Yes, it’s Oscar time again. This year’s broadcast is on March 2. So, let’s fire up the old movie-trivia-machine and test your Tinsel Town knowledge of the Academy Awards with this little quiz (answers follow).
1. In his Oscar-winning role in 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy what great personality did James Cagney portray?
2. Who has personally collected more Oscars than any other man?
3. Which actor won the same Oscar for two years in a row? Hint: it was in 1993 and 1994.
4. Who won the first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor?
5. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert starred in the only movie to win Oscars for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Movie. Which movie was it and who was the director?
6. Who was the oldest woman to win the Best Actress award?
7. In 1968, this actress accepted her Oscar, looked at it and said, “Hello Gorgeous!” Who was that actress and what was her movie?
8. In 1957, these five songs were nominated for the Oscar: An Affair to Remember, All The Way, April Love, Tammy, and Wild is the Wind. Which song got the Oscar?
9. What was the first colour movie to win an Academy Award?
10. What 1954 movie won Grace Kelly her Oscar?
11. This Oscar-winning actress did a cameo and was not listed in the credits of the 1971 movie, The Boyfriend. Who is she?
12. How many times has Martin Scorsese won the Oscar for Best Director?
13. What was the first foreign film to win the Best Picture award?
14. What movie won all four acting Oscars?
15. Who was the first entertainer to perform at an Oscar ceremony?
Answers
1. Cagney portrayed George M. Cohan.
2. This one’s easy, isn’t it? Yes, it’s Walt Disney, who collected 26 Oscars himself before his death.
3. Tom Hanks won the Best Actor award for Philadelphia in 1993 and then the following year for Forrest Gump, which won a total of six Oscars in 1994.
4. It was Walter Brennan for the 1936 film, Come and Get it. You'll probably remember Walter from TV’s, The Real McCoys.
5. The movie was, It Happened One Night, directed by Frank Capra in 1934.
6. Jessica Tandy won in 1989 for Driving Miss Daisy.
7. It was Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl in which she portrayed Fanny Brice.
8. And the winner was All The Way.
9. It was the biggy, Gone With the Wind.
10. Grace Kelly won in 1954 for The Country Girl.
11. Glenda Jackson, who won the Best Actress Oscar a year earlier in 1970 for Women in Love, and for A Touch of Class in 1973.
12. In the past, this made a good “trick” question as, surprisingly, for years and years, Scorsese had never won the Best Director award. That’s surprising, since he directed some great movies and was nominated five times. Finally, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006).
13. Hamlet, which has the further distinction of the Best Actor winner directing himself in the Best Movie. Laurence Olivier directed the movie and also won the Best Actor Oscar.
14. A trick question. In fact, no movie has ever won all four acting Oscars. Network came close in 1976 with three: Peter Finch (posthumously) for Best Actor, Faye Dunaway for Best Actress and Beatrice Straight for Best Supporting Actress.
In case you’re wondering, and I sense that you are, the Best Supporting Actor award that year went to Jason Robards in All the President’s Men.
15. Somehow, it seems like it should be Bob Hope, who had such a long association with Oscar night down through the years. But, it was actually Al Jolson, who sang at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.