The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor – 1961
Love this year. Love this category. Strong year all around, despite a questionable decision here and there. West Side Story wins Best Picture, Best Director for Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins, Best Supporting Actress for Rita Moreno (talked about here), and this category. I don’t have a problem with any of them, even though I’d have gone another way on all of them. Matter of personal preference. I just love The Hustler.
Best Actor was Maximilian Schell for Judgment at Nuremberg, which I consider one of the worst Best Actor decisions of all time (Paul Newman really should have won for The Hustler. So much so that the Academy, when they gave him his Oscar (twenty-five years too late), they gave it to him for the same role!), and Best Actress was Sophia Loren for Two Women, a decision I don’t really like (which I talked about here).
Then we have this category, which might be the strongest Best Supporting Actor category of all time. Look at these five: Bernardo, Montgomery Clift (in a really strong performance), Peter Falk, and two greats: George C. Scott and Jackie Gleason. Amazing. Who do you vote for here? I know who I vote for. What about you?
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – 1961
And the nominees were…
George Chakiris, West Side Story
Mongtomery Clift, Judgment at Nuremberg
Peter Falk, Pocketful of Miracles
Jackie Gleason, The Hustler
George C. Scott, The Hustler (more…)
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