. No one saw The Passion of Joan of Arc upon its release, then the negative was destroyed in a fire and the film was presumed lost for decades. In 1981, it was rediscovered in a janitor's closet in a Norwegian insane asylum. Great movie, great performance.
Least Embarrassing Golden Globes Speech
Honestly, I've never watched the Golden Globes, so I couldn't say, and let's face it, on some level, all awards speeches are embarrassing. Instead, I'll go in the other direction and guess that the most embarrassing Golden Globes speech was when Ving Rhames gave away his award to fellow nominee Jack Lemmon. Actually dragged Lemmon on stage in a moment of enthusiastic self-deprecation and shoved the award into his hands, to Lemmon's mortification. And I say this as a guy who loves both Ving Rhames and Jack Lemmon. Haven't seen nearly enough of ol' Ving since then, by the way.
Best Acting With a Green Screen
Without doing an extensive search, I'm going with Naomi Watts in the remake of King Kong. She made the relationship between her character and the forty-foot CGI monkey not just plausible but touching.
Best Performance for Which You Gained Weight Intentionally
Given that it's one of the best performances by anybody ever anyway, I'm going with Robert De Niro in Raging Bull.
Tomorrow: awards for heartstring-tugging children, difficult directors, James Franco and recovering addicts.
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