Like every
other institution in America Hollywood was in turmoil during the 1960s. Unlike
many of the others much of it had to do with internal as well as external
factors.
By the start
of the decade the studio system on which the industry had essentially been
founded during the 1920s was beginning to go into a death spiral. Much of this
had to do with the fact then the moguls who’d founded the studios themselves
were either dead or were being removed from their companies. Jack Warner and
Daryl Zanuck were the only bosses from the 1920s still around and by the end of
the decade both men would be gone. Similarly most of the actors and directors
who were part of this system were dead or dying themselves and while many of
the actresses from that era were still alive in the eyes of an industry that prized
sex appeal even more than today, they might as well have been. Similarly the
gossip columnists and critics who had been so much involved in the building of
the ‘Dream Factory’ from Hedda Hopper and Walter Winchell would soon be dead
themselves and many of the critics of that era were increasingly becoming out
of touch with the new wave of filmmaking.
The film that
were nominated for Best Picture during the 1960s in hindsight show an industry
that is doing everything in its power to deny that the world around them is
changing. Many of the weakest nominees for Best Picture that the Academy would
ever give out took place during this decade and they tend to reflect the studio
system increasingly desperate attempts to draw audiences in with the epics of
yesteryear. In some cases they succeeded: movies like The Longest Day and
the movies of David Lean are remarkable movies. But for each of them there were
disastrous films that were epic only in length. These included John Wayne’s bloated
epic The Alamo, MGM’s remake of Mutiny on The Bounty with Marlon
Brando as Fletcher Christian and most tellingly Richard Burton and Elizabeth
Taylor’s Cleopatra which adjusted for inflation may have been the
biggest box office disaster in history. Seeing these films nominated for Best
Picture seems like the Academy was desperately trying to show the executives
that they still had it when they kept showing how much behind the times they
were.
Similarly the
studios were turning out Broadway to movie adaptations at a ridiculous rate. To
be fair the lion’s share of these were classics by any standard, among them West
Side Story, The Music Man, My Fair Lady and Sound of Music. But the
further one got into the decade the movie musical was looking increasingly
stale, particular with the nomination in 1967 of Doctor Doolittle which
was just as much a bomb as Cleopatra had been. By the time Hello, Dolly
was nominated for Best Picture at the end of the decade, it looked like a
relic of a different era and while it holds up better in hindsight then many
other adaptations it was a sign the musical was essentially becoming a
money-loser.
During this era
many forces that would bring Hollywood, kicking and screaming, into a new
Golden Age were arriving and by and large the Oscars chose to react about as
well as the old guard was to all the other outside forces: with repulsion and
bigotry. One of the subtlest but most telling may have very well how the Academy
Awards would choose to treat some of the next stage of British Actors who were
arriving, most of whom would be called ‘the Angry Young Men’ because of their
connection to how the British theater scene was turning them out. They were not
Cary Grant or David Niven, then two of the only British Actors who’d managed to
receive mass acceptance among American audiences.
The four
actors who represented that biggest sea change had all arrived by 1964: Peter O’Toole,
Albert Finney, Richard Harris and Peter Sellers. Richard Burton is traditionally
ranked as part of this clique; in fact he predated their arrival by more than a
decade. He had already received – and lost – two Academy Awards by the time the
decade began: the first in 1952 for My Cousin Rachel, the second for The
Robe in 1953.
Strictly
speaking O’Toole and Harris were both Irish and Burton was Welsh. However in an
industry that only saw things in terms of stereotypes all of them were British
and more importantly ‘foreigners’. And during that decade the old guard viewed
them with the same contempt and bigotry that they did everyone else in the industry.
Perhaps this
explains one of the most appalling statistics in the history of the Oscars.
These five men are among the greatest actors in history and yet their combined
track record with the Academy is an appalling 0 for 24. O’Toole and
Burton alone held the dubious distinction of the most snubs by the Academy for
an actor: for twenty five years both men had gone zero for seven. O’Toole’s
loss for Venus in 2006 put him as the ‘GOAT’ in this category having gone
to his grave with no wins for his eight nominations. (As of this writing Glenn
Close has tied him with that horse collar but O’Toole holds the record for male
actors. Actresses – I’ll get to that later.)
Considering
that during the 1960s in particular all four of these actors were doing some of
the greatest work in the most iconic roles in film history part of this is
explained that in many cases they were actually competing against each other. But
that is only part of the explanation. A darker subtext was the American nature
of Hollywood during the 1960s which became very telling throughout the decade
against Brits in particular.
That Peter O’Toole
lost Best Actor for his incredible work in Lawrence of Arabia may strike
some as astonishing but considering he was beaten by Gregory Peck for his work as
Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird may make it sting less.
Considering that role is considered by AFI as the greatest heroic character of
all time, few would debate its power. Besides Lawrence of Arabia did win
seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Director for David Lean.
Anglophobia would have been hard to argue. The trouble really started next
year.
When Tony
Richardson’s Tom Jones debuted in the spring of 1963 the old guard was
up in arms from the start. They could not comprehend how Tony Richardson’s film
which was a blow to everything that ‘decent Americans’ considered moral was a
critical and box office hit. (In fairness, it has not aged well and many
consider it one of the worst choices for Best Picture imaginable.) Even more
appalling to them was how Albert Finney’s work in the title role was winning
over so many young women – how could this man who played a 18th
century man-whore be so popular considering his horrible table manners? And the
way critics in America responded to it meant that they were going to have to
give this man an Oscar.
Finney, it’s
worth noting, never particularly cared for awards and made it clear he was not
going to be there on Oscar night. At the time he was appearing in Luther in
London and he saw no reason to change his plans. This was a further insult to
the Oscars who have always been snippy at those who chose to regard their biggest
night of congratulation as an inconvenience something that British actors in
particular still considered it to be.
To be fair
this was not something that was solely the province of Brits: Spencer Tracy and
Katherine Hepburn were notorious for never attending the Oscars, Marlon Brando’s
attendance was spotty well before The Godfather and Paul Newman was more
inclined to come to escort his wife when she was nominated rather than show up
if he was. But the British were particular standoffish: Charles Laughton had
not shown up for any of his nominations; Alec Guiness had been persona non
grata when he won for Bridge on the River Kwai and James Mason hadn’t
shown up for A Star is Born (and wouldn’t show up when he was nominated
for Georgy Girl in 1967). O’Toole had not been present in 1962 and Finney
made it clear he wouldn’t be. Richard Harris was also nominated in 1963 for This
Sporting Life and neither he nor his Oscar nominated wife Rachel Roberts
bothered to show up.
There is a
good argument that Sidney Poitier’s groundbreaking win for Lillies of The Field
was as much a stick in the eye to Finney and the Brits as it was a victory
for race in Hollywood. For all the brilliance of Poitier as a performer many
could argue he was being used during this period as Hollywood’s big argument
that they were not a racist institution. “How can we be racist,” they might
say. “We have a black friend.” That Poitier’s win came not long after the march
on DC may very well have been a chance to show that they were patting
themselves on the back; the fact that Poitier was the only acting winner to show
up to accept on Oscar night in 1964 was a bigger sign.
And to be
clear Hollywood had no use for any of Tom Jones’ other nominees. This
went to the three actresses nominated for Best Supporting Actress: Diane Cilento,
Edith Evans and Suzanne York. When Margaret Rutherford ending up winning for The
VIPs (another Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor film) Hedda Hopper said when
Rutherford was nominated that she was glad to see her there “even though she’s
English.” Rutherford was best known for playing Miss Marple in a series of
Agatha Christie novelizations, then as now one of the few settings that Hollywood
was willing to accept British in.
The next year
was worse by Hollywood’s standards. Four of the five nominees in the Best Actor
category were Brits. Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton were nominated against
each other for Becket, Peter Sellers for his iconic performance (s) in Dr.
Strangelove and Rex Harrison for recreating his Tony winning role in My
Fair Lady. The xenophobia was thick. One columnist said that every nominee for
Best Actor was ‘foreign, even though Anthony Quinn is considered an American
Actor. (Quinn was Mexican.) Quinn took it in good humor. “At last I’m
considered an American actor,” he said after celebrating for being nominated
for Zorba The Greek.
O’Toole and
Burton didn’t show up. O’Toole was more gracious “Maybe someone could split it
in half for us?” he said. Sellers was busy filming What’s New, Pussycat?, and
said nothing at all. The love for My Fair Lady carried Harrison to an Oscar
but many were troubled by the fact that “no American actor won that year. (The
other winners were Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins, Peter Ustinov for Tokapi
and Lila Kedrova for Zorba The Greek.) The columnist was trying to
argue against the direction American films were taking as opposed to the ‘wholesome
entertainment provided by the Brits.” That they seemed to have forgotten Tom
Jones already was a sign of selective memory.
Richard Burton
was nominated for the next two year for Best Actor; for The Spy Who Came in
From The Cold in 1965 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – arguably his
greatest performance in 1966. He would lose to Paul Scofield for his work as
Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. Scofield was British himself but
as he was a decade older than the majority of the ‘Angry Young Men’ he was never viewed in the same vein. He took
the Oscars just as seriously as the rest of them; though – on Oscar night, he
wasn’t there. Neither was Burton. To be fair, neither was almost every other
major nominee that night: there had been a strike that had been settled only
days before and no one was sure it would happen.
By 1968 the
Oscars had started to crack down more seriously
on attendance but Peter O’Toole never got the message. That year he was
starring in Lion in Winter playing Henry II for the second time in his
career. To date he is the only actor ever nominated for playing the same role
twice who was not also starring in a sequel to the same work.
Many people
were certain Lion in Winter was going to be the big winner on Oscar
night and that O’Toole would triumph along with the film itself. Everyone was
shocked not only when the big winner turned out to be Oliver! (Carol
Reed was just as shocked to win Best Director) but when the Best Actor prize
went to Cliff Robertson for Charly (the film version of the landmark
book Flowers for Algernon) Robertson himself wasn’t there because he was
filming a movie and he saw no reason to show up when everyone knew O’Toole was
going to win.
Both O’Toole
and Burton would nominated again in 1969 but neither for the kind of movies
that either would consider their best work. O’Toole was nominated for playing
the title role in the musical version of Goodbye Mr. Chips which had
been a critical and box office failure and Burton was nominated for playing
Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days which essentially was the poor man’s
version of Man for All Seasons. O’Toole chose to stay home again on
Oscar night and Burton came on the arm of Elizabeth Taylor. There he witnessed
the triumph of John Wayne for his performance as John Wayne – I mean, Rooster
Cogburn – in True Grit.
The general
disdain for British actors during this period was not limited to those angry
young men. Laurence Olivier was nominated twice more first for The
Entertainer in 1960 and then for Othello (yes I know) in 1965. He
didn’t show up for either of those. Alan Bates was nominated for his work in The
Fixer in 1968. He didn’t show up either. And a newcomer named Michael Caine
received his first nomination for playing the title role in Alfie in
1966. He actually did show up on Oscar night, something he would do
infrequently over the years. None of them won.
By and large British
Actors were not receiving largesse during this period. British actresses were
having somewhat more success but that it is a slightly different story – and one
that I will cover in the next part to this series.
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