Oscars political moments / A journey through tributes and criticism

 

Marlon Brando, Oscar for Best Actor for his role in The Godfather (1973)

Oscars political moments

A journey through tributes and criticism

30 NOVEMBER 2021, 

FRANCESCA SANGIOVANNI

Not too many days ago, while I was busy doing what I have been known to do best recently – procrastination – I came across a very interesting video which led me, after some research, to want to write this article. The video in question was of Marlon Brando winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in The Godfather. It was the year 1973, a date that will forever be etched in Oscar history, not only because one of the most prominent actors of all time turned down an Oscar (that's right, turned down an Oscar!) – but more importantly, because of why and how he did it. It was a political act that caused a lot of talks. But along with it, there have been many others. So many celebrities have appeared on the Oscar stage with the sole aim of raising public awareness of situations and issues that they cared about. In this article, I would like to look back at some of these moments. 

Hank Kaufman and Gene Lerner / Hollywood on the Tiber

Hollywood on the Tiber

Hank Kaufman and Gene Lerner

Foreword by Sandy Lieberson

Hollywood on the Tiber is a dazzling blend of the epic and intimate featuring a glittering cast of screen gods and goddesses. This vibrant chronicle recounts how Hank Kaufman and Gene Lerner became unsung movers and shakers of a unique and unrepeatable era: the rise of Rome as the center of Europe’s film industry in the 1950s and ’60s.

Marlon Brando fury at ‘feeling like a freak’ among revelations in new book of Hollywood secrets

 

'En ninguna película había logrado aún la inarticulación total que ahora lo dominaba': Marlon Brando conoce a Sophia Loren en el estreno en Roma de On the Waterfront, 1954.
Photo: Keystone

Marlon Brando fury at ‘feeling like a freak’ among revelations in new book of Hollywood secrets

This article is more than 6 months old

Brando, Ava Gardner, Anita Ekberg and other A-listers are featured in a memoir about the glamour of the 1950s film industry

Dalya Alberge
Saturday 4 January 2025

Marlon Brando was the original angry young man, winning an Oscar for On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan’s movie about union corruption. But anger got the better of him at the 1954 Italian premiere of the film, when he refused to watch it after discovering that his voice had been dubbed, a new book reveals.

 

British actor Jason Isaacs, on March 18, 2025 in Pollença (Mallorca).CATI CLADERA (EFE)

HOLLYWOOD

Jason Isaacs: The villain who managed to dodge fame until ‘The White Lotus’

The British actor, with a decades-long career and iconic roles like Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter saga, managed to stay out of the media spotlight until his starred in one of today’s biggest television phenomena

The week that derailed Karla Sofía Gascón’s Oscar dreams and jeopardized her career

 

Karla Sofia Gascon, at a presentation of 'Emilia Pérez' on January 15, 2025 in Mexico City.MEDIOS Y MEDIA (GETTY IMAGES)

The week that derailed Karla Sofía Gascón’s Oscar dreams and jeopardized her career

After a series of offensive tweets and a lukewarm apology, the actress now faces a difficult month leading up to the Hollywood awards. Experts argue that ‘Emilia Pérez’ may not win any of the 13 awards it is nominated for as a result of the scandal

Paul Newman, 100 years of the most intense blue gaze in cinema

 

Paul Newman.© BETTMANN/CORBIS

Paul Newman, 100 years of the most intense blue gaze in cinema

The actor, born in Ohio on January 26, 1925, is an inseparable and indisputable part of the history of the United States in the 20th century

GREGORIO BELINCHÓN

Madrid - JAN 27, 2025 - 13:49 COT

On January 26, 1925, the small street of Renrock Road in Cleveland Heights, in the suburbs of Cleveland (Ohio), woke up snowy and icy enough for the Newman couple, Art and Theresa, to decide that their second child, Paul Leonard, should be born at home: 2025 marks the centenary of Newman’s birth, an actor who was possibly not the best among his peers, but arguably the most handsome and the one who best connected with his era and his generation, the owner of the most intense blue eyes in Hollywood. He was tenacious, intelligent, a charmer and an icon of the 20th century. He triumphed in the cinema and in motor racing, the passion that truly filled his life. And, incidentally, he drank countless liters of beer throughout his life: that’s why, for years, he wore a chain around his neck with a bottle opener. His genes and constant exercise allowed his prodigious physique to not be affected by his alcoholism.

The resurrection of Demi Moore and Pamela Anderson: Hollywood and its second chances

 

Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis at the Toronto Film Festival last September.GARETH CATTERMOLE (GETTY IMAGES FOR IMDB)

The resurrection of Demi Moore and Pamela Anderson: Hollywood and its second chances 

‘The Substance’ and ‘The Last Showgirl’ placed their bets on stars who had disappeared from the A-list but are now back in the spotlight

ENEKO RUIZ JIMÉNEZ

Madrid - JAN 25, 2025 - 23:30 COT

Jamie Lee Curtis said it best upon being nominated for her 2023 Oscar for Everything Everywhere All At Once: “I’m 64 years old. I’ve been an actor since I was 19. I made horror films and sold yogurt that makes you shit. I never thought I would hear my name at the Oscars.” This year, after winning the award and enjoying a career renaissance, Curtis is back in the headlines for her work on The Last Showgirl. That film stars Pamela Anderson, another actress who is back in the spotlight after surviving the release of biographical miniseries Pam and Tommy, which brought the lurid moment of her sex tape back into public discourse. “This is the best payback,” Anderson has told the press. “I’m being seen and recognized for my work and not these tawdry moments.”

Hollywood pays tribute to David Lynch: ‘A singular, visionary dreamer’

Steven Spielberg, Naomi Watts, Nicolas Cage, Kyle MacLachlan and others share their respects for film-maker who died this week at 78 

Actors and directors have been paying tribute to the director David Lynch, who died this week at the age of 78.

The death of Lynch, whose works include Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, was announced by his family on Facebook earlier on Thursday. “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us,” they wrote. “But, as he would say: ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’”

Steven Spielberg, who cast Lynch as John Ford in his semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans praised him as “a singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade” in a statement.

 

Shelley Duvall

Shelley Duvall was a sublime and subversive screen presence

The unique and often misunderstood actor, who has died at the age of 75, was frequently at her best with Robert Altman and memorably terrorised by Stanley Kubrick

Peter Bradshaw

Thursday 11 July 2024

It was Shelley Duvall’s destiny to become most widely known for a single film or maybe for a single poster image from it, shockingly and cartoonishly explicit. The image certainly did justice to her intensity and capacity for utterly unselfconscious performance, but said nothing about the subtlety, strength, wit and unfakable superstar quality that otherwise marked her work.

Kevin Spacey was found not guilty of sexual assault charges after a four-week trial at Southwark crown court in July. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/

Kevin Spacey receives standing ovation in first stage appearance since trial

Actor delivered Shakespeare scene during lecture at Oxford theatre in memory of Roger Scruton

Jamie Grierson
Tuesday 17 October 2023

Kevin Spacey was given a standing ovation at a theatre in Oxford on Monday night – in his first stage appearance since being cleared of sexual assault – after performing a brief scene by Shakespeare.

The 63-year-old Ballymena man is to receive an Outstanding Contribution to Cinema award at the Iftas tonight at the Mansion House

Liam Neeson: on iconic roles, Irish pride, and the influence of Ian Paisley...

Ahead of receiving an industry award at the IFTAs, Liam Neeson on the journey that saw him play Michael Collins, a Jedi and God

Patrick Freyne

Saturday 9 April 2016

Liam Neeson – aka Michael Collins, a Jedi, Oskar Schindler, God (in the sitcom Rev), an otherworldly lion deity, a Batman villain, the avenging fury of the Taken films, Hannibal from The A-Team – is unafraid of playing icons.

 

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 09: Kathy Bates attends the 92nd Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood and Highland on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)AMY SUSSMAN 

‘It was cruel, unnecessarily cruel’: How Kathy Bates became an unlikely star

She was over 40 and had a physique that was not normative for Hollywood, but her Oscar for ‘Misery’ led her to become one of the busiest actresses in Hollywood

EVA GÜIMIL

JUN 29, 2024 - 23:05 COT

When Daniel Day-Lewis read the name of Kathy Bates, rhere was some surprise in the Shrine Civic Auditorium. In the 1990 race to win the Oscar for Best Actress, she was up against Hollywood royalty (Anjelica Huston and Joanne Woodward), Academy favorite (Meryl Streep), and America’s new sweetheart (Julia Roberts). The press were not counting on her winning. At age 40, Bates was a virtual unknown. What’s more, she was nominated for playing a villain in a horror movie. Four decades later, her performance Annie Wilkes in Misery has become iconic, and there are no doubts that it was deserving of an Oscar.

 

Kevin Costner in Cannes en 2024.STEPHANE CARDINALE - 

‘The high point of my life was not a movie’: Kevin Costner, a classic heartthrob in search of his last chance

The big star of the 1980s and 1990s hit rock bottom with ‘Waterworld’ and has been trying to climb back up for the past 30 years. His latest effort is called ‘Horizon: An American Saga’

EVA GÜIMIL
11 June 2024

In The Big Chill (1983), he was meant to rub shoulders with Glenn Close and Kevin Kline, but ended up being a corpse that only appears on screen for a few seconds. Just six years later,Kevin Costner was Hollywood’s biggest star and his name made any movie a success. The Bodyguard, A Perfect World, JFK and Dances with Wolves were back-to-back hits. But this period ended with Waterworld (1995), when the public decided they did not want to see him drinking his own urine or breathing with gills. That monumental failure pushed him off the throne, and he has never regained the spot.

 

John Travolta, at the Governor's Ball held after the 2022 Oscars, in Los Angeles, California.VARIETY (PENSKE MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES)

John Travolta, the 70-year-old semi-retired widower soaring over Hollywood 

A pilot who’s more interested these days in his planes and children than in his acting career, the two-time Oscar nominee faced personal tragedies that shaped his life

María PorcelLos Ángeles, February 18, 2024

John Travolta could have been Richard Gere. His career and life have had many ups and many downs that feel much like the lingering melancholy that follows moments of joy. Professional success has seemed more like the outcome of haphazard decisions than acting talent, perhaps due to misguided advice. In his personal life, the inevitable misfortunes that befall a person — famous or not — have crossed his path several times. Too many times.

‘Cary Grant’s whole life was a civil war’ / The TV drama unmasking Hollywood’s permatanned icon

 

‘He was crippled by shame’ … Jason Isaacs as Cary Grant and Laura Aikman as Dyan Cannon in Archie. 

‘Cary Grant’s whole life was a civil war’: the TV drama unmasking Hollywood’s permatanned icon

The mansion-dwelling megastar was born Archibald Leach and grew up in a squalid Bristol terrace believing his mother was dead. The stars and writer of Archie talk about his rise, shame and redemption

Mark Lawson
Monday 13 November 2023

Freezing rain is lashing the roof of the movie-set trailer. Even with the heating on full, the conditions are still shivery. But Jason Isaacs is sporting the sort of deep tan that suggests months spent under fierce sun. Appropriately, given the role he’s playing, it’s fake. “They spray-paint me every single day,” the actor explains. “At the place I’m staying, I don’t know what the laundry thinks has been going on, with these dark brown sheets every morning.”

Johnny Depp / An unruly misfit who has a troubled relationship with fame

Johnny Depp
Poster by T.A.

Johnny Depp: an unruly misfit who has a troubled relationship with fame

The actor’s acrimonious split from Amber Heard is just the latest chapter in a life that has been reluctantly played out in public

Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Saturday 20 August 2016 07.00 BS

B

uccaneer. Troubadour. Beatnik cowboy. The words that have been used to describe Johnny Depp through the decades make him sound less like an actor and more like a rogue character from a children’s book. They also go a long way to explaining the strange mythology that surrounds Depp, who has become one of Hollywood’s most bankable and highest paid stars, all while maintaining the persona of an unruly misfit.

 

A Barbie digital billboard in New York City.ANADOLU AGENCY (ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Pink is political: How ‘Barbie’ blends activism, entertainment, and business as usual

Greta Gerwig’s feminist fantasy-comedy is taking the box office by storm, but the film’s success is also its politics, which go only so far as the Mattel corporation will allow: ‘A movie that ridiculed Barbie would have been disastrous for the brand’

Noah Benalal

July 17, 2023

For some time now, and until further notice, pink means Barbie, whether it’s really about Barbie or not. Ever since the movie about Mattel’s most iconic toy doll began its impressive advertising campaign, the world has been flooded in waves of pink — a tide that has managed to swamp more than just the land of cinema. In the span of merely a few months, we have witnessed the #Barbiecore trend on Tik-Tok, with users creating their own Barbie-inspired outfits and pink-themed aesthetics, and pink-carpet photoshoots taking place around the world with celebrities ransacking the vintage archives of major fashion houses to dress in the spirit of the famous doll. Scores of adoring fans have dug up their most chic and beloved garments from childhood — pink outfits abandoned in adolescence and rediscovered thanks to Barbie — eagerly consuming the advertisements and products launched by Mattel and collaborators, like Barbie lipstick and Ken underwear. And on top of all the pop culture hullabaloo, Barbie has entered the world of politics too: while the right criticizes her for promoting a “woke agenda,” liberals and leftists like Spain’s Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz are flocking to the film and sharing their enthusiasm for Barbie’s feminist agenda on social media.