The nominees were ...
- Bette Davis in The Little Foxes
- Olivia de Havilland in Hold Back the Dawn
- Joan Fontaine in Suspicion
- Greer Garson in Blossoms in the Dust
- Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire
... when they should have been ...
- Jean Arthur in The Devil and Miss Jones
- Bette Davis in The Little Foxes
- Olivia de Havilland in Hold Back the Dawn
- Joan Fontaine in Suspicion
- Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve
And the Oscar went to ...
Fontaine's early film career was overshadowed by that of her older sister, Olivia de Havilland, who became an established star in 1935, her first year in movies. Fontaine made her first movie, No More Ladies, the same year, under the name Joan Burfield, but it was a small part in a forgettable film, and it was not until 1937, when she costarred with Fred Astaire in A Damsel in Distress, that she began to get more notice under the name Joan Fontaine. In the Astaire film, and even in such movies as Gunga Din and The Women, she seemed tentative and awkward, though undeniably beautiful. Alfred Hitchcock took advantage of the awkwardness by casting her as the shy second Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca, which made her a star and earned Fontaine her first Oscar nomination. The role in Suspicion, again directed by Hitchcock, was hardly a stretch from the part she played in Rebecca: In both, she's the passive spouse of strong-willed men. It's possible that the Oscar was a consolation prize for losing the award for Rebecca -- just as James Stewart's win for The Philadelphia Story was interpreted as a compensation for losing for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But it was a peculiar triumph for Fontaine in another regard: Her sister, de Havilland, was also a nominee. The only other time that sisters have been competitors for the same acting award was when Vanessa Redgrave was nominated for Morgan! and Lynn Redgrave for Georgy Girl. Though the Fontaine-de Havilland sibling rivalry is the stuff of Hollywood legend, it has probably been exaggerated by the press, and in the end de Havilland had the more substantial screen career, winning her own Oscars for To Each His Own and The Heiress.
... when it should have gone to ...
There's certainly nothing wrong with nominating Stanwyck for Ball of Fire instead of The Lady Eve, though the latter is a much better picture. In both films she displays the special Stanwyck blend of toughness and chic that earned her four Oscar nominations but never made her a winner. She received one of those consolation-prize honorary awards at the 1981 ceremonies. She had been in movies since the silents of the late 1920s, became a star in the 1930s, and shone brightest in the 1940s, when she was allowed to show off her range from the farce of Ball of Fire and The Lady Eve to the noirest of film noir, Double Indemnity. Her later career was primarily in television, especially the 1960s series The Big Valley and the 1980s series The Colbys.
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| Henry Fonda falls under the spell of Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve |
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