Oscar Profile #502: Overlooked Leading Actors

In 1996, when Julie Andrews was the only actor nominated for the Broadway version of Victor/Victoria, she withdraw her nomination with the comment, “I have searched my conscience and my heart and find that I cannot accept this nomination, and prefer instead to stand with the egregiously overlooked.” As I have been saying, Julie and they are in good company. Awards bodies have been egregiously ignoring great work for decades.

In this fourth week of focusing on performances that failed to win Oscars in the last century, we turn to actors in leading roles. Of the six iconic performances selected here I’ve chosen four actors who won for other films and two who never won at all. Between them, they have 28 nominations, 6 wins and 3 honorary awards from the Academy. Two are nominated for performances in foreign language films, the first I’ve noted among the two dozen actors and actresses I’ve profiled over this four-week period.

THE MOST EGREGIOUSLY OVERLOOKED

HENRY FONDA in THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940), directed by John Ford

Henry Fonda’s greatest screen performance was as everyman Tom Joad, the uprooted Oklahoma farmer in John Ford’s film of John Steinbeck’s great American novel. He was nominated for an Oscar but lost to his former roommate James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story for what everyone at time thought was a makeup Oscar for his having lost for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington the previous year. Fonda would have to wait forty-one years for his next nomination and win for On Golden Pond opposite Stewart’s Philadelphia Story co-star Katharine Hepburn who won her fourth Oscar opposite Fonda that night, his award accepted by daughter Jane Fonda, already a two-time Oscar winner herself.

Between his first nomination and deathbed win, Fonda had been nominated for Best Picture for producing 1957’s 12 Angry Men and was awarded an honorary Oscar for his lifetime of acting the year before his competitive win. In the interim he missed out on acting nominations for My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, Mister Roberts and the aforementioned 12 Angry Men.

JAMES STEWART in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), directed by Frank Capra

James Stewart won the 1939 New York Film Critics award for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and a 1940 Golden Globe award for The Shop Around the Corner before winning his Oscar for the same year’s The Philadelphia Story. A genuine war hero in World War II, he returned to acting after the war in his greatest role as the man who comes to realize what his life meant to others in Capra’s masterpiece, It’s a Wonderful Life for which he received his third Oscar nomination, losing to Fredric March who picked up his second Oscar for The Best Years of Our Lives. Stewart would be nominated again for Harvey and Anatomy of a Murder.

The recipient of an honorary Oscar at the 1984 awards, Stewart other career high performances include those in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Vertigo, the comedy Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation and the westerns Winchester ‘73, Bend of the River, The Man from Laramie, Two Rode Together and Shenandoah.

SPENCER TRACY in THE LAST HURRAH (1958), directed by John Ford

Spencer Tracy received his first Oscar nomination for 1936’s San Francisco, followed by back-to-back wins for 1937’s Captains Courageous and 1938’s Boys Town but didn’t receive another nomination until 1950’s Father of the Bride. Five years later he was nominated for Bad Day at Black Rock and three years after that for The Old Man and the Sea, a real headscratcher in that he was nominated for that instead of The Last Hurrah in which he gave one of his greatest performances as the out-of-touch old-style politician in John Ford’s tragicomedy in which he was supported a who’s who cast of veteran Hollywood stars.

Three more great performances were to follow, bringing him further nominations for Inherit the Wind opposite Fredric March, Judgment at Nuremberg opposite Marlene Dietrich, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner opposite Katharine Hepburn. It was their ninth film, resulting in his ninth nomination and Hepburn’s tenth and second win. It would make him the first actor since James Dean to be nominated posthumously.

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI in LA DOLCE VITA (1961), directed by Federico Fellini

Marcello Mastroianni made his first film in an uncredited role in 1939. By 1950, he had become a star. By 1960, he had become an international star. Released in the U.S. in 1961, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita was an early favorite for Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Actor and Director. It earned four, included two for Fellini as writer and director, but Mastroianni would have to wait another year to become the first male actor to be nominated for an Oscar in a non-English speaking role for Divorce Italian Style. That nomination was seen by many as a consolation prize for not being nominated for his groundbreaking portrayal of the amoral journalist in Fellini’s masterpiece.

Had Mastroianni been nominated, and winner Maximilian Schell been nominated instead for Best Supporting Actor in Judgment at Nuremberg, he might have won. Alas, the actor never won despite three nominations. He will always be remembered, however, for La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, The Organizer, A Special Day, Everybody’s Fine and Ready to Wear.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN in MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969), directed by John Schlesinger

Dustin Hoffman sprung seemingly out of nowhere to overnight success at the age of 30 as the star of 1967’s The Graduate for which he received his first Oscar nomination playing a recent college graduate. Two years later he amazed critics and audiences again as the down-and-out Ratso Rizzo opposite Jon Voight’s naïve title character in John Schlesinger’s remarkable Midnight Cowboy. Both he and Voight were nominated for Oscars but lost inevitably to screen legend John Wayne who won for True Grit. Voight would eventually win for 1978’s Coming Home and Hoffman for the following year’s Kramer vs. Kramer as well as 1988’s Rain Man.

Hoffman would prove his versatility over-and-over again in such films as Little Big Man, Papillion, Lenny, All the President’s Men, Marathon Man, Tootsie, Wag the Dog, Last Chance Harvey, Barney’s Vision and The Meyerowitz Stories among many others, but he was never better than in Midnight Cowboy.

MAX VON SYDOW in PELLE THE CONQUEROR (1988), directed by Bille August

Max von Sydow achieved international acclaim as the Grim Reaper in Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 masterpiece, The Seventh Seal. Several Bergman films later, hee made his Hollywood debut playing Jesus in George Stevens’ 1965 film, The Greatest Story Ever Told. He received his first Golden Globe nomination for George Roy Hill’s 1966 film, Hawaii after which he continued to alternate his international film career between Sweden and the U.S. in such films as The Emigrants, The New Land, The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor, Flash Gordon, Never Say Never Again and Hannah and Her Sisters.

Von Sydow was nearly 60 when he was finally nominated for an Oscar for his ferocious performance as the father in Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror and over 80 when he was nominated for a second time for his Holocaust survivor in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, both of which he should have won for. Incredibly, they never even gave the actor who died earlier this year at 90 a career achievement Oscar, either.