Oscar Files: Best Actress

I grabbed a few hours over the past busy, busy week to see two performances that scored Oscar nominations in their years, both of them the sole nods for their films. Rosalind Russell is not necessarily sensational in Sister Kenny (1946), playing the Australian nurse who revolutionized therapies for juvenile polio against much medical opposition, but she does a very good job of aging, she avoids sanctifying her part, and best of all, it's a much less strenuous perf than her usual. Glenda Jackson, though an utterly different kind of actress, is comparably good but comparably not great in Trevor Nunn's Hedda (1975). Her best moments are when she lightens the character with savvy brushes of morbid humor, or a droll fascination with the moral weakness of her intimates and acquaintances—but as ever with Jackson, she has default modes of arch knowingness and dark neurosis, and whenever she reverts to them, you feel that she hasn't connected sufficiently with the part. (Tragically, I had to pass up an offered ticket to see Cate Blanchett this Tuesday night, wowing audiences at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in their limited-run production of Hedda Gabler—very apt casting, I should think, and her notices have been dreamy. )

And here we get to the best part: yes, I count, and having notched these two, I have exactly 100 performances left to see from the 388 Oscar has ever nominated in my favorite category and yours, Best Actress. That means I've seen about 74% of the nominees, though after the next three, I'll be at exactly 75%, another deliciously round number. (This is a good time to remember that I love numbers, especially fractions, especially when they correlate to finite lists, especially when the lists are movie-related.)

So, while the esteemed and lovable Goatdog keeps cranking his way toward seeing all the 450 Best Picture nominees (453 according to Mike, since he counts the "Artistic Quality of Production" nominees from Oscar's first year—and why not, when they're as good as Sunrise, Chang, and The Crowd), I've got my own quarry to chase with the leading ladies. It's a project doomed to failure: Jeanne Eagels' legendary performance in The Letter (1929) is only extant in a single, unfinished version, the one surviving print of Ann Harding in Holiday (1931) is sealed off in the Library of Congress, and if Betty Compson's work in The Barker (1929) or Elisabeth Bergner's in Escape Me Never (1935) is anywhere accessible, I've never heard of it.

Still, a fella can give it the ol' college try. And heck, of the 100 perfs I have left to see, ranging from Compson, Eagels, and Corinne Griffith in 1929 through Jane Alexander and Julie Walters in 1983, I own 73 of the relevant films on tape. (72, really, but The Turning Point double-counts for Bancroft and Maclaine.)

Look for countdowns and short reviews of these last 100 as I get to them, but for now, here are a few more stray statistics and impressions of what I've seen and what's still coming:

Winners I Have Left to See: 7 — Luise Rainer (1936), Ginger Rogers (1940), Greer Garson (1942), Olivia de Havilland (1946), Grace Kelly (1954), Ingrid Bergman (1956), and Susan Hayward (1958)

My Five Six Favorite Winners So Far: (that's for you, par3182)
1) Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
2) Holly Hunter in The Piano, 1993
3) Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, 1934
4) Marie Dressler in Min and Bill, 1931
5) Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind, 1939
6) Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, 1968

My Six Favorite Losing Nominees:
1) Jessica Lange in Frances, 1982
2) Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence, 1974
3) Katharine Hepburn in Long Day's Journey into Night, 1962
4) Julianne Moore in Far from Heaven, 2002
5) Bette Davis in The Letter, 1940
6) Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams, 1935

My Least Favorite Winners:
1) Mary Pickford in Coquette, 1929
2) Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter, 1947
3) Sally Field in Places in the Heart, 1984
4) Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8, 1960
5) Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, 1953
6) Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1967

Years in Which I've Seen Every Nominee: 29 — 1928, 1950, 1951, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, and every year from 1984 through the present

From Among These Years, the Best Overall Fields...:
1) 1950 – Baxter and Davis (my pick) in All About Eve, Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, *Holliday in Born Yesterday, and Parker in Caged
2) 1996 – Blethyn in Secrets & Lies, Keaton in Marvin's Room, *McDormand in Fargo (my pick), Scott Thomas in The English Patient, and Watson in Breaking the Waves
3) 1987 – *Cher in Moonstruck, Close in Fatal Attraction (my pick?), Hunter in Broadcast News (my pick?), Kirkland in Anna, and Streep in Ironweed (my pick?)

Hon. Mention to 1974, where I'm still missing Perrine in Lenny, but am left breathless by *Burstyn in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Carroll in Claudine, Dunaway in Chinatown, and Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence (my pick)

...and the Worst:
1) 1984 – Davis in A Passage to India, *Field in Places in the Heart, Lange in Country (my pick), Redgrave in The Bostonians, and Spacek in The River
2) 1994 – Foster in Nell, *Lange in Blue Sky, Richardson in Tom & Viv, Ryder in Little Women (my pick), and Sarandon in The Client
3) 2005 – Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents, Huffman in Transamerica (my pick), Knightley in Pride & Prejudice, Theron in North Country, and *Witherspoon in Walk the Line

Six Remaining Nominees I'm Most Psyched To See...:
1) Judy Garland in A Star Is Born, 1954
2) Jean Arthur in The More the Merrier, 1943
3) Kim Stanley in Séance on a Wet Afternoon, 1964
4) Greta Garbo in Anna Christie, 1930
5) Anne Bancroft in The Turning Point, 1977
6) Shirley Maclaine in The Turning Point, 1977

...and Six I'm Putting Off:
1) Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Arc, 1948
4) Sophia Loren in Marriage, Italian Style, 1964
3) Audrey Hebpurn in The Nun's Story, 1959
4) Maggie Smith in Travels with My Aunt, 1972
5) Deborah Kerr in The Sundowners, 1960
6) Norma Shearer in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, 1934

Now y'all know you wanna comment.