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Who was the favorite going in? Beatrice Straight admits to being the dark horse in her speech and I’ve read Piper Laurie’s biography and she said she thought she might win.
There are no precursor hints since Katharine Ross won the Globe and Talia Shire the NYFCC.
It’s hard to rank. I love Straight and Laurie both.
I guess I’d go
Laurie
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Straight
Foster
Grant
AlexanderWhile I can’t comment on the race since I wasn’t alive at the time, it does seem like a lack of a general consensus probably allowed Straight to pull this off.
I do wonder if Lee Grant hadn’t won the year before if she would’ve been able to pull off the win here.
Then there is the whole Talia Shire going Lead instead of Supporting issue which cost her what probably would’ve been an easy win (not my personal choice).
As for who I’d vote for personally? I’d be tempted to say Foster but I could see a case for Laurie.
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My ranking of the nominees:
1. Jodie Foster, TAXI DRIVER
2. Piper Laurie, CARRIE
3. Jane Alexander, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
4. Beatrice Straight, NETWORK
5. Lee Grant, VOYAGE OF THE DAMNEDMy personal nominees/ranking:
1. Jodie Foster, TAXI DRIVER
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2. Piper Laurie, CARRIE
3. Jane Alexander, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
4. Talia Shire, ROCKY
5. Shelley Winters, NEXT STOP, GREENWICH VILLAGEIf I recall correctly, I think Jodie Foster was the predicted winner. I remember at the time I wanted her to win. However, in retrospect, I would go with Beatrice Straight. I just recently watched Network, Taxi Driver, Voyage of the Damned & All the President’s Men again…..will have to rewatch Carrie. Piper Laurie likely had the most screen time, but what Beatrice Straight did in her 5 minutes was phenomenal!
ReplyCopy URLIt is maddening to figure out 40 plus years later who was the favorites in the 1974 and 1976 supporting actress races. The Golden Globe winners failed to get nominated at the Oscars. And the 2 0scar winners (Bergman and Straight) both were totally unusual winners for brief performances.
I have to imagine the favorites were Piper Laurie and Jodie Foster. Laurie had a very interesting backstory as Carrie was her first film in 15 years since her first nomination in The Hustler. And Supporting actress was the only category Best Picture nominee Taxi Driver had a shot at a win. But they had their weaknesses. Laurie was in a horror film and Foster was just a kid in a very controversial film for that day.
But still Straight IMO is a bizarre winner. Her scene while well acted was still a very very very very small role in a film where people where getting speeches all over the place that were longer and more memorable.
Lee Grant was not winner a 2nd straight Oscar for Voyage of the Damned and Jane Alexander was even smaller role than Straight.
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I’ve seen everybody here except Lee Grant, and I still don’t understand how looking at this category, or what it would end up being, the Rocky people dind’t submit Shire here. It seems so easy for her to win. Not only does she look like a person who really wants to WIN and will get upset if she loses (go to Youtube), but come on, in terms of records, she would’ve been the 3rd person in the family to win and we would have 5 of them now.
My choice would be Laurie with Straight in second.
Piper Laurie also seems invincible here looking back, but I guess the horror nature of her film caused her to lose votes. And the more Oscars Network has the better, considering it and Lumet lost to shitty Rocky.
ReplyCopy URL1. Laurie – Spellbinding and impactful performance that elevated the horror aspects of her film. Her win was likely undone by the genre bias in the Academy. Piper also had the comeback narrative and she was more than worthy of this particular win. It’s unfortunate that not enough voters were able to get past the film being horror.
2. Straight – Great, but extremely brief performance. Her 5 minute speech was powerful and her character was the most sympathetic in her film. The vulnerability and relatability were likely key factors to her being rewarded.
3. Foster – Taxi Driver is greatly regarded in the present day but it was probably far too unconventional to win any major Academy awards in 1976. The character, her age and the film were all strikes against her winning. Iris was a supporting character and Foster portrayed an underage prostitute. She didn’t have the leading performance that usually secures victories for younger actors.
4. Grant – She was a previous winner and her film underperformed. Voyage of the Damned seems like the type of film that is historically important and is meant to be Academy bait. However, the film was mostly ignored with only three nominations, after receiving 6 Golden Globes nods.
5. Alexander – She’s a brilliant actress but I didn’t find much to this performance. I’ll have to rewatch the film to see if I missed a great amount of complexities in her brief role.
Honorable Mention:
Talia Shire, Rocky (my Winner)I wouldn’t have known about the frontrunner because I wasn’t alive during this race but I have seen all of the films and can only speculate in hindsight. Shire would have easily won in this category. She had no chance against the powerhouse performances of Dunaway, Spacek and Ullmann.
ReplyCopy URLWhat a boring and unexciting bunch of nominees. And the frustrating part is that even if you go outside the academy’s five, you’ll struggle to find a couple to get passionate about.
As people have said, it’s hard to deduce who was the favorite. You can make a case for and against each of the nominees.
Alexander – respected, too short performance
Grant – typical academy film, won recently
Laurie – acclaimed, wrong movie
Foster – critics loved her, role might have been too much
Straight – best picture nominee, too short of a performance
I have no idea who was the favorite. It must have been a very very tight race but I struggle to come up with a reasonable runner-up – could have been any of the other four (though I have a feeling that Grant was not a runner-up).
I actually award Alexander; I thought she was good and quite powerful in her short performance (and it was less showy than Straight which I appreciate) yet I am not crazy about her. I nominate Grant & Laurie plus Ross for Grant’s movie and Ingrid Boulting for The Last Tycoon.
I see the arguments for Shire being supporting but man, if I bump her into supporting, I have bigger issues finding another worthy nominee in Best Actress. A wasteland 1976 was.
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