When the Oscars are announced, movie fans around the world look to Hollywood. Again and again, individual actors succeed in putting themselves in the limelight in this spectacle. Sometimes planned, sometimes spontaneous – and sometimes involuntary. Here are five cinematic incidents from the history of the world’s most important film awards.
Will Smith was annoyed by a joke made by comedian Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars and slapped him in the face.
2022: Will Smith slaps comedian Chris Rock in the face
After many rather dull years, the 2022 Oscars offered quite a spectacle. Will Smith’s performance is particularly memorable: After comedian Chris Rock made a joke at the expense of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett, during the awards ceremony, Smith rushed onto the stage to slap Rock in the face.
The background to the incident is Jada Pinkett’s suffering: the actress has been affected by hair loss since 2018 and has been bald ever since. Rock quipped to her: “G. I. Jane 2 – I can’t wait to see it.” The comedian alluded to the film «G. I. Jane», in which Demi Moore shaved her head as a soldier. Will Smith returned to his seat after the action and yelled in Rock’s direction, “Keep my wife’s name out of your damn mouth!”
When Will Smith won the Oscar for best actor a little later for his role in the film “King Richard”, in which he plays the father of tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, he justified himself in his acceptance speech: “Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family » he said, adding through tears that he wanted to apologize to the film academy and the other nominees. “Art imitates life and I seem like the crazy father (. . .), but love makes you do crazy things.”
Will Smith later described his emotional reaction as “unacceptable and inexcusable” and said he was embarrassed by the incident. “Violence in all its forms is toxic and destructive,” he wrote on Instagram. This was in the year in which, according to many Hollywood greats, deadly violence in Ukraine was also to become the dominant theme at the Oscars. Ultimately, the events of the war only played a secondary role.
2017: “La La Land” wrongly wins the Oscar for best picture
The Oscars in 2017 attracted a similar amount of attention. At that time, a photo of the film producer Jan Chapman was shown during the “In Memoriam” program, but she was not dead. However, this became almost irrelevant when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty later announced that the jury had declared «La La Land» the best picture.
The film’s cast and crew happily crowded in front of the stage. Producer Jordan Horowitz, in his usual way, thanked his family and the Academy. But then he returned to the microphone and announced that there had been a mistake: it wasn’t “La La Land” that won the award for best film, but “Moonlight”.
Amid the ensuing chaos, Warren Beatty explained the tragedy: he and Faye Dunaway had received the ticket to the previous award that had awarded Emma Stone for her role in La La Land. In fact, “La La Land” was also nominated for the award for best film and subsequently secured an Oscar in a total of six categories.
1973: Apachen Littlefeather declines an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando
Politically charged speeches may be the order of the day at Oscar ceremonies these days. But in 1973 this was not yet the case. Actress Sacheen Littlefeather was one of the first people to bring social issues to the Oscars stage when she turned down the Best Actor Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando. Littlefeather, herself an Apache native, said that Brando “unfortunately cannot accept this very generous award. The reason for this is the film industry’s treatment of American Indians. . . and also the recent events at Wounded Knee.”
After the ceremony, Littlefeather read a 15-page speech prepared by Brando to journalists. The speech helped draw more attention to the conflicts at Wounded Knee between the Oglala and the United States government.
Under what bizarre circumstances Littlefeather performed at the time is illustrated by the fact that western star John Wayne had gone backstage. As Littlefeather later said in an interview, he wanted to take her away and stop her from speaking. In many of his on-screen appearances, Wayne is engaged in killing Native Americans.
1974: Gay activist Opel stormed the stage naked
The following year, the Oscars once again served as a stage for political messages. This time Robert Opel wanted to draw attention to the rights of homosexuals. He did so by walking across the stage wearing nothing but his moustache, during Elizabeth Taylor’s announcement to announce the winner of the Oscar for Best Picture.
After the incident, presenter David Niven made fun of Opel no less legendary when he asked the audience: “Isn’t it fascinating that the only laugh a man will ever have in his life is when he takes his clothes off and shows that he has come up short?”
Opel didn’t bother Niven’s mockery. He subsequently appeared naked in public several times. For example, he exposed himself at a Los Angeles City Council meeting debating the ban on nudism on public beaches. He later ran for president as a nudist. His slogan was “Nothing to hide”.
1959: Overzealous producer cuts so drastically that his station is in trouble
The Oscar winners of 1959 really came up short. Because while the award ceremony today regularly requires more airtime than planned, the superstars were treated much more strictly at the 31st edition of the event. Producer Jerry Wald was keen to end the show on NBC on time.
So Wald assiduously shortened appearance after appearance until it turned out that his version of the award ceremony would end twenty minutes earlier than the two hours that the network had planned. Eventually, host Jerry Lewis and other celebrities had to improvise before NBC aired a sports rerun in an emergency.