A look back at Scots who reached the top of their game in the world of film

DID YOU KNOW THE TIMELORD HAS AN OSCAR, OR THAT A FORMER DUNDEE UNITED CAPTAIN WON A STATUE? AND IF ALL GOES WELL OUR FILMMAKERS WILL BAG ANOTHER AWARD NEXT WEEKEND …

2017-02-18 -

THE great and the good of Hollywood will gather at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles next Sunday for the 89th Oscars ceremony. The Best Picture category is, as ever, hotly contested: La La Land, Hacksaw Ridge, Arrival, Hidden Figures. But among them is Hell or High Water, a brilliant, character-driven film made by Scots director David Mackenzie. Jeff Bridges has also been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a cop on the brink of retirement, while the movie is also in the mix in the Film Editing and Original Screenplay categories.

Should Mackenzie win, he will join an elite group of Scots who have received, or been nominated for, Oscars.

SEAN CONNERY

Best Supporting Actor, The Untouchables There was a particular warmth to the applause when Sean Connery’s name was read out as Nicolas Cage and Cher ran through the names of the Best Supporting Actor nominees at the ceremony in 1989. Connery had, of course, not only been the first James Bond but also distinguished

himself in such films as Marnie. The Hill, The Anderson Tapes, The Man Who Would Be King and The Name of the Rose. His victory was greeted with a standing ovation.

On the dais he said: “Good evening. Ladies and gentlemen, friends and a few enemies ... I don’t think there is anyone aware – or unaware, rather – in Hollywood or the rest of the world tonight that this is the 60th anniversary of these Academy Awards. And I just realised myself the other day that my first, one and only attendance was 30 years ago. Patience truly is a virtue. But in winning this award it creates a certain dilemma, because I had decided if I had the good fortune to win that I would give it to my wife, who deserves it. But this evening I discovered backstage that they’re worth $15,000 ... and now I’m not so sure. Cherie, I’m only kidding – it’s yours.”

DEBORAH KERR

Honorary Oscar A prolonged standing ovation was also accorded Deborah Kerr when Glenn Close presented her with an Honorary Oscar in 1993. The Helensburgh-born star had previously been nominated for six Best Actress Oscars: for Edward, My Son; From Here to Eternity; The King and I; Heaven Knows, Mr Allison; Separate Tables and The Sundowners.

Clearly emotional, she said: “Thank you. Thank you. There should be some more words for thank you, shouldn’t there? I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. But I feel better now because I know I’m among friends. I feel honoured to be here tonight, because in receiving this award I have been asked to join so many others whose achievements I have long admired: William Wyler, Orson Welles, Gene Kelly, Billy Wilder, just to name a few. There are also those who helped pave the long road I have travelled, friends to whom I am eternally grateful: Cary Grant, Bob Mitchum, Elia Kazan, John Huston and many more. As well as all the men and women behind the lights who helped me during the many years in which I was fortunate enough to work in this industry. You have all made my life truly a happy one. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.”

ANNIE LENNOX

Best Original Song Aberdeen-born Annie Lennox, who was one half of Eurythmics before establishing a hugely successful solo career, won an Oscar in 2004 for writing the lyrics to Into the West from The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King.

JON WHITELEY

Honorary Oscar Jon Whiteley, from Aberdeenshire, was a child star who was presented with a miniature statuette by the Academy in 1954 for his role in The Little Kidnappers. Whiteley went on to become a distinguished curator at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. Interviewed by the Oxford Times in 2013, he said the trophy “is at home somewhere but I don’t think it is a particularly attractive object. It has no great charm. The Oscar itself came through the post because my parents weren’t keen on breaking the school term. They weren’t

that excited about going to the States for a jamboree.”

NEIL PATERSON

Best Screenplay Born in Greenock and raised in Banff, Neil Paterson had a remarkable life – Dundee United captain, journalist, navy lieutenant, novelist, screenwriter and, later, a wellknown figure in film and the arts in Scotland. He won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for The Room at the Top in 1960. He died in 1995.

NORMAN McLAREN

Best Documentary Stirling-born Norman McLaren was, in the words of the British Film Institute (BFI), “one of the most significant abstract filmmakers of the British inter-war period”, who, in 1941, was invited by the National Film Board of Canada to open its animation studio and train Canadian animators. A genuine pioneer, McLaren won an Oscar in 1952 for Neighbours, an eight-minute short with a strong anti-war message.

PETER CAPALDI

Best Short Film, Live Action A young-looking Peter Capaldi took to the stage in 1995 with Ruth Kenley-Letts for Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life. The award was shared with another short, Trevor. Recalling the moment on The Graham Norton Show in 2015, he said: “I didn’t even know they gave Oscars for short films. But I’d made this little short film because I was interested in filmmaking, and the next thing I knew, I was being telephoned and being told ‘you’re nominated for an Oscar’.”

FRANK LLOYD

Best Director Scots-born Frank Lloyd was one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors’ Guild. He won a Best Director Oscar for Cavalcade (1933) and a nomination for Mutiny on the Bounty two years later. He also won for The Divine Lady (1929), though the Oscars website adds: “This is not an official nomination. There were no announcements of nominations, no certificates of nomination or honourable mention, and only the winners were revealed during the awards banquet on April 3, 1930.”

KEVIN MACDONALD

Best Documentary, Features Glasgow-born Kevin Macdonald’s film about the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre, entitled One Day in September, won the Oscar in 2000, seeing off the favourite, Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club. Best Short Subject, Live Action Released in 1961, Seawards the Great Ships, in the words of the BFI, was the first Scottish-made film to win an Oscar. The subject of the 28-minute-long film was the globally recognised achievements of Clyde shipbuilding. “This glorious swansong of shipbuilding on the Clyde could be said to epitomise documentary film craft in Scotland,” the BFI

SEAWARDS THE GREAT SHIPS

adds. Scots-born John Grierson, the pioneering documentary-maker, wrote the treatment.

MARY URE

Best Supporting Actress nominee Glasgow-born Mary Ure was a prominent stage and screen actor whose film roles included Look Back in Anger, Sons and Lovers (for which she was Oscar nominated) and Where Eagles Dare. She was just 42 when she died, in 1975, her body being found by her husband, Robert Shaw, the actor and playwright, in a London apartment they had rented. Ure’s New York Times obituary included the lines: “Miss Ure was a strikingly beautiful woman with blonde hair. Her eyes were a light blue, and her seemingly flawless skin had a porcelain paleness about it. She was a non-stop talker with forceful, sometimes shockingly expressed opinions.”

TOM CONTI

Best Actor nominee Paisley-born Tom Conti, whose many films have included Shirley Valentine, Heavenly Pursuits, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Duellists, was nominated in 1983 for his role in Reuben, Reuben but lost to Robert Duvall, for Tender Mercies.

PATRICK DOYLE

Best Music, Original Dramatic Score, two nominations Patrick Doyle, who is from North Lanarkshire and graduated from the RSAMD (as was) is a renowned composer whose track record includes several collaborations with Kenneth Branagh. He has scored such films as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Gosford Park, and Sense and Sensibility. He received nominations for Sense and Sensibility and Hamlet.

JOHN HODGE

Best Writing nominee Glasgow-born John Hodge was nominated in the Best Writing – Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published category for Trainspotting.

ARMANDO IANNUCCI

Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay nominee Producer and writer Armando Iannucci was nominated in 2010 for his US political satire In the Loop.