The nominees were ...
- William Bendix in Wake Island
- Van Heflin in Johnny Eager
- Walter Huston in Yankee Doodle Dandy
- Frank Morgan in Tortilla Flat
- Henry Travers in Mrs. Miniver
- Tim Holt in The Magnificent Ambersons
- Walter Huston in Yankee Doodle Dandy
- Norman Lloyd in Saboteur
- Claude Rains in Now, Voyager
- Rudy Vallee in The Palm Beach Story
And the Oscar went to ...
Heflin, as the alcoholic buddy of gangster Johnny Eager (Robert Taylor), steals the movie, which is MGM's not very successful attempt at a gangster-noir movie. Warner Bros. would have cast Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis in the leads, but MGM goes for waxworks like Taylor and Lana Turner. Heflin was discovered on Broadway by Katharine Hepburn, who had him cast in the stage version of The Philadelphia Story, in the role played by James Stewart in the film. Heflin's Oscar helped him build a career of second leads and character roles, the most memorable being the besieged homesteader in Shane and the mad bomber in Airport.
... when it should have gone to ...
 |
| Joel McCrea, Claudette Colbert, and Rudy Vallee in The Palm Beach Story |
Vallee plays J.D. Hackensacker III, one of the richest men in the world, who gets entangled in the marital and monetary affairs of the penniless Tom and Gerry Jeffers (Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert). He gives one of the great comic performances in the Preston Sturges oeuvre, adding to the mystery of why the Academy overlooked this film completely. Vallee first gained fame when, after graduating from Yale, he formed a band, "Rudy Vallée and the Connecticut Yankees." He became a popular radio crooner, with screaming and swooning teenage followers, in the late 1920s, and in public appearances would compensate for the lack of electronic amplification by singing through a megaphone. He made several film musicals in the 1930s, but his evident gift for comedy in The Palm Beach Story sent his movie career in a new direction. He appeared in two more Sturges films, Unfaithfully Yours and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. He also created the role of J.B. Biggley in the original Broadway production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and re-created his performance in the 1967 film version.
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