h/t Danny Peary. This would be for either category, nominee or no — who should have won? Second-guess to your heart’s content.
5. Meryl Streep (1985, Out of Africa): I’ve been watching this a lot lately on my free cable. I think it may be her best, and her Danish accent doesn’t seem an affectation. It’s partly the role: Karen Blixen was an amazing woman. Streep especially gets me at the end. She doesn’t cry, but I do.
4. Marion Davies (1928, The Patsy): This was one of my Alternate Oscars for Best Picture, too. She was touching and hilarious and a dead-on mimic. She deserves another look — don’t write her off because of Kane. She’s not Susan.
3. Greta Garbo (1939, Ninotchka): Yeah, Vivien’s Scarlett is a most memorable character. But Garbo’s hardass comrade who’s transformed by Paris, Melvyn Douglas (Melvyn Douglas??), & champagne, is comic perfection. Her drunk scene is one of the best in all of film.
2. Bette Davis (1950, All About Eve): Her “Ah, men!” toast at the party…the way she made George Saunders clutch when she bit the head off that onion…even her “Fasten your seatbelts…” (such a camp line that you’re amazed to see the original interpretation — camp!)…I don’t care that she was playing Bette Davis. All the more reason to hand over the statue — who was a better character?
1. Rosalind Russell (1940, His Girl Friday): One of the few Peary & I agree upon. She makes modern-day women reporters look like Midol ads. And not in a good way. My all-time favorite.
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1. Gotta second Rosalind Russell — they should give her an Oscar this year for that role, because even on TCM reruns she’s light years better than any female performance this year.
2. 1959 — Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest in 1959…Simone Signoret won for Room At The Top — which is OK, but in retrospect… I still wonder a how a girl like Eve Kendall gets to be a girl like Eve Kendall — just like Cary Grant did. And she wasn’t even nominated.
3. 2000 — Kate Hudson as Penny Lane in Almost Famous over Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. A push-up bra, faux white trash accent, and bogus enviro-weenie plotline = Oscar. Kate Hudson’s playing herself probably, but what a role — and in one of the best movies of the past 10 years. She was nominated as supporting actress, but I think the role was meaty enough to be lead and great enough to win.
4. I won’t say it’s the best performance, but in 2001 Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge deserved it over Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball — it was a weak year. Halle’s nekkid year in the Ball and in Swordfish. Boobs have been winning Oscars for decades, but this was in the tank.
5. 1986 — Sigourney Weaver in Aliens over Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God. Playing a deaf student isn’t that much of a stretch fro a deaf actress… I’m sorry. Sigourney dominated Aliens and that role.
5. Carole Lombard – My Man Godfrey – 1936. This movie was the only one to be nominated in all best categories and not win any awards.
4. Margaret Sullavan – 1940 – The Mortal Storm or The Shop Around the Corner … take your pick.
3. Gloria Swanson – Sunset Boulevard – 1950. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” C’mon, this woman rocked.
2. Judy Garland – A Star is Born – 1954. This was one of the few dark dramatic musicals and one of her best performances. James Mason was also at his best in this.
1. Rosalind Russell – Auntie Mame – 1958. I think of Mame as her signature role.
+JMJ+
I always thought Cate Blanchett was robbed the first year she was nominated for playing Queen Elizabeth. (I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow? For Shakespeare in Love???)
Funny and daresay classy near-nekkid — Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda.
I wouldn’t know about the ending of Out of Africa – I walked out of the theater halfway. The only movie I’ve ever done that. I knew it would win an Oscar, because it was boring, bloated and pretentious. An hour of watching Streep writing in her journal about her syphilis was about all could take, so I cut my losses and left. I suppose I could’ve hung around in the vain hope that her train would wreck or Robert Redford would be eaten by a lion, but I had already lost an hour of my life to this $8.50 sleep aid, and I dared not risk losing another.
Marion Davies was by all accounts a first rate comedic actress,but Hearst insisted on her doing dreary costume dramas
Floyd
Weaver over Matlin. Yes, Yes, YES!!!
I still believe that to be one of the all time greatest lead performances.
Weaver was also pretty damn awesome in Death & The Maiden.
I second Gloria Swanson – that was pitch perfect. Grandiose with a shot of pathetic (“A publicity agent working day and night can do terrible things to the human spirit”). That’s one of my favorites.
“I am big…it’s the pictures that got small!”
+JMJ+
I just thought of another actress:
Greer Garson, Blossoms in the Dust (1942)
She did win the next year, for her role in Mrs. Miniver, but I’ve always thought her portrayal of Edna Gladney was the superior bit of acting.