#31 days of oscar

Does winning an acting Oscar change the career of the recipient? The answer is yes and also no. Take Brad Pitt, who won Best Supporting Actor last year for ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD(2019). He’s a veteran superstar with over three decades in Hollywood. So, the award is more icing on the cake for his career. But that wasn’t the case when he earned his first nomination for Terry Gilliam’s 12 MONKEYS(‘95). Pitt was on a hot streak since gaining attention for his roles in THELMA & LOUISE (‘91), A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT (‘92), INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (‘94) and LEGENDS OF THE FALL (‘94), and his first Oscar nominations gave his career an even bigger boost.

Similar to Pitt, many young actors discovered their stock in Hollywood with Oscar gold, but nominations and wins have effected various stars’ careers in different ways. Here’s a look at various Oscar winners and how the award affected their careers.

Martin Landau

The Oscar has changed the career trajectory of many veteran actors. Martin Landau was making such TV movies The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island (’81) that just squandered his talents. But that all changed when he earned his first Oscar nomination for Francis Ford Coppola’s TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM (’88), followed by a second for Woody Allen’s CRIMES& MISDEMEANORS (’89), eventually winning for his poignant performance as Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s ED WOOD(’94).

Ironically, Landau told me in a 2010 L.A. Times interview he didn’t think he could play the Dracula star. “It’s a Hungarian morphine addict, alcoholic who has mood swings,” he remembered telling Burton. “That would be hard enough, but it has to be Bela Lugosi! I said I don’t know if I can do this, but let’s do some tests.”

Makeup artist Rick Baker transformed Landau into the elderly frail actor. Burton, he recalled, looked at the tests and thought he was 50% Lugosi. Landau believed he captured the icon in fleeting moments. “I said if I can do it 10% of the time, I can do it 100% of the time. They have to accept me as Lugosi in the first five minutes or we don’t have a film. It was not an impersonation for me. He had to be a human being.”

Melvyn Douglas

Similarly, Melvyn Douglas, who was best known for his comedic roles in the 1930s and ‘40s in such films as NINOTCHKA (’39), had seen his career slow in the 1950s because of his liberal political leanings. But he came back to the forefront in 1960 after winning a Tony Award for Gore Vidal’s THE BEST MAN, and then receiving his first of two supporting actor Oscars for his turn as Paul Newman’s hard-working Texas rancher father in Martin Ritt’s HUD(’63). Seven years later, he received a Best Actor nomination as Gene Hackman’s father in I NEVER SANG FOR MY FATHER (’70), ultimately winning his second Oscar as the president of the United States in Hal Ashby’s BEINGTHERE (’79).

Luise Rainer

The German stage actress was signed to an MGM contract in the mid-30s. But the free-spirited Rainer, who considered herself an actress and not a movie star, was always at logger heads with studio head Louis B. Mayer. She told me in a 2011 L.A. Times interview, Mayer “couldn’t make me out. You know it was a little bit difficult for him. I wasn’t the type that he was used to. So, the poor man didn’t know what to do with me. For my first film, ESCAPADE [‘35], William Powell said [to him] you got to star that girl…My first film made me a star.”

Rainer won Best Actress as famed performer Anna Held in THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (’36) and as a Chinese peasant in THE GOOD EARTH (’37). All but one of her subsequent films didn’t do well at the box office and she left Hollywood. She made one film, HOSTAGES (’43), guest starred on some TV series including a voyage on The Love Boat and had a small part in indie film THEGAMBLER (’97).

Art Carney  

One of the greatest comedic actors, Carney came to fame in the Honeymooners sketches on The Jackie Gleason ShowandThe Honeymooners series as Ralph Kramden’s (Gleason) best pal, the clueless sewer worker Ed Norton. He won five Emmys for his work with Gleason. Carney also originated the role of neatnik Felix Ungar opposite Walter Matthau’s Oscar Madison in the 1965 Broadway production of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple.

Well-known that he had a drinking problem, Carney wasn’t working that much in film or TV in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, he tried to convince Paul Mazursky he wasn’t right for the filmmaker’s heartfelt dramedy HARRY & TONTO (’74) about a curmudgeonly old New Yorker who travels with his cat across country after he loses his apartment. Mazursky told me in a 2011 L.A. Times interview that no one wanted the part. James Cagney, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant and even Danny Kaye were among those who turned him down. 

He had seen Carney on Broadway in 1957 in a dramatic role in The Rope Dancers.  “Of course, I had seen him in The Honeymooners. He didn’t want to do it,” noted Mazursky. “He said ‘I’m 59 years old and you want this guy to be in his 70s.’ I said, ‘Art, this is the first time I met you and you look like you are in your 70s – you’re balding, you wear a hearing aid and you have a bum leg.’ He told me, ‘You don’t want me, I’m an alcoholic.’ He had one bad night then nothing else. He had been out on a binge and he showed up on location in Chicago in a taxi in the morning loaded. I took him up to his room, put him in the shower and made him a pot of coffee. He was easy to direct.”

Carney won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for his turn, beating out the likes of Jack Nicholson for CHINATOWN and Al Pacino for THE GODFATHER PART II. And he did some of his best work post-Harryincluding as an aging Los Angeles private detective in the charming THE LATE SHOW (’77) and as a senior who teams up with his buddies (George Burns and Lee Strasberg) to rob a bank in GOING IN STYLE (’79). He earned his sixth Emmy for the TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (’84), which was James Cagney’s last film.  Carney’s final film was the 1993 Arnold Schwarzenegger disaster LAST ACTION HERO. “I’m outta here” was the last line Carney ever uttered on film.

According to actress Nancy Olson, before filming on the set of SUNSET BLVD. (‘50) in Norma Desmond’s mansion, the cameraman would rub his hands together crushing stone which created dust, then blew the dust on the camera lens, an effect, which encapsulated the ambiance of stagnant corners haunted with memories of the past. One of the most difficult tasks to execute in a retrospective period piece is to precisely immerse an audience. It takes more than vintage vehicles and costumes to fully capture the aura of an era.

Reverting to centuries ago seems an easier feat than reflecting the later years of the 20th century, perhaps because many of us can still attest to it. With most modern-day period pieces, what should be exceptional based on the subject matter alone, unfortunately resembles a costume party. A few feel-good films that readily accomplished this feat of transporting their audience include DAZED AND CONFUSED (‘93), THE SANDLOT (‘93), DETROIT ROCK CITY (‘99) and ROLL BOUNCE (2005). Although some of these films may not be hugely popular, each power-up their flux capacitor, fill the tank with plutonium and hurdle their audiences back in time. 

We don’t know what director/producer/screenwriter and Academy Award-winning Cameron Crowe sprinkled on his camera lens for ALMOST FAMOUS (2000, the film takes place in the ‘70s so take your pick). Still, the film, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020, beams with the spirit of black lights, velvet posters, Don Kirschner’s Rock ConcertandThe Midnight Special performances. It would only stand to reason, as Crowe is an avid fan of classic film director Billy Wilder, director of SUNSET BLVD. 

Based on Crowe’s true-life experience as a teenage reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, ALMOST FAMOUS mirrored classic film by layering the correct actors, costumes, dialogue, sets and of course an exacting soundtrack. For those of us mature enough to recall the ingrained crackle of a needle against vinyl and the scraping of a lead pencil against paper (all of us know that sound), from the opening credits, Crowe utilizes simple auditory cues and visuals powerful enough to immediately engross his audience until the film’s end.

In his first feature film role, the innocence of Patrick Fugit’s portrayal is perfectly and adorably awkward. When Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) urges William (Fugit) “to be honest and unmerciful,” the look on William’s face reveals a naive boy who is about to be eaten alive. Although not their first roles, the enchanting Kate Hudson and the fresh-faced Zooey Deschanel both shine in their breakout roles, with each demonstrating exceptional performances. And, if you ever had a doubt of which Philip Seymour Hoffman performance to watch, this may be it, or perhaps, every Philip Seymour Hoffman performance is the one to watch. 

Truly, every performance in the film is exceptional. With almost half the cast being newcomers, in theory ALMOST FAMOUS should not have worked as seamlessly as it did, but according to Hudson during a recent ALMOST FAMOUS reunion, its synergy was the result of “…a magical group of people.”

Conjuring indelible memories by adeptly fusing scenes with music, ALMOST FAMOUS leaves a lasting impression on the psyche which had to be a painstaking process since creating such powerful associations means there can only be one exacting fit. If you’ve seen the film, I’d wager that every time you hear Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” you recall a sunlit tour bus driving through cornfields with the occupants joining together in an impromptu sing-along, lending an entirely new appreciation for an old song, or if you happen to hear Brenton Wood’s “The Oogum Boogum Song” you recollect William dwarfed by boys supposedly his own age in the throes of puberty grooming themselves in a mirror. When Simon & Garfunkel’s “America” plays, we witness the exact moment a young boy converges with his future while running his fingers over newly discovered album covers as if taking them in by osmosis.

On the surface, ALMOST FAMOUS is about the once-in-a-lifetime adventure of a teenage journalist, but according to Crowe, and quite apparently, it’s an endearing love letter to music. You certainly don’t need to be a fan of ‘70s rock to enjoy ALMOST FAMOUS, you simply need to be a music fan period. Like revisiting an old time capsule, it’s is a film where you can easily lose yourself and even though the majority of us haven’t toured with a rock’n’roll band during the ‘70s, ALMOST FAMOUS captures its journey so succinctly, hitting every note that it’s difficult to convince yourself you weren’t actually there. Billy Wilder would approve.