Tag Archives: oscars

As 2024 is the 60th anniversary year of the release of “My Fair Lady,” starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, my wife and I recently sat down to rewatch the classic. A truly iconic film which was nominated for an astounding 12 Academy Awards. It ended up winning eight, including “Best Picture,” “Best Director” and “Best Actor.” However, notably absent …

Gifted but enigmatic Atlanta magazine writer Margaret Mitchell earned the Pulitzer Prize in Novels for her breathtaking work of historical fiction, “Gone with the Wind,” on this day in history, May 3, 1937. “Mitchell received news of the prize by phone, along with multiple requests for interviews,” reports PBS American Masters. “Hating publicity, she fled to a gospel concert at …

Emma Stone is over it. When the Oscar winner first became an actress and had to choose an official SAG-AFTRA (actor’s union) name, Emily Stone wasn’t available, so she went with Emma, a name she liked growing up. “It’s just because my name was taken [by another actress in SAG],” she told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent story. Years …

Many films from the past have been made to reflect real events and real people. The films are often provided with twists doctored by Hollywood writers that aren’t completely historically accurate. A handful of these films based on real-life people have done extraordinarily well, being stamped with Hollywood’s highest honor, an Oscar nomination, and in certain cases, a win. These …

Actors Joaquin Phoenix, Debra Winger, Chloe Fineman and nearly 150 other Jewish Hollywood creatives signed a letter Friday defending filmmaker Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars acceptance speech last month that critics saw as equating Israel with the Nazis and Hamas. The open letter accused Glazer’s critics of suppressing speech within Hollywood, stating, “The attacks on Glazer also have a silencing effect on …

Bette Davis, a Hollywood legend whose “raw, unbridled intensity kept her at the top of her profession for 50 years,” as Encyclopedia Britannica put it, was born on this day in history, April 5, 1908. “A strong-willed, independent woman with heavy-cast eyes, clipped New England diction and distinctive mannerisms, Bette Davis left an indelible — and often parodied — mark …

Robert Downey Jr. is widely known for his role in the Marvel franchise, but his long career includes much more than Iron Man alone. Downey Jr. grew up in a Hollywood family, with his writer-director father, the late Robert Downey Sr., and actress mother, the late Elsie Downey. He was introduced to the film industry very early. His first role …

Woody Allen’s quaint, quirky film “Annie Hall” incited one of the great controversies in Oscar history when it captured the Academy Award for Best Picture over innovative blockbuster and American cultural landmark “Star Wars” on this day in history, April 3, 1978. The Hollywood hullabaloo has grown only greater in the decades since. “‘Annie Hall’ contains more intellectual wit and …

The great American musical “Oklahoma!” — which changed the trajectory of musical theater forever — graced the Great White Way for the first time on this day in history, March 31, 1943. The Pulitzer Prize-winning musical premiered 81 years ago at the St. James Theatre in New York City. It ran in that theater for almost five years, setting records …

“Oppenheimer” finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 years ago by the nuclear weapons invented by the American scientist who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film. Japanese filmgoers’ reactions understandably were mixed and highly emotional. Toshiyuki Mimaki, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima when he was 3, said he has been fascinated by the …