May 12

Katharine Hepburn is born in Hartford, Connecticut, 1907. Prior to her big comeback in The Philadelphia Story (1940), Hepburn was labeled “box office poison,” in no small part because of the John Ford-directed Mary of Scotland (1936), which opened to lukewarm critical response and disappointing box office. It was the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her return to an England under the reign of growing rival Queen Elizabeth I. Signing Hepburn to play Mary was the easy part. One of the biggest challenges was casting the role of Elizabeth, with Hepburn going so far as to suggest she tackle both parts, prompting costar John Carradine to ask her, “But if you played both queens, how would you know which one to upstage?” Bette Davis was mentioned, Ginger Rogers tested for it, and Ford campaigned for Tallulah Bankhead, but in the end it was Florence Eldridge, the wife of costar Fredric March, playing Earl of Bothwell, who nabbed the part.

Wrote critic Frank Nugent of The New York Times, “[A]lthough Katharine Hepburn's Mary Stuart shines brilliantly through most of the film's two-hour course, we were conscious of definite defects in her characterization…Miss Hepburn comes to it in a petitioning mood, pleads for justice and—even after she discovers Elizabeth's grim hatred—contents herself with a defy that is almost reproachful in tone. Mary Stuart was more inclined to show her claws than her tears…Miss Hepburn's performance is…at variance with the accepted notion of Mary in those moments where boldness, implacability and high resolve were needed; but she is altogether admirable in those scenes where the Queen was womanly, tender, impetuous and of high courage. Had she been able to meet both moods, she might have counted it her greatest characterization.”

March 29

Paul Henried dies of pneumonia in Santa Monica, 1992. Goodbye, Mr. Chips marked his silver screen debut; a mere three years later he made the movie for which he is most famous, Casablanca, as the noble Victor Laszlo—the dullest part of that stellar enterprise. It was a part Joseph Cotton, Dean Jagger and Herbert Marshall were considered for, and Henreid was not enthusiastic about taking it, fearing it would diminish his stature as a leading man. The Vienna-born actor was more interesting and had more meat to chew on in Now, Voyager (1942), famously lighting cigarettes two at a time and playing the romantic lead opposite Bette Davis. As for the cigarette trick, it was performed ten years prior by George Brent and Ruth Chatterton in The Rich Are Always With Us (1932), with Brent lighting two and passing one to Chatterton. After Now, Voyager’s popularity—the biggest box office hit of Davis’s career—Henreid had women constantly come up to him requesting that he light their smokes.

Oscars 1950: Upset Victory

“[T]his marvelously clever young actress so richly conveys the attitudes and the vocal intonations of a native of the sidewalks of New York that it is art,” New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote about Judy Holliday’s performance in Born Yesterday. “More than that,” he added, “she illuminates so brightly the elemental wit and honesty of her blankly unlettered young lady that she puts pathos and respect into the role.”

The casting for the part of Billie Dawn, the dumb blonde ex-showgirl who gradually wakes up to the corrupt doings of her boorish junk dealer boyfriend, was full of false starts and happenstance. Garson Kanin wrote the play with Jean Arthur in mind. When Arthur dropped out just prior to its Broadway opening, Holliday took over and became the darling of both critics and audiences. But Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn had other ideas and bought the property for Rita Hayworth. Hayworth had ideas of her own, preferring the real-life role of Prince Aly Kahn’s new wife over the role of Billie Dawn.

Cohn was finally convinced to put Holliday in the picture after Katharine Hepburn planted gossip column items that early footage of Adam’s Rib revealed that Holliday was stealing scenes from Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. On Oscar night, many camps were wondering which acting behemoth—All About Eve’s Bette Davis or Sunset Boulevard’s Gloria Swanson—would take home the Best Actress prize. When Broderick Crawford announced Holliday as the winner, Swanson (above, with José Ferrer and Holliday) reportedly gave her a hug and said to her, “Darling, why couldn’t you have waited until next year?” In her memoirs, Swanson reflected, “Judy Holliday, when she dared to look at me, seemed to be pleading forgiveness.”

BEST PICTURE
All About Eve

BEST DIRECTOR
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve

BEST ACTOR
José Ferrer, Cyrano de Bergerac

BEST ACTRESS
Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
George Sanders, All About Eve

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Josephine Hull, Harvey

Oscars 1938: One Performance, Three Oscars

Spencer Tracy’s performance as Father Flanagan—the priest who founded a home for orphaned boys in Nebraska—became, through a series of errors, a windfall where Oscar statuettes were concerned. In the day or two following the ceremony, an Oscar arrived at the Tracy home with the name “Dick Tracy” inscribed on it. Sent back for the proper inscription, the award was then, without Tracy’s knowledge, promised by an MGM publicist to be dedicated to Father Flanagan and donated to Boys Town. Tracy agreed only if the Academy would give him a duplicate to keep. The Academy acquiesced and everybody won.

BEST PICTURE
You Can’t Take It with You

BEST DIRECTOR
Frank Capra, You Can’t Take It with You

BEST ACTOR
Spencer Tracy, Boys Town

BEST ACTRESS
Bette Davis, Jezebel

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Walter Brennan, Kentucky

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Fay Bainter, Jezebel

Oscars 1935: All That Glitters

In 1935, the Academy instated a rule that allowed write-in votes in order to quell the small uproar that occurred after they failed to nominate Bette Davis for her performance in 1934’s Of Human Bondage. She didn’t win, but the following year, Hal Mohr did, becoming the first and only write-in candidate to receive the golden statuette. His was for cinematography, a result of him taking over the lensing duties on A Midsummer Night’s Dream after Ernest Haller was fired. Haller’s footage was scrapped and Mohr started from scratch, championing the use of aluminum paint, metallic particles and cobwebs to give the forest an ethereal quality.

The Academy would eliminate the write-in rule the following year.

BEST PICTURE
Mutiny on the Bounty

BEST DIRECTOR
John Ford, The Informer

BEST ACTOR
Victor McLaglen, The Informer

BEST ACTRESS
Bette Davis, Dangerous