The Oscar Quest: Best Actor – 1958
I don’t love 1958 as a year, but some of its categories (like this one) are really strong. The reason the year isn’t that strong is because the set of Best Picture nominees is pretty weak.
Gigi wins Best Picture. Not a bad film, but a bad Best Picture choice. Vincente Minnelli won Best Director for the film (talked about here), which actually needed to happen. That man was crazy overdue by this point. Best Actress was Susan Hayward for I Want to Live!, which, as I said here, was a long time coming, and was a good decision, even if I think she should have won three years earlier and someone else should have won here. Best Supporting Actor was Burl Ives for The Big Country, which was a great decision, since he was great in both that and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof this year. And Best Supporting Actress was Wendy Hiller for Separate Tables, which she had coming to her for a while before this.
And then we have this category. This is really tough for me. It’s the only time Tony Curtis was nominated, this was Sidney Poitier’s best nominated performance, Paul Newman was amazing, and David Niven is David Niven. What do you do here?
BEST ACTOR – 1958
And the nominees were…
Tony Curtis, The Defiant Ones
Paul Newman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
David Niven, Separate Tables
Sidney Poitier, The Defiant Ones
Spencer Tracy, The Old Man and the Sea (more…)
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