The Oscar’s Not So Special Relationship’ With Great Britain, Part 2 (Finally)
The 1960s: Why ‘The Angry Young Men’ Have A Reason to Be Angry at The Academy Awards
Like every other institution in America Hollywood was in turmoil during the 1960s. Unlike many of the others much of it had to do with internal as well as external factors.
By the start of the decade the studio system on which the industry had essentially been founded during the 1920s was beginning to go into a death spiral. Much of this had to do with the fact then the moguls who’d founded the studios themselves were either dead or were being removed from their companies. Jack Warner and Daryl Zanuck were the only bosses from the 1920s still around and by the end of the decade both men would be gone. Similarly most of the actors and directors who were part of this system were dead or dying themselves and while many of the actresses from that era were still alive in the eyes of an industry that prized sex appeal even more than today, they might as well have been. Similarly the gossip columnists and critics who had been so much involved in the building of the ‘Dream Factory’ from Hedda Hopper and Walter Winchell would soon be dead themselves and many of the critics of that era were increasingly becoming out of touch with the new wave of filmmaking.
The film that were nominated for Best Picture during the 1960s in hindsight show an industry that is doing everything in its power to deny that the world around them is changing. Many of the weakest nominees for Best Picture that the Academy would ever give out took place during this decade and they tend to reflect the studio system increasingly desperate attempts to draw audiences in with the epics of yesteryear. In some cases they succeeded: movies like The Longest Day and the movies of David Lean are remarkable movies. But for each of them there were disastrous films that were epic only in length. These included John Wayne’s bloated epic The Alamo, MGM’s remake of Mutiny on The Bounty with Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian and most tellingly Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra which adjusted for inflation may have been the biggest box office disaster in history. Seeing these films nominated for Best Picture seems like the Academy was desperately trying to show the executives that they still had it when they kept showing how much behind the times they were.
Similarly the studios were turning out Broadway to movie adaptations at a ridiculous rate. To be fair the lion’s share of these were classics by any standard, among them West Side Story, The Music Man, My Fair Lady and Sound of Music. But the further one got into the decade the movie musical was looking increasingly stale, particular with the nomination in 1967 of Doctor Doolittle which was just as much a bomb as Cleopatra had been. By the time Hello, Dolly was nominated for Best Picture at the end of the decade, it looked like a relic of a different era and while it holds up better in hindsight then many other adaptations it was a sign the musical was essentially becoming a money-loser.
During this era many forces that would bring Hollywood, kicking and screaming, into a new Golden Age were arriving and by and large the Oscars chose to react about as well as the old guard was to all the other outside forces: with repulsion and bigotry. One of the subtlest but most telling may have very well how the Academy Awards would choose to treat some of the next stage of British Actors who were arriving, most of whom would be called ‘the Angry Young Men’ because of their connection to how the British theater scene was turning them out. They were not Cary Grant or David Niven, then two of the only British Actors who’d managed to receive mass acceptance among American audiences.
The four actors who represented that biggest sea change had all arrived by 1964: Peter O’Toole, Albert Finney, Richard Harris and Peter Sellers. Richard Burton is traditionally ranked as part of this clique; in fact he predated their arrival by more than a decade. He had already received — and lost — two Academy Awards by the time the decade began: the first in 1952 for My Cousin Rachel, the second for The Robe in 1953.
Strictly speaking O’Toole and Harris were both Irish and Burton was Welsh. However in an industry that only saw things in terms of stereotypes all of them were British and more importantly ‘foreigners’. And during that decade the old guard viewed them with the same contempt and bigotry that they did everyone else in the industry.
Perhaps this explains one of the most appalling statistics in the history of the Oscars. These five men are among the greatest actors in history and yet their combined track record with the Academy is an appalling 0 for 24. O’Toole and Burton alone held the dubious distinction of the most snubs by the Academy for an actor: for twenty five years both men had gone zero for seven. O’Toole’s loss for Venus in 2006 put him as the ‘GOAT’ in this category having gone to his grave with no wins for his eight nominations. (As of this writing Glenn Close has tied him with that horse collar but O’Toole holds the record for male actors. Actresses — I’ll get to that later.)
Considering that during the 1960s in particular all four of these actors were doing some of the greatest work in the most iconic roles in film history part of this is explained that in many cases they were actually competing against each other. But that is only part of the explanation. A darker subtext was the American nature of Hollywood during the 1960s which became very telling throughout the decade against Brits in particular.
That Peter O’Toole lost Best Actor for his incredible work in Lawrence of Arabia may strike some as astonishing but considering he was beaten by Gregory Peck for his work as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird may make it sting less. Considering that role is considered by AFI as the greatest heroic character of all time, few would debate its power. Besides Lawrence of Arabia did win seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Director for David Lean. Anglophobia would have been hard to argue. The trouble really started next year.
When Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones debuted in the spring of 1963 the old guard was up in arms from the start. They could not comprehend how Tony Richardson’s film which was a blow to everything that ‘decent Americans’ considered moral was a critical and box office hit. (In fairness, it has not aged well and many consider it one of the worst choices for Best Picture imaginable.) Even more appalling to them was how Albert Finney’s work in the title role was winning over so many young women — how could this man who played a 18th century man-whore be so popular considering his horrible table manners? And the way critics in America responded to it meant that they were going to have to give this man an Oscar.
Finney, it’s worth noting, never particularly cared for awards and made it clear he was not going to be there on Oscar night. At the time he was appearing in Luther in London and he saw no reason to change his plans. This was a further insult to the Oscars who have always been snippy at those who chose to regard their biggest night of congratulation as an inconvenience something that British actors in particular still considered it to be.
To be fair this was not something that was solely the province of Brits: Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn were notorious for never attending the Oscars, Marlon Brando’s attendance was spotty well before The Godfather and Paul Newman was more inclined to come to escort his wife when she was nominated rather than show up if he was. But the British were particular standoffish: Charles Laughton had not shown up for any of his nominations; Alec Guiness had been persona non grata when he won for Bridge on the River Kwai and James Mason hadn’t shown up for A Star is Born (and wouldn’t show up when he was nominated for Georgy Girl in 1967). O’Toole had not been present in 1962 and Finney made it clear he wouldn’t be. Richard Harris was also nominated in 1963 for This Sporting Life and neither he nor his Oscar nominated wife Rachel Roberts bothered to show up.
There is a good argument that Sidney Poitier’s groundbreaking win for Lillies of The Field was as much a stick in the eye to Finney and the Brits as it was a victory for race in Hollywood. For all the brilliance of Poitier as a performer many could argue he was being used during this period as Hollywood’s big argument that they were not a racist institution. “How can we be racist,” they might say. “We have a black friend!” That Poitier’s win came not long after the March on DC may very well have been a chance to show that they were patting themselves on the back; the fact that Poitier was the only acting winner to show up to accept on Oscar night in 1964 was a bigger sign.
And to be clear Hollywood had no use for any of Tom Jones’ other nominees. This went to the three actresses nominated for Best Supporting Actress: Diane Cilento, Edith Evans and Suzanne York. When Margaret Rutherford ending up winning for The VIPs (another Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor film) Hedda Hopper said when Rutherford was nominated that she was glad to see her there “even though she’s English.” Rutherford was best known for playing Miss Marple in a series of Agatha Christie novelizations, then as now one of the few settings that Hollywood was willing to accept British in.
The next year was worse by Hollywood’s standards. Four of the five nominees in the Best Actor category were Brits. Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton were nominated against each other for Becket, Peter Sellers for his iconic performance (s) in Dr. Strangelove and Rex Harrison for recreating his Tony winning role in My Fair Lady. The xenophobia was thick. One columnist said that every nominee for Best Actor was ‘foreign, even though Anthony Quinn is considered an American Actor. (Quinn was Mexican.) Quinn took it in good humor. “At last I’m considered an American actor,” he said after celebrating for being nominated for Zorba The Greek.
O’Toole and Burton didn’t show up. O’Toole was more gracious “Maybe someone could split it in half for us?” he said. Sellers was busy filming What’s New, Pussycat?, and said nothing at all. The love for My Fair Lady carried Harrison to an Oscar but many were troubled by the fact that “no American actor won that year. (The other winners were Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins, Peter Ustinov for Tokapi and Lila Kedrova for Zorba The Greek.) The columnist was trying to argue against the direction American films were taking as opposed to the ‘wholesome entertainment provided by the Brits.” That they seemed to have forgotten Tom Jones already was a sign of selective memory.
Richard Burton was nominated for the next two year for Best Actor; for The Spy Who Came in From The Cold in 1965 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf — arguably his greatest performance in 1966. He would lose to Paul Scofield for his work as Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. Scofield was British himself but as he was a decade older than the majority of the ‘Angry Young Men’ he was never viewed in the same vein. He took the Oscars just as seriously as the rest of them; though — on Oscar night, he wasn’t there. Neither was Burton. To be fair, neither was almost every other major nominee that night: there had been a strike that had been settled only days before and no one was sure it would happen.
By 1968 the Oscars had started to crack down more seriously on attendance but Peter O’Toole never got the message. That year he was starring in Lion in Winter playing Henry II for the second time in his career. To date he is the only actor ever nominated for playing the same role twice who was not also starring in a sequel to the same work.
Many people were certain Lion in Winter was going to be the big winner on Oscar night and that O’Toole would triumph along with the film itself. Everyone was shocked not only when the big winner turned out to be Oliver! (Carol Reed was just as shocked to win Best Director) but when the Best Actor prize went to Cliff Robertson for Charly (the film version of the landmark book Flowers for Algernon) Robertson himself wasn’t there because he was filming a movie and he saw no reason to show up when everyone knew O’Toole was going to win.
Both O’Toole and Burton would nominated again in 1969 but neither for the kind of movies that either would consider their best work. O’Toole was nominated for playing the title role in the musical version of Goodbye Mr. Chips which had been a critical and box office failure and Burton was nominated for playing Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days which essentially was the poor man’s version of Man for All Seasons. O’Toole chose to stay home again on Oscar night and Burton came on the arm of Elizabeth Taylor. There he witnessed the triumph of John Wayne for his performance as John Wayne — I mean, Rooster Cogburn — in True Grit.
The general disdain for British actors during this period was not limited to those angry young men. Laurence Olivier was nominated twice more first for The Entertainer in 1960 and then for Othello (yes I know) in 1965. He didn’t show up for either of those. Alan Bates was nominated for his work in The Fixer in 1968. He didn’t show up either. And a newcomer named Michael Caine received his first nomination for playing the title role in Alfie in 1966. He actually did show up on Oscar night, something he would do infrequently over the years. None of them won.
By and large British Actors were not receiving largesse from the Oscars during this period. British actresses were having somewhat more success but that it is a slightly different story — and one that I will cover in the next part to this series.