Julie: [door slams as Tod leaves after having a fight with Julie] If he thinks I’m having his baby now, he’s crazy! Helen: [shocked] Baby? George Bowman: Your daughter’s having a baby? Helen: [even more shocked] A baby? George Bowman: You’re going to be a grandma? Helen: [laughs incredulously] No, no, no, no. I’m too young to be a grandmother. Grandmothers are old. They bake, and they sew, and they tell you stories about the Depression.
[shouts] Helen: I was at Woodstock, for Christ’s sake! I peed in a field! I hung on to The Who’s helicopter as it flew away!
[gestures wildly] George Bowman: I was at Woodstock. Helen: [shouts] Oh yeah? I thought you looked familiar!
The 56th Academy Awards were presented April 9, 1984. Johnny Carson was once again the host.
The Best Supporting Actress winner this year was unique. 4′ 9″ Linda Hunt (Now on NCIS: Los Angeles) won the award for her role as Billy Kwan – a male Chinese-Australian photographer – in Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously, making her the first actor to win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex.
Here are the nominees and winners of the acting categories, as well as Best Picture and Best Director:
Cher – Silkwood
Glenn Close – The Big Chill
Amy Irving – Yentl
Alfre Woodard – Cross Creek
57th Academy Awards
The 57th Academy Awards were presented March 25, 1985. Jack Lemmon was the host.
This ceremony is best-remembered for perhaps the most quoted and famous Academy Award acceptance speech ever. Upon winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Places in the Heart, Sally Field exclaimed, “The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!” (often misquoted as “you really like me!”)
The winner of Best Supporting Actor was also significant. Haing S. Ngor, a Cambodian surgeon who survived the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, won the award for his performance as Dith Pran in Roland Joffé’s The Killing Fields, despite having no previous acting experience. Ngor and Harold Russell are the only two non-professional actors to win Academy Awards for acting.
77 year-old Peggy Ashcroft won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in A Passage to India, making her the oldest winner in that category.
Here are the nominees and winners of the acting categories, as well as Best Picture and Best Director:
Adolph Caesar – A Soldier’s Story
John Malkovich – Places in the Heart
Noriyuki Pat Morita – The Karate Kid
Ralph Richardson – Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
Glenn Close – The Natural
Lindsay Crouse – Places in the Heart
Christine Lahti – Swing Shift
Geraldine Page – The Pope of Greenwich Village
58th Academy Awards
The 58th Academy Awards were held on March 24, 1986. They were hosted by Alan Alda, Jane Fonda, Robin Williams. The ceremony was watched by 38.93 million viewers, tying the 78th Academy Awards as the third-lowest rated telecast since 1966. The 80th Academy Awards still holds the distinction of the least watched ceremony of 31.76 million.
Here are the nominees and winners of the acting categories, as well as Best Picture and Best Director:
The 53rd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1980, were presented March 31, 1981. The ceremony was originally scheduled for the previous day, but was postponed due to the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.
Johnny Carson was the host. The year’s winner of acting categories marked the closest age span between the four winners, all of whom were under 40 when they won the award. Robert De Niro was aged 37 when awarded Best Actor, Sissy Spacek was aged 31 when awarded Best Actress, Timothy Hutton was aged 20 when awarded Best Supporting Actor, and Mary Steenburgen was aged 28 when awarded Best Supporting Actress. In addition, Hutton was the youngest ever Best Supporting Actor winner.
Best Supporting Actress nominee Eva Le Gallienne was born in 1899, which made her the last acting nomination to ever happen at the Oscars for someone born in the 19th century.
Here are the nominees and winners of the acting categories, as well as Best Picture and Best Director:
Winner: Robert Redford – Ordinary People
David Lynch – The Elephant Man
Martin Scorsese – Raging Bull
Richard Rush – The Stunt Man
Roman Polanski – Tess
Eileen Brennan – Private Benjamin
Eva Le Gallienne – Resurrection
Cathy Moriarty – Raging Bull
Diana Scarwid – Inside Moves
54th Academy Awards
The 54th Academy Awards were presented March 29, 1982. The ceremonies were presided over by Johnny Carson.
Chariots of Fire was the surprise winner (Reds was the favored nominee) of the Best Picture Oscar this year. It was the first time in 13 years that a British film won the Academy’s top honor. Next year’s winner, Gandhi, was also a British production.
Henry Fonda won his only competitive Oscar this year, as Best Actor for On Golden Pond. At 76 years of age, Fonda became the oldest winner in the Best Actor category in Academy history. The only other nomination he received in his career was Best Actor for his performance in The Grapes of Wrath 41 years ago – a record gap between acting nominations. His co-star, Katharine Hepburn, won her fourth Best Actress award that year, making it the most amount of Best Actress wins by any actress.
This year’s nominations also marked for the very first time that there’s three different films to be nominated for the “Top Five” Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay. The three films were On Golden Pond, Atlantic City and Reds. However, none of them winning the Best Picture prize, losing to Chariots of Fire. This also marked the first year that the award for Best Makeup was presented; the winner was Rick Baker for his work on An American Werewolf in London.
This year was the last year till the 2005 Oscars where all 5 picture nominations were also nominated for best director.
Here are the nominees and winners of the acting categories, as well as Best Picture and Best Director:
Melinda Dillon – Absence of Malice
Jane Fonda – On Golden Pond
Joan Hackett – Only When I Laugh
Elizabeth McGovern – Ragtime
55th Academy Awards
The 55th Academy Awards were presented April 11, 1983. The ceremonies were presided over by Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, Richard Pryor, and Walter Matthau.
Louis Gossett, Jr. became the first African-American actor to win Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the tough and principled drill sergeant Emil Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman.
Here are the nominees and winners of the acting categories, as well as Best Picture and Best Director:
Charles Durning – The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
James Mason – The Verdict
Robert Preston – Victor/Victoria
John Lithgow – The World According to Garp
Jack Walsh: Where am I? I’m in Boise, Idaho; no, no, no, wait a minute: I’m in Anchorage, Alaska. No, no, wait: I’m in Casper, Wyoming; I’m in the lobby of a Howard Johnson’s and I’m wearing a pink carnation.
Eddie Moscone: What the fuck are you talking about?
Jack Walsh: I am not talking to you, I am talking to the other guys.
Eddie Moscone: What other guys?
Jack Walsh: Well, let me describe the scene to you: There are these guys, see? They’ve probably been up for like two days; they stink of B.O.; they have coffee breath; they’re constipated from sittin’ on their asses for so long; they’re sitting in a van, and they’re probably parked right up the street from your office Eddie, YOUR PHONE IS TAPPED!
