The Oscar Quest: Best Actress – 1968
History was made here. You hear that? History, I tellz ya! But before we get into that, let’s recap the year.
Oliver! wins Best Picture, the best choice among a weak set of films. Almost all of them are good films, but none is really a “Best Picture.” Carol Reed won Best Director for the film, which, is a good decision based on the fact that him not winning for The Third Man is the worst Best Director snub of all time, according to me. Which, humorously enough, makes this the second biggest Best Director snub. Reed winning his well-deserved Oscar deprived Stanley Kubrick of his well-deserved Oscar for 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s oddly poetic.
Cliff Robertson wins Best Actor for Charly, which is a good film and a decent performance, but not one that should have won, especially with Peter O’Toole never having won an Oscar (for amazing work in Lawrence of Arabia and Becket before this) and being so fucking great in The Lion in Winter. The choice is baffling. Then Best Supporting Actor was Jack Albertson for The Subject was Roses (which I talked about here), and Best Supporting Actress (which I talked about here) was Ruth Gordon for Rosemary’s Baby.
As for this category, it’s the only exact tie in Academy history. (The other acting tie was within 3 votes.) And since the two that tied were the #1 and #2 in the category, the only side effect was an extra Best Actress winner and Katharine Hepburn eventually having four Oscars. Which, as I’ve discovered, isn’t so bad. None of her wins is egregious. Even here, she managed to tie with the person who should have won.
BEST ACTRESS – 1968
And the nominees were…
Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter
Patricia Neal, The Subject Was Roses
Vanessa Redgrave, Isadora
Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl
Joanne Woodward, Rachel, Rachel (more…)
B+ Movie Blog 