The Oscar Quest: Best Actress – 1977
Ah, 1977. Star Wars loses to Annie Hall. Or rather, Star Wars had no shot at winning Best Picture and Annie Hall upsets the presumed favorite, The Turning Point, a melodrama about aging ballerinas. Yeah, everybody makes mistakes.
What’s most interesting about this category in particular, is that the winner won for the wrong film. It’s not that Annie Hall was a bad film, it’s just, Diane Keaton wasn’t really acting in it. The other film she did this year, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, is, however, a fucking phenomenal performance and one that would have won this category hands down. But, in typical Academy fashion, they went with the “lighter” of the two performances because, well, I guess they can’t take depressing films.
The other winners this year were Richard Dreyfuss as Best Actor for The Goodbye Girl, Jason Robards and Vanessa Redgrave as Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor for Julia (Robards won this category two years running on this one), and Woody Allen winning Best Director for Annie Hall. I know. But we’ll try not to talk about it.
BEST ACTRESS – 1977
And the nominees are…
Anne Bancroft, The Turning Point
Jane Fonda, Julia
Diane Keaton, Annie Hall
Shirley MacLaine, The Turning Point
Marsha Mason, The Goodbye Girl (more…)
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