The year was 1986, the Oscars were coming up, and Cher had been snubbed for her role in the movie “Mask.” She had not received the nomination for Best Actress, despite critical acclaim around her performance. Instead, she had been asked to present the award for Best Supporting Actor.... Mackie, in a 2008 interview... recalled telling Cher: “You can’t wear this to the Academy Awards. You’re giving an award — you’re going to upstage whoever you give it to.’”
But Cher, he said, insisted: “She said, “Oh, they won’t mind, it’ll be OK.’”Here she is, in what was experienced as extremely outré at the time, giving the Oscar to Don Ameche, who performed his acceptance in a traditional and highly dignified style that the actorly audience ate up:
Cher went on to win the Best Actress Oscar in 1988, and here's how she looked, once again dressed by Bob Mackie (whom you see on screen right after Paul Newman announces Cher as the winner):
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19 comments:
Well...Cher was always Cher, for good and bad. She was great in Moonstruck, one of my all-time favorite movies. The screenplay is one of the very best. Paul Newman handing you an Oscar has to be an all-time night.
Don Ameche was also great in a lesser known movie of his called "Things Change" (written by David Mamet). Check it out sometime.
Cher was good in Witches of Eastwick.
I'm glad Cher won. Meryl Streep - can't stand her.
Cher was good in Suspect (1987). Bad overacting by Liam Neeson though.
Cher calls in to Imus something you didn't know about Cher
Cher's son in Mask, Eric Stoltz, was all over the place in the 90s and the turn of the century in independent pictures. Then the superhero flicks took over. Maybe people got tired of quirky little indy romcoms, but surely they ought to be sick of comic book and scifi franchises by now
Temujin is right about Things Change.
Is it a witch theme today? "The moon, the moon did it." I'm a big anti-adultery man in my art -- in life, too, really -- but it is kind of funny, these people whose emotions get so out of control and they can't resist their impulses. She knows it's bad and she does it anyway. Maybe she broke it off with the brother before they were married? I can't remember.
It's similar to one of my favorites, Four Weddings and a Funeral, which features a man who is about to marry a woman he does not love, and that conflict comes to a head during the wedding service itself. Dude.
Anyway, Cher is fantastic in Moonstruck. Now I want to watch it again. I haven't seen it in almost 40 years.
I'd like to say more but the Ameche is ringing ...
Fans of Don Ameche ought to watch Midnight. Screenplay by Billy Wilder. Absolutely fantastic movie, A+ all the way, one of the finest screwballs Hollywood has ever made. Claudette Colbert is the star in that one, but Ameche is right there. Hilarious performance. Maybe his Oscar win was a make-up call for decades of ignorance. Midnight got zero nominations for an Oscar. Which is like omitting to give Hitchcock any awards for Best Director, overlooking the Marx brothers and W.C. Fields. I mean, the Academy sucks marbles. Anyway, do check out Midnight if you like screwballs. It's amazing.
I’m struck by the quality of the nominated films for this Oscar category and by Don Ameche’s brief, appreciative and non-political acceptance speech.
“You can’t wear this to the Academy Awards. You’re giving an award — you’re going to upstage whoever you give it to.’”
Upstage is one word for it. It's like a bondage outfit. And the Bride of Frankenstein hair. I don't think she's going for sexy, it's more like she wanted to shock people. I like her humor about it. Very purposeful, with her dress and her joke about the dress.
The second dress, when she won? Very classy and beautiful. If you want your dress to match your emotions, Mackie is the man. That first dress is a Hollywood smackdown. And that second dress, "Look at me, I am beautiful."
Cher - by herself - wrecked the music industry. She was the first one to use Autotune. She made it popular. It has infected popular music except country. That's why country is so popular now. Real music with real voices; more or less.
Bob Mackie got upstaged by that curtain-rod costume he designed for Carol Burnett. Belly buttons come and go, but that curtain rod costume is forever. She first wore that costume in 1976, and the joke is still funny.
Rebel with a clause.
Cher was really great in moonstruck. The real star of that movie is the screenplay itself.
obviously individuals remain uninformed about issues they have little knowledge of. (most likely limited playlists) AUTOTUNE=How It Is Used in Country Music in the Studio: Producers use pitch correction heavily on modern country tracks to save time and ensure a polished sound. Unlike hip-hop, where Auto-Tune is often pushed hard as an obvious robotic effect, country music producers generally use subtle settings. They correct notes without flattening natural vocal slides, bends, or emotional breaks. [Live Performances: Some mainstream acts use real-time pitch correction on stage as a safety net if a singer is tired or dealing with bad stage acoustics. More time doing homework is always helpful before making uninformed statements in general.
“"They said I wasn’t going to win an Oscar because my boyfriends were too young”
That’s what they said about Kevin Spacey and he won two.
I’m impressed that I have heard of almost all the nominated films and have watched many of them. That is not true of recent Oscar nominations.
I think Don Ameche dressed himself just fine.
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