The nominees were ...
- Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca
- Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Paul Lukas in Watch on the Rhine
- Walter Pidgeon in Madame Curie
- Mickey Rooney in The Human Comedy
... when they should have been ...
- Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca
- Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt
- Henry Fonda in The Ox-Bow Incident
- Paul Lukas in Watch on the Rhine
- Joel McCrea in The More the Merrier
And the Oscar went to ...
Lukas was a fine actor, but he will always be remembered as the man who beat Humphrey Bogart for best actor. Born in Budapest, Lukas had been a stage and screen star in Hungary and in Austria (when they were one country) before coming to the United States in 1927 to try his luck in Hollywood. He found himself in character roles, often as the foreign-born villain. His best-known films before the Oscar were Little Women, in which he plays Prof. Bhaer to Katharine Hepburn's Jo March, Dodsworth, and The Lady Vanishes. The Oscar didn't change his career much, but he continued to work regularly on stage and TV, and in a variety of films ranging from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to Elvis Presley's Fun in Acapulco.
... when it should have gone to ...
Perhaps the screen's most unlikely romantic leading man, Bogart had a curious series of ups and downs in his career. He had begun on stage, then decided to try Hollywood in 1930 when it was begging actors who could talk to come west. He signed a contract with Fox, but was let go after two years. He returned to Broadway for the original stage production of The Petrified Forest, playing the gangster Duke Mantee opposite Leslie Howard. When the play was filmed, Warner Bros. wanted Edward G. Robinson for the role, but Howard insisted on Bogart. The film was a hit, and Bogart signed a contract with Warners. But even then the studio didn't quite know what to do with him other than have him play gangsters. It loaned him to Sam Goldwyn for Dead End, and miscast him quite badly as the Irish horse trainer in Dark Victory. But in 1940 he performed with distinction in tough-guy roles in Raoul Walsh's They Drive by Night and High Sierra. The latter was written by John Huston, who was ready to make his directing debut with The Maltese Falcon, and after George Raft turned down the part of Sam Spade -- reportedly because he didn't want to work with a novice director like Huston -- Bogart finally got his major breakthrough role. Casablanca showcased the romantic side of Bogart, whose nuanced portrayal of the conflicted Rick Blaine is film acting at its best. Watch, for example, the self-disgust that plays across his face in the scene below, in which he insists that Sam play "As Time Goes By," despite his previous ban on the song.
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| Dooley Wilson and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca |
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