15+ Fiascos, jokes and curiosities that marked Oscar history

The Oscar is the most important award in world cinema, in addition to being the oldest and most famous. Delivered since 1927, many wonderful stories have played out onstage, in the audience, on the red carpet and backstage.

There are so many stories in these almost 100 years of awards that it is impossible for everything to go perfectly well, even with all the experience and planning. The wrong announcement of the prize for the film La La Land instead of Moonlight in 2017 was just one of the jokes at the Oscars.

That’s why we, from awesome.clubwe put on our gala costumes to remember the funniest and most curious stories that took place at the Oscar ceremonies.

At the sixth Oscar ceremony, when the producers were still inexperienced, a very embarrassing situation happened to Frank. Which Frank? The two gifts! As it turns out, host Will Rogers, when announcing the winner of the Best Director award, said, “Go get it, Frank.” Frank Capra got up, but the award was actually for Frank Lloyd.

In 1938, actress Alice Brady was unable to attend the ceremony, which was a shame as she won for Best Supporting Actress. A man took the stage and accepted the award for her. Do you know who this man was? Well, nobody knows until today. The individual disappeared with the figurine and Alice was without. Days later, the actress received the award from her director, but as there is no photographic record of the delivery at the ceremony, it is not known whether the statuette was the original or a replacement.

Also in 1938, Spencer Tracy won the Best Actor category for the film Sailor Intrepid. Later, he had to change the statuette because his came with the name Dick Tracy engraved on it. This was the name of a comic book detective at the time. Was the person making the recordings reading comics while working?

10-year-old actress Shirley Temple presented Walt Disney himself with her honorary Oscar for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1939. The reason for the award is that the film was “a significant innovation on the screen that has delighted millions and was pioneer of a great new field of entertainment”. The best part of the night was that Disney received a full-size Oscar accompanied by seven miniatures.

The year was 1948 and actress Rosalind Russell was very confident that she would win the Best Actress category. She had already been nominated twice and didn’t win, but tonight her work in Mourning Electra would finally be recognized. When the presenter said “and the Oscar goes to…” she stood up before they even announced the name of the winner. But the name announced was Loretta Young. Rosalind had to sit back down, her hands empty and probably embarrassed.

Loretta’s announcement as the winner actually shocked the entire audience, as Rosalind was the favorite. So much so that, in the same year, Rosalind Russell was nominated for a Golden Globe and won. However, she never got the Oscar for Best Actress. However, in 1973, she received an Academy Award for her humanitarian contributions.

The envelope mix-up in 2017 that saw the film La La Land announced in place of Moonlight was not unprecedented. In 1964, Sammy Davis Jr. took the stage to announce the winner for Best Adapted Score, and read the name John Addison, for the film Tom Jones. The mistake was immediately noticed because this film had not even been nominated. Production then rushed to deliver the right envelope to Sammy, who put on his glasses so he wouldn’t get it wrong again and announced the correct winner.

Now, let’s skip talking about monkeys for a bit and travel back to the 1972 ceremony, when Charlie Chaplin, then 83, received an Honorary Academy Award for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.” In addition to the just tribute, the award was a reparation to the actor and director, who was banned from stepping foot in the US for 20 years. That night, the longest standing ovation in Academy history was recorded: Chaplin received a standing ovation for 12 uninterrupted minutes.

Thrilled, Charlie gave a short speech where he said: “I thank you all. This is a very emotional moment for me, and words are so meaningless, so useless. Can I just say thank you for inviting me to be here. You are lovely people.” And he left, but not before making a little joke with his famous hat. Chaplin died almost six years later in Switzerland.

Returning to our schedule of embarrassing others, the 1982 Oscar ceremony was the stage for one of the most curious musical performances in its history. Sheena Easton sang the theme song for that year’s James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, in a tribute that had nothing to do with the essence of the spy. A light show, lasers, pyrotechnics, cartoon villains and a stuffed cat. At the end, a fake Bond in an orange (!) satin jumpsuit takes the singer away in a flying saucer.

Sir Laurence Olivier is quite the talent. One of only two actors to have won an acting Oscar for a film he directed. But, during the 1985 ceremony, he was the protagonist of the joke when he was invited to announce the winner of the Best Film award. We don’t know if it was in haste or sheer distraction, but Olivier forgot to read the list of nominees. He simply walked up to the stage, opened the envelope and read the prize: Amadeus.

In 1988, the buzz began on the red carpet, when singer and actress Cher appeared in a Bob Mackie dress, all worked in transparency and rhinestones. For the time, the dress was too transparent and caused a stir among the most conservative. But that’s okay, Cher still left the ceremony holding her golden statuette for Best Actress in the movie Moonstruck.

Some artists, when awarded, take advantage of the microphone to make some kind of protest in their speeches. This is the case of Jack Palance, winner of the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1992, for his role in Amigos, Always Amigos. At the age of 73, he spoke about the few opportunities that elderly actors have in the cinema and took the opportunity to prove his skills live. That’s when he demonstrated it by doing push-ups on stage. With just one arm🇧🇷

This award warms the heart. It was 1999 and, even before it was announced, some people in the audience were already anticipating the name of Italian Roberto Benigni as winner of Best Foreign Language Film for A Vida é Bela. Of course, he won and had the best reaction: he climbed onto the armchair and walked over the heads of his colleagues, then hopped up the stairs. It’s so beautiful to see, that we even forgive him for winning our Central do Brasil.

At the 2003 ceremony, Adrien Brody took his celebration in a totally opposite direction. Upon hearing the presenter Halle Berry say that he had won the Best Actor category for the film The Pianist, Adrien went on stage and kissed the actress. That’s before he starts his speech or even picks up the statuette. Halle doesn’t seem to like it very much.

The lack of chemistry between presenters James Franco and Anne Hathaway at the 2011 Oscar ceremony was visible. So much so that James himself confessed that he did not have the slightest desire to do that. If he was totally apathetic, Anne beside him was overly excited. The highlight (?) was when the duo appeared on stage in their costumes: she in a suit and tie, he dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Other people’s shame hurts to this day.

The 2013 Oscars will be forever etched in the memory of many by the scene of darling Jennifer Lawrence taking the stage to receive the award for Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook. The rising star looked stunning in a white dress, but she tripped and fell on her way up the stairs to the stage. The bright side of Jennifer’s life, however, is her good mood. So, while the audience applauded her, she justified: “You’re standing up applauding just because I fell.”

A year later, the actress returned to star in a micão when, still on the red carpet at the Oscars, she stepped awkwardly and fell to the ground again. Worse still, she tried to save herself by grabbing an assistant and nearly knocked him to the ground as well. Jennifer Lawrence is rumored to be leading a petition to repeal the law of gravity.

After the 2014 Oscars, they never let John Travolta forget the shame he went through. And worse: the shame he put Idina Menzel through. For those who don’t know (Travolta didn’t seem to know), she was the voice actress for Elsa and the interpreter of Frozen’s songs, including the hit Let It Go. And she was scheduled to sing this song at the Oscars, live. Only when Travolta went to announce Idina, who knows why, but he changed her name to… Adele Dazeem🇧🇷 What?

But revenge is a dish best served cold. Idina Menzel was able to return the “favor” to John Travolta at the 2015 Oscars. A year earlier, upset with the name change, she had eight seconds to compose herself and start singing, but she turned it around. To announce the award for Best Original Song, she called the actor by name. Glon Gazingou🇧🇷

This list isn’t just made of gaffes, right? Or falls. We couldn’t comment on the 2014 Oscars without remembering the most famous selfie in the world, taken by presenter Ellen Degeneres’ cell phone. At the time, the tweet with the photo was the most retweeted in the site’s history. No wonder, as in the image, in addition to Ellen, stars like Jennifer Lawrence (still standing), Meryl Streep, Badley Cooper, Julia Roberts, Jared Leto, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Lupina Nyong’o and her brother , between others.

The Oscar for worst honor goes to the Academy itself. In the same year that the La La Land and Moonlight envelopes were exchanged, another, even worse, gaffe was committed by the organization of the ceremony. Traditionally, the Academy takes a moment to remember the professionals who passed away in the previous year. In the tribute video, next to the name of the late Janet Patterson, a photo of Jan Chapman was placed. But it turns out that Jan was still alive. And she stayed…