National Post (National Edition)
OSCAR BRINGS OUT THE STARS
STUNNING DRESSES AND MILLION-DOLLAR SMILES HIT THE RED CARPET FOR THE 89TH ACADEMY AWARDS.
1 Did Marisa Tomei win an Oscar ‘by mistake’?
A persistent rumour claims that Marisa Tomei wasn’t supposed to win Best Supporting Actress in 1993 — and that presenter Jack Palance called her name by mistake, because it was the only name he could remember, or because he was reading off the teleprompter rather than off the card in his hand.
The story may have gained traction due to the fact that Tomei, who won the award for her performance in My Cousin Vinny, was a relative underdog, competing with such “serious” actresses as Judy Davis, Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave and Miranda Richardson.
But the rumour appears to be absolutely untrue. These days, perhaps the most obvious rebuttal comes via YouTube, where the video of Tomei’s win makes it pretty clear that Palance is reading her name off the card.
2 Were they named after someone’s uncle?
The first written example of the term was in 1934, in an article by Hollywood gossip writer Sidney Skolsky. He claimed he coined the phrase as a way to mock the “phony dignity” of Hollywood and the awards themselves.
“It was my first Academy Awards night when I gave the gold statuette a name, ” he wrote in his 1975 memoir. “I’d show them, acting so high and mighty about their prize. I’d give it a name. A name that would erase their phony dignity. I needed the magic name fast. But fast! I remembered the vaudeville shows I’d seen. The comedians having fun with the orchestra leader in the pit would say, “Will you have a cigar, Oscar?’ ”
3 Is there an Oscars curse?
The legend of the “Oscars curse” has several variations. In a nutshell, it states that after winning an Oscar, the recipient will suffer a prolonged period of bad luck.
Often, this can take the form of a career dip: Cuba Gooding Jr., Halle Berry and Jennifer Connelly are sometimes cited as examples of individuals who have never matched their winning performances.
There’s also a Wikipedia page dedicated to the “Oscars love curse,” with a list of all the Best Actress winners who have later allegedly been cheated on by their husbands or partners.
A 2015 study titled The Real Oscar Curse: The Negative Consequences of Positive Status Shifts examined how the personal lives and careers of Oscar winners changed after their success.
It found that, for female winners, the post-win divorce rate was 85 per cent lower than that of non-nominees.
The divorce rate for Best Actors was found to increase by 205 per cent in the first year after their win.
On the plus side, however, the rumoured career dip was found to be untrue, with winners in fact taking on more films than average in the years following their success.
4 Was Hattie McDaniel’s Oscar thrown into the Potomac river?
Hattie McDaniel, who claimed the Best Supporting Actress Award for Gone With The Wind, is remembered today for being the first black to win an Oscar. Famously, she was made to sit apart from her cast members during the ceremony itself.
McDaniel, who died in 1952, bequeathed her Oscar to Howard University — but the statuette was discovered to be missing in the 1970s, and no one now seems sure where it is. One story claims that it was thrown into the Potomac River by protesting students after the death of Martin Luther King in 1968.
But a study by academic Burlette Carter concludes that this story was a fabrication. Carter, who does not know the whereabouts of the statuette, also investigates and dismisses claims that the Oscar was stolen by a faculty member at the time, arguing that, while it was removed from display in the 1970s, it remained with the university.
5 Are the Oscar statuettes really made of gold?
The short answer: No. The awards were originally made from gold-plated bronze, before this was later swapped for an alloy known as Britannia metal, which is still used today. The statuette is plated in copper and nickel silver, before getting a coat of 24-carat gold.