Top 10 Oscar Moments

Top 10: Oscar Moments




By Ross Bonander

Entertainment Correspondent - Every other Wednesday









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Warren William with Frank Capra, star of the No. 8 Oscar moment
In
1929, a small group of men and women calling themselves the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences enjoyed a low-key dinner. They handed
out about a dozen so-called Awards of Merit with all the grandeur of
passing the salt.

Four decades later, this same Academy throws
a slightly larger annual party. On February 25, 2007, Hollywood’s Kodak
Theatre will host the 79th annual Academy Awards in a four-hour soiree
shimmering with costly jewels and designer dresses, bunched up with red
carpets and velvet ropes, and serviced by stretch limos and screaming
fans.

Given the number of eyes that are on this event each
year, it has played host to some unforgettable moments. On the eve of
this year’s Oscars, I present the top 10 Oscar moments to commemorate
those unexpected and impromptu episodes that have made the ritual worth
watching.
Number 10


Whitney Houston breaks down

72nd Academy Awards (2000)

Producing the Oscars each year demands a cast rivaling that of Ben-Hur.
Full cooperation is essential as hundreds of people toil for months to
create a performance so spectacular that sometimes the show itself even
wins an Oscar. With that in mind, 2000’s ceremony promised to be the
show’s most ambitious ever; too ambitious, in fact, for one performer.

Scheduled to sing “Over the Rainbow,” Whitney Houston
not only started singing the wrong song at rehearsals, she was also
distracted and her voice was shaky. Music producer Burt Bacharach, a
longtime family friend, had no choice but to replace the troubled diva
with Faith Hill.
Number 9


Frank Sinatra is denied at the door

35th Academy Awards (1963)

By the 1960s, Frank Sinatra’s
position on top of the world was pretty secure. The record label he’d
founded, Reprise Records, was thriving, and two of his most recent
films, Ocean’s 11 and The Manchurian Candidate, had
enjoyed both critical and box-office success. There wasn’t a door in
the world that wouldn’t open for him… or so he thought.

Scheduled
to host that year’s Oscars, Sinatra was running late and reached the
Santa Monica Civic Auditorium with precious few minutes to spare. In
his haste, he forgot to bring the necessary parking sticker, causing
security to turn him away at the arrivals area. The Chairman of the Board was forced to park his car elsewhere and scramble to the auditorium, arriving out of breath but just in time.
Number 8

Two Franks try to accept the same award

6th Academy Awards (1934)

Will
Rogers was as witty a man as there ever was and he knew how to choose
his words with precision -- most of the time. Announcing the winner for
Best Director, an overzealous Rogers shouted out, “Come and get it,
Frank!”

Lady for a Day director Frank Capra hustled to the stage at the same time as another Frank, Cavalcade director Frank Lloyd, the statue’s actual winner.

But don’t feel bad for Capra: He would take three of the next five Oscars in that category.

Top 10: Oscar Moments




By Ross Bonander

Entertainment Correspondent - Every other Wednesday









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Michael Moore before his anti-war speech at the 75th Academy Awards
Number 7

Michael Moore speaks out against the war

75th Academy Awards (2003)

In
2003, Oscar night followed closely on the heels of the U.S. invasion of
Iraq. Thus, any conservative members of the Academy who thought they
could give controversial filmmaker Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature without also giving him a platform were sorely mistaken.

Moore
surrounded himself on stage with all the category’s nominees and told
the audience that documentary filmmakers liked non-fiction, and that as
a result, they were out of step with the times. He stated that recent
U.S. election results, the reasons to go to war and even President Bush
himself were little more than fictions. As the chorus of cheers battled
the roar of boos, Moore raised his voice to a shout: “We are against
this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you.”
Number 6

Jack Palance does push-ups

64th Academy Awards (1992)

Jack Palance not only looked like one tough son of a bitch, he was
one. A highly decorated World War II veteran, his unforgettably gaunt
and rugged face was born in the coal mines, beat up by a short but
successful career as a heavyweight boxer, and disfigured by fire when
he leaped from a burning fighter plane. For almost the entire length of
his 40-year film career, Hollywood considered him the perfect Western
villain, but never Oscar-worthy. All that changed when he won the Best
Supporting Actor Oscar for his comic turn as Curly in the
midlife-crisis flick City Slickers.

To show that
success and age hadn’t softened him, the 73-year-old perennial tough
guy dropped to the stage and cranked out a handful of one-handed
push-ups.
Number 5

Roberto Benigni jumps over seats

71st Academy Awards (1999)

The
overwhelming majority of us will never know how great it feels to win
an Oscar. One winner, however, did his best to show us.

When Life Is Beautiful
won for Best Foreign Language Film, writer, actor and director Roberto
Benigni stepped on the backs of his colleagues’ seats (with some
balancing help from Steven Spielberg)
and raised his arms in a triumphant V. Later, when he won Best Actor
for the same film, he first ran up the aisle, then back down to the
stage. Referring to his previous acceptance speech, Benigni quipped
into the mic: "This must be a terrible mistake! I used up all my
English!"
Number 4

Marlon Brando refuses his award

45th Academy Awards (1973)

In 1973, The Godfather dominated the nominations and Marlon Brando’s brilliant performance as the aging mobster patriarch was a shoo-in for Best Actor.

When
Roger Moore and Liv Ullmann announced Brando the winner, however, it
wasn’t the man named one of the Greatest Male Stars of All Time by the
American Film Institute who approached the stage, but a woman dressed
head to toe in traditional Native American attire. Sacheen
Littlefeather, aka Maria Cruz, was not quite an American Indian
princess; she was a struggling actress of largely Mexican descent. In a
statement against Hollywood’s treatment of American Indians, she
refused the Oscar on Brando’s behalf.

Seven months later, Littlefeather made another statement: She appeared in the pages of Playboy in traditional newborn Homo sapiens attire.

Top 10: Oscar Moments




By Ross Bonander

Entertainment Correspondent - Every other Wednesday









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Chris Cooper, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nicole Kidman & Adrien Brody after his Oscar moment
Number 3

A cab driver crashes the Oscars

34th Academy Awards (1962)

For all of Bob Hope’s many awards and achievements, only one is completely unique: the Stan Berman Homemade Trophy for 1938.

Shelley
Winters and Vince Edwards were presenting the 1962 Oscar for Best
Cinematography when a Brooklyn cab driver named Stan Berman hopped
onstage. He handed a homemade Oscar statue to Winters and said, “This
is for Bob” before commandeering the mic and yelling, “Ladies and
gentlemen, I'm the world's greatest gatecrasher, and I just came here
to present Bob Hope with his 1938 trophy."

Berman may not have
been exaggerating: When Queen Elizabeth II came to the U.S. in 1957, he
posed as a waiter to get her autograph, and four years later, he snuck
into the Inaugural Ball for newly sworn-in U.S. President John F.
Kennedy.
Number 2

Adrien Brody kisses Halle Berry

75th Academy Awards (2002)

In 2002, Adrien Brody’s performance in The Pianist
earned him the Academy’s highest approval. And his astonishing bravado
while accepting the award earned him something just as valuable: the
envy and admiration of men the world over.

Brody, visibly emotional, accepted the Oscar for Best Actor from presenter Halle Berry,
then took a stunned -- but fully compliant -- Berry into his arms for a
long, passionate kiss. As the raucous standing ovation died down, he
quipped, “I bet they didn’t tell you that was in the gift bag.”

A
few minutes later, as the youngest man ever to win Best Actor was
giving his acceptance speech, music kicked in as a cue for him to wrap
it up. The ballsy Brody barked back, “One second, cut it out,” and the
music actually stopped.
Number 1

A streaker shocks the audience

46th Academy Awards (1974)

Of the many legendary names we associate with the Oscars -- Crawford, Bogart, Brando, and Gable,
to name a few -- who can legitimately claim to be responsible for the
Oscars’ most memorable moment? Strangely enough, it’s Robert Opel.

As cohost David Niven introduced Elizabeth Taylor
to the audience, art gallery owner Robert Opel introduced everyone to
full-frontal male nudity. Streaking across the stage, Opel flashed a
casual peace sign before disappearing into the wings. Not to be
outdone, the cool Niven calmly turned to the mic and ad-libbed Oscar’s
most celebrated comeback: ”Isn't it fascinating to think that probably
the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off
and showing his shortcomings?"

Rumors swirled after the fact
that the entire thing was staged. As for Opel, he pursued a failed
career in stand-up comedy before opening a sex shop in San Francisco,
where he was murdered during a 1979 robbery attempt.
memorable moments


In
the end, it is worth sitting through the many long-winded acceptance
speeches to catch these unforgettable moments. Who knows what the 79th
edition of the show, to be held on February 25, 2007, has in store?

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org
www.imdb.com
www.youtube.com
http://movies.go.com