And the winners are …
“This is not an Academy Award, it’s a freak out ladies and gentlemen.” – US comedian Bob Hope at the 42nd Academy Awards 1970
A COMEDY: Multi-Oscars MC Bob Hope described the 37th Academy Awards in Santa Monica, California, in 1965 as, “the night wars and politics are forgotten, and we find out who we really hate”, and six years later, “tonight we set aside petty differences, forget old feuds and start new ones”.
The former boxer and butcher’s assistant hosted the awards 19 times, the first in 1940. This film tragic grew up watching the annual celebration of the creative arts, music, fashion and red carpet parade of famous stars.
A hand was never raised (at least not on stage) since the first dinner party for the rich and talented was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in California in 1929.
London-born Hope and his take-no-prisoners contemporaries including Don Rickles, Milton Berle, Bob Newhart and Dean Martin, ‘a marinated Burt Reynolds’, pioneered ‘insult comedy’ obviously lost on ‘Bad Boys’ Will Smith who assaulted comedian Chris Rock over a ‘G.I. Jane’ joke about his wife Jada’s shaven head.
Since the 94th awards ‘slap’, social media users have compared Rock to Rickles, who Dean Martin regularly introduced as the, ‘Master of Insult’ and ‘Merchant of Venom’.
Hollywood roaster Rickles was born in New York City in 1926 (the voice of Potato Head in ‘Toy Story’ and pit boss in ‘Casino’). He died in 2017, one month before his 91st birthday.
Not surprisingly, Hope and Rickles’ send-up ‘attack’ styles are cringeworthy today. No one was safe, wives, children, animals, even muppets.
Ruffled feathers
THE closest Hollywood audiences got to violence on stage was in 1973 when security guards reportedly held back ‘Duke’ John Wayne from ejecting ‘Godfather’ Marlon Brandon’s stand-in, civil rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather, who rejected Brando’s award in protest at the depiction in film of American indians. (Roger Moore reportedly took the Oscar home and kept it for several years before the Academy retrieved it).
Littlefeather stated as she left the stage: “He (Wayne) was coming towards me to forcibly take me off the stage, and he had to be restrained by six security men to prevent him from doing so.”
Later in the show, Clint Eastwood mocked Littlefeather, saying he was presenting an award on behalf of, “all the cowboys shot in all the John Ford westerns”. Blacklisted Littlefeather never worked in Hollywood again.
Jada Pinkett-Smith has said Littlefeather was the inspiration for her boycott of the 2018 ceremony: “Your speech and the position you and Mr Brando took was a much-needed validation for my position.”
In 1975, Hope, in what he described as his “annual exercise in masochism”, quipped that Brando could not attend because, “the Indians are holding him for the balloon payment. He gave them a little land with a mortgage on it. Some gift, that’s like getting a liver transplant from Dean Martin”.
After Littlefeather’s speech, the Academy instituted a new rule that no proxy speeches would be accepted in the future. No Oscar has been refused since, though some nominees have stayed away.
The first to reject the Oscar was Dudley Nichols in 1935 for best screenplay in ‘The Informer’ because of a writer’s strike in Hollywood. Nichols accepted it three years later after the dispute was settled.
George C. Scott rejected his Oscar nomination twice, ‘The Hustler’ (1962) and ‘Patton’ (1971), describing the awards as, “a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons”. Hope commented: “He is sitting at home with his back to the set. He’s the actor who said if he wins an Oscar he will not accept it. Hollywood needs more people like him.”
Sticks and stones
IN 1970, ‘True Grit’ Wayne shrugged off Hope when he walked on stage with an eye patch nor did ‘Alexander the Great’ Richard Burton flinch when Hope at the 50th in 1978, ‘the real Star Wars’, joked that absentee ‘Cleopatra’ Elizabeth Taylor, “was back on her farm in Virginia, she’s still trying to milk her chicken”.
Rickles’ reference to Cleopatra at Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985 also brought down the house (Burton died the previous year): “Elizabeth Taylor is backstage in a Cleopatra outfit killing snakes.”
Unlike Rickles, Hope was more self deprecating (even his snub nose was not off limits), the US patriot having described the Oscar at his home as, “the fugitive” and “passover”. He pulled no punches roasting old and new, short and tall, young and old. In 1968, he said of ‘The Graduate’ Dustin Hoffman, “I can’t imagine nominating a kid like Dustin Hoffman, he starred in a picture he cannot get in to see”. Dusty was not impressed.
Hope’s friend Rickles ran with the height jokes at the AFI Life Achievement Award for Martin Scorsese in 2010 when he opened with, “Somebody get a phone book so you can see me … 40 million jobs in show business, I got a midget to direct me”.
Rickles’ salute to the ‘little guy’ also included: “Marty when we see all the films you did, none of them were great. None of them.” Turning to Casino co-star Robert de Niro, “to know him is a treat, he’s one of the great actors of our time, you ask him. He’ll tell ya”.
UK comic Ricky Gervais revisited the ‘compliment’ at the 2020 Golden Globes: “Martin Scorsese said the Marvel films remind him of theme parks. I don’t know what he’s doing hanging around theme parks, he’s not big enough to go on the rides.”
Never having hosted the Oscars, Gervais described ‘Goodfellas’ Joe Pesci as Baby Yoda and Jonathan Price a pervert in ‘Two Popes’. “I don’t care,” Gervais declared (echoes of Rickles), adding to the cringe when he referred to ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ Leo Di Caprio’s date who was too old for him by the end of the Tarantino epic.
Rickles’ mates Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin said the pit boss in ‘Casino’ was so mean because, “he found out Eva Braun was two timing him”. Rickles replied to Martin: “You would love the evening if you knew you were here.”
At a 1973 Rickles’ roast of then-Governor Ronald Reagan: “I stand here next to Dean Martin, one of the great guys and I say this from my heart Dean, you have a problem.”
The Guv also copped it when he answered Rickles’ query about how to pronounce ‘Reagan’, the comic genius having replied: “I don’t care. What do I care what they call you. You’re the Governor and if I’ve got a cousin getting the chair, you better make that phone call.”
Rickles ended the ‘warm’ roast: “Black, white, Jew, Gentile, we’re all working for one one cause, to figure out how you became governor.”
At a 1973 TV celebrity ‘insult’ segment, Rickles wiped his sweaty face and asked the audience whether it had ever seen a Jewish guy with malaria, pointing into the crowd: “The Japanese guy went, ‘many times’.”
His ‘black’ jokes also took the insult to the edge of ‘racial’ comedy that today is out of bounds. In 2012, he said: “I shouldn’t make fun of the blacks … President Obama is a personal friend of mine. He was over to the house yesterday, but the mop broke.” On another occasion, Rickles pointed to members of the crowd and claimed while he was entertaining them, “one of you is in my hotel room robbing me”.
At the Jim Carrey-hosted AFI Life Achievement Award for Clint Eastwood in 1996, Rickles launched: “I say it. Nobody else has said it and I say it from my heart. You’re a lousy actor.” Even Carrey was surprised.
Of crazy hair stand-up Phyllis Diller, Rickles offered: “When we go on hunts, we run out of animals, we chase her”. Of comedian Jerry Seinfeld: “He is a wonderful guy, you talk to him, it’s like being alone.”
Of ‘Citizen Kane’ Orson Welles, he said: “This man was married to a great many women in his life. They’re all flat now. But this is a great creative talent. I cannot say enough about him. I will not embarrass him. I’ve made jokes about him, because I’ve always believed when you’re important you certainly are open to ridicule, fun and criticism. This man is open mostly to fun, certainly not ridicule, he’s a fantastic artist.” He then added when he leaned over and introduced himself, Welles joked: “Who cares.”
At a 1978 Frank Sinatra roast, Rickles joked: “I make fun of blacks, whites, Jews, Italians. Well, Jews. We’re the chosen people, we had a few bum breaks, I must admit that … the Red Sea trick.”
Rickles later said of his style of insult comedy, “I crossed the line when nobody else could do it. I exaggerate all our selves, our beings. I make fun of everything, of our life and what we are. But I don’t tell jokes, really. I just exaggerate life, and it comes out funny”.
Derek, Dolly & Miss Piggy
THE 1980s and 1990s saw groundbreaking cinematic successes, but on stage Hollywood faced challenges over sex, gender, politics and racism that continue to plague the Oscars.
In 1980, having already referred to actress Bo Derek and Dolly Parton’s physical features, American TV host Johnny Carson added, “the muppet movies worked very hard to get a G rating, in the bed scene with Kermit, Ms Piggy had to keep one loin on the floor”.
In 1984, Carson commented that Sean Connery’s Bond was getting old, “in case he’s captured by the enemy, he now carries a cyanide suppository”.
In 1988, during a writer’s strike, actor comedcian Chevy Chase opened with, “good evening Hollywood phoneys”, and in 1995, TV host David Letterman inappropriately promised ‘losers’ would not go home empty handed: “In fact, all nominees in the best actress category will get the opportunity to have a child with Anthony Quinn.”
In 2005, comedian Chris Rock described Clint Eastwood and Denzel Washington as stars but, “Toby MaQuire is just a boy in tights”.
In 2010, Steve Martin declared, “look, there’s that damn Helen Mirren”. Co-host Alec Baldwin corrected him, “that’s Dame Helen Mirren”, before referring to his ‘threesome’ with Martin and Meryl Streep in ‘It’s Complicated’. Baldwin later added: “Did you know that the moustache Brad Pitt wore in ‘Inglourious Basterds’ was the same one Salma Hayek wore in ‘Frida’.
In 2012, ‘fast ball’ Billy Crystal urged the audience to, “enjoy yourselves because nothing can take the sting out of the world’s economic problems like watching millionaires present each other with golden statues”.
As Gervais said at the 2020 Golden Globes, “Let’s have a laugh at your own expense. Remember, they’re just jokes, we’re all going to die soon and there’s no sequel”. His advice to end the evening, “get drunk, take your drugs, fuck off”.
Given the ‘slapgate’ fallout, Aussie Paul Hogan put it perfectly in 1986: “Fellow workers, brothers, workmates, you’re here to sweat. This program is live. There’s about 1000 million people watching you. So you remember, one wrong word, one foolish gesture, your whole career can go down in flames. Hold that thought and have a nice night, you hear.”
