Victims of the Best Supporting Actress curse

list them! I always read this but don't know who they are talking about.

• Abigail Breslin, even though she lost to the heavy black girl. Such a shame to hit a career peak at 13.

  DF

• Dorothy Malone of "Written on the Wind" was always considered the ultimate example. Rita Moreno too. Always thought it only applied to winners though, not nominees.

  btt

• Mira Sorvino owns this thread.

  Thanks%20for%20the%20career%20advice%2C%20Quentin%21

• Not sure Rita Moreno really qualifies, given that she ended up winning her Tony, two Emmys, a Grammy, et cetera after her Oscar. She's stayed in pretty high demand. Similarly, I don't think Geena Davis, Goldie Hawn, Jessica Lange or Whoopi Goldberg can complain too much. In some cases, there were other circumstances at play: late in life wins (Helen Hayes, Ruth Gordon, Margaret Rutherford, Peggy Ashcroft), blacklisting (Gale Sondergaard, Anne Revere, Lee Grant), careers limited by race (Butterfly McQueen, Miyoshi FUCKING Umeki) and other issues (Marisa Tomei's career took a serious hit after the whisper campaign about Jack Palance calling the wrong name). Mira Sorvino? Definitely. Brenda Fricker, too, but calling it a "curse" is a bit of a stretch.

• Jennifer Connelly Renee Zellweger

• Haha R3. I was gonna post the same thing.

  Anonymous

• the most recent example I can think of is Renee Zellwegger. Everybody loved her and then she won the Oscar. That's when the backlash seemed to begin. Marisa Tomei is also a great example. People really hated her for winning the Oscar. It's only recently that she's been able to crawl back to acceptance. It seems that if you're a leading lady and you win one people resent you for it and if you're a character actress, you just keep plugging along in your usual unnoticed way.

• Lila Kedrova Jo Van Fleet Tatum O'Neal Beatrice Straight Linda Hunt Brenda Fricker Mercedes Ruehl Going back earlier: Katina Paxinou Gale Sondergaard and Anne Revere - both blacklisted. Gloria Grahame's career pretty much tanked after her Oscar Jane Darwell, Hattie McDaniel, Miyoshi Umeki and Josephine Hull won for pretty much their only really good film role. and then there's Geena Davis AND YES, ABOVE ALL, Mira Sorvino

• Has any lady won the award for Supporting Actress who then became a leading actress of any note? I guess Goldie Hawn is the only one I can think of off-hand. Did Geena Davis win before or after she became a big star? I believe in the old days, the studios wouldn't even allow their major stars to be nominated in supporting roles. It might have happened in some of those 1930s all-star films like Joan Crawford in Grand Hotel.

• r4, really? Butterfly McQueen? Oh, deyah. It was HATTIE MCDANIEL who won BSA in GONE WITH THE WIND. No one nominated Butterfly "OCD" McQueen for anything.

• [quote]the most recent example I can think of is Renee Zellwegger. Everybody loved her I never loved her.

  i%20don%27t%20hate%20her%20either

• [quote] Has any lady won the award for Supporting Actress who then became a leading actress of any note? Meryl Streep, Kramer vs. Kramer Anjelica Huston, Prizzi's Honor Angelina Jolie, Girl Interrupted

• Butterfly McQueen had OCD, r10?

• r8 = eldergay

• Rita Moreno, Jesus Fucking Christ! Rita Moreno has had a damned good career in the 50 years since West Side Story, in all media, and it's still going strong. There's just no pleasing some of you fools.

• Allegedly, R13, McQueen wore gloves all the time and didn't like to shake hands. Maybe it wasn't OCD per se, but certainly eccentric, if it is true.

• r4, when was Butterfly McQueen ever an oscar nominee, let alone a winner? Do you mean Hattie McDaniel?

• R13 = obsessed with eldergays and in need of a life.

• Marisa Tomei has worked steadily in theater and movies (although she couldn't transition to romantic leading lady, it wasn't her fault, the material sucked, not that that's stopped lesser talents). She has had two oscar nominations since her win, much maligned but actually much deserved, for My Cousin Vinnie, and her second nomination, for In The Bedroom, was 12 years ago, not exactly "recent," r4. She also should have been nominated for Before The Devil Knows Your Dead, a great film Oscar ignored, even though it was Lumet's last, but wasn't. Ruth Gordon, one of the great ladies of the American stage and one of America's greatest screenwriters, went on to appear in many films after Rosemary's Baby, in spite of her advanced years, including her star turn in the classic Harold and Maude. Lee Grant was blacklisted decades before her win for Shampoo, and she had two additional nominations to her credit before then, one before her blacklisting, and one after.

• "Has any lady won the award for Supporting Actress who then became a leading actress of any note?" Anne Baxter Eva Marie Saint Goldie Hawn Jessica Lange (already a leading lady, with a leading nomination in the year she got her supporting oscar) Teresa Wright (ditto) Rachel Weisz (already a leading lady) Tilda Swinton (a leading lady for many years before her recent win, but her career as a leading lady has skyrocketed since her recent win) Judi Dench (huge film career in both leading and supporting roles following her oscar win, multiple oscar nominations, before and after oscar victory in both categories) Anna Paquin (Fly Away Home, Margaret, leading lady on hit tv series) Ruth Gordon (Harold and Maude) Anjelica Huston Meryl Streep * * * Then there are these supporting oscar winners who were already major film stars by the time they won their supporting oscars (which in some cases were not their first oscars, and in some not their last, or both). In all cases, their supporting oscar wins in no way slowed their careers. Dame Wendy Hiller Helen Hayes Ingrid Bergman Dame Maggie Smith Juliette Binoche Cate Blanchett Penelope Cruz Vanessa Redgrave (a star at the time of her oscar win, her leading roles in films multiplied exponentially thereafter)

• as well as Angelina Jolie and Geena Davis

  r20

• and, in the second batch, Mary Astor

  r20-21

• The eldergay shit is beginning to take on a hate-crime affect (yes, that's the term) among the shits using it. How about dropping it when conventional gay topics such as films come up? Especially when the ones you try to nail ineffectively are subject to easy jabs from a substantive position: R8, you obviously don't know what you're talking about and just looking at a book or web site and checking for names doesn't do the trick. At least show some knowledge the way R20 did. Ass. Lila Kedrova - Never expected as Oscar and her career was unaffected by her surprising and gratifying win. Jo Van Fleet - At that stage of her career, receiving an Oscar for playing Cool Hand Luke's blousy dying mother wasn't curse. It was a blessing. Tatum O'Neal - Career suicide is not proof of an Oscar curse. Beatrice Straight - Her win was applauded but no one, included her, expected it to represent a sudden rush to the above-the-title spot. Linda Hunt - Oh, please, you idiot. She gets a win for playing an Indonesian man and as a quasi-little person manages to keep in the public eye ever since, and she was CURSED? Idiot. Brenda Fricker - Her continued successful career in her chosen areas and the fact her win was for a character role with a Euro focus means you're wrong. Mercedes Ruehl - Again, suicide doesn't mean a curse. Plus she has had plenty of chances. Going back earlier: Katina Paxinou - IDIOT. A character actress who continued working in America through the 1940s until she finally could head home. She worked in America occasionally, included on Broadway, and no one including her, etc. Her win was a celebration of a great performance, not the start of a career. Gale Sondergaard and Anne Revere - both blacklisted. Apparently you just don't know what the Curse refers to. Gloria Grahame's career pretty much tanked after her Oscar. --Uh, no. Jane Darwell, Hattie McDaniel, Miyoshi Umeki and Josephine Hull won for pretty much their only really good film role. --And what does this prove, nit? and then there's Geena Davis --So finally, after all this, you finally get round to something appropriate. AND YES, ABOVE ALL, Mira Sorvino --Likewise.

• R23, I don't know your age and I agree with you that 'eldergay' is getting old but you're not doing yourself any favors with a post that's the written equivalent of 'get off my lawn'. Somebody gets some facts wrong in expressing their opinion and they're automatically an idiot? And by the way, Jo Van Fleet didn't win for COOL HAND LUKE but for EAST OF EDEN but I don't think you're an idiot.

• R23, you sound hostile. Dial it back a little.

• [quote]blacklisting (Gale Sondergaard, Anne Revere, Lee Grant) Lee Grant wasn't affected by blacklisting after her Oscar win, which was in ... 1975? Blacklisting was long over by then. Her career resurgence had begun with two TV movies, the first Columbo and "The Neon Ceiling," both in the early 1970s (she won an Emmy for them). Whatever did or didn't happen after her Oscar win had nothing to do with blacklisting.

• I don't think there's a curse so much as if you're a character actress, that's what you are. Nobody ever expected Linda Hunt to become a leading lady after playing a dude, no matter how brilliant she was. The supporting winners who did have the beauty and sex appeal to be leading ladies, very often did become them, like Jessica Lange, like Angelina Jolie, like Eva Marie Saint. Or they were respected leading ladies already, maybe not sex symbols, but already famous: Blanchett, Redgrave, Maggie Smith. How much better could you expect Jane Darwell's career to be? She won an Oscar for Grapes of Wrath and also appeared in Gone with the Wind, The Ox-Bow Incident and My Darling Clementine. Most actors would kill to be in four movies that good. She was never going to be a leading lady given her age and physical appearance. That's a distinguished list of credits, though, by any standard.

• Actually, R26, Lee Grant's post-blacklist career resurgence on film began with her juicy role in "In the Heat of the Night", which won Best Picture in 1967. And she'd spent several years before that on "Peyton Place," one of TV's top shows. After "Heat" her film career was back and strong.

  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0335519/

  Norman Jewison

• To r23: Take your meds, dear.

• Lee Grant turns 84 next Monday!

  http://www.imdb.com/media/rm4224170496/nm0335519

• R25 and R29, I know. It's the persistent "eldergay" burr flicked over gay topics. The seeming hostility was to indicate the assholery possible without such reflexive and lazy jabs. Kisses to you both.

  R23

• r23, have you met the Anti-NuJack Troll? I think you two would get along.

• It was Grant's blacklisting that won her the Oscar, wasn't it? I mean, there can be no explanation other than a 'we're sorry' for giving her an Oscar for that mediocre piece of trash "Shampoo", is there? She beat Tomlin and Blakely in one of the greatest of all American films, "Nashville". Now, that's criminal.

• Tomlin and Blakely probably split the vote. I like SHAMPOO.

• Has any lady won the award for Supporting Actress who then became a leading actress of any note? R9 must be killed

  M

• Patty Duke. She went nowhere after stealing my Oscar.

  Angela%20Lansbury%20

• [quote]It was Grant's blacklisting that won her the Oscar, wasn't it? Yes plus she'd had a two other nominations prior that she lost so she was due. Plus the 70's were awards were very much about recognising the old guard (Art Carney, George Burns) and not new talent. Also Lily was from TV and comedy...not a plus and Ronee was considered more of a singer than an actress so---Lee won. Too bad in a way since had they waited a year they could have given it to her for Voyage of the Damned. Grant has stated she thought Shampoo was the least Oscar worthy of the 4 performances she was nominated for.

• Kim Basinger

  @AlecBaldwin

• How did Mercedes Ruehl commit career suicide r23?

• hard to believe Grant wasn't even nominated for Heat of the Night The other nominees weren't much: Bonnie and Clyde: Estelle Parsons NOMINEES Thoroughly Modern Millie: Carol Channing Barefoot in the Park: Mildred Natwick Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: Beah Richards The Graduate: Katharine Ross

• [quote]In some cases, there were other circumstances at play: late in life wins... Helen Hayes It was Helen's second Oscar, she had won Best Actress in 1931 for "The Sin of Madelon Claudet". No curse there. [quote]How did Mercedes Ruehl commit career suicide [R23]? Yeah, she should have won again for "Married To The Mob".

• Married to the Mob was prior to The Fisher King

• For those Rita Moreno fans upset by the comment, I recall it was RITA HERSELF who always talked about it -- yes, she eventually had comebacks on TV and such but it was slow going for her after her win. She expressed true shock that there were no roles for her Latin spitfire looks, didn't work for years and it's true; she almost had to get older to be cast again. And, if you think about it, with that song and dance and acting skill, she really should be more of a legend than she is (to the general public). A Liza, at least.

  btt

• Come to think of it The Electric Company must have been quite a comedown for an Oscar winning actress.

• [quote]For those Rita Moreno fans upset by the comment, I recall it was RITA HERSELF who always talked about it -- yes, she eventually had comebacks on TV and such but it was slow going for her after her win. She expressed true shock that there were no roles for her Latin spitfire looks, didn't work for years and it's true; she almost had to get older to be cast again. Looking at Rita's IMDB page, I don't see big gaps of time where Rita Moreno didn't work. Granted there wasn't much in the way of prestige projects, but for the most part the best supporting actress award at that time went to a character actress or a second tier ingenue. [quote]Mercedes Ruehl - Again, suicide doesn't mean a curse. Plus she has had plenty of chances. Well at the time she won she was a 44 year old character actress and went back to doing that after she won. [quote]Linda Hunt - Oh, please, you idiot. She gets a win for playing an Indonesian man and as a quasi-little person manages to keep in the public eye ever since, and she was CURSED? Idiot. I don't see this either. She is a character actress that hasn't stopped working since she won. Sure the prestige projects aren't that many, but she's worked steadily over the years, is on a hit series, and has made a fortune doing voiceover work. I don't any of that would have happened had Pete Weir not cast her in "The Year of Living Dangerously."

• Given Linda Hunt's appearance and height, that she has had the career she has since winning an Oscar is a testament to her success. Great actress, but seriously odd looking to say the least.

• So I guess the moral of this thread is that unless you're a beautiful young blonde, winning the Supporting Actress Oscar only insures more of the same character actress work...at best.

• [quote]So I guess the moral of this thread is that unless you're a beautiful young blonde, winning the Supporting Actress Oscar only insures more of the same character actress work...at best. A good character actress will work until she drops dead (Alfre Woodard, Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, Kathy Bates, Marcia Gay Harden). A leading lady where her looks and youth are the two biggest selling points won't. Most of the winners from the last 40 years have been character actress. Streep, Lange, and Jolie became leading ladies. Lange's Oscar was a consolation prize for Frances and was borderline category fraud. Her four other nominees were all character actresses at that point in time (Garr, Warren, Stanley, and Close.)

• Not winning the Oscar never hurt Thelma Ritter's career.

• I remember when Rita Moreno showed up in CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, in what was essentially a cameo at the end giving Jack Nicholson a blow job, the buzz was both, "Only ten years after the Oscar, and she's reduced to this" as well as "wow, she's really good, too bad she's doing just a cameo." It was really Googie Gomez and "The Ritz" and the Tony that put her back on top. The pickings were incredibly slim for her after the Oscar, which led to her suicide attempt, and then to stage work (Broadway and London).

• I'll have you know that Brenda Fricker stars in Albert Nobbs alongside 2012 Best Actress winner Glenn Close!

• Reduced to doing theatre, dead husband (well almost), bipolar....has any other winner suffered as much as I have? All this plus turning 35! Wow.

  Ms. Zeta-Jones (plus a special needs child!!!---I win!)

• Wow reply 50, everything you say is wrong. "Only ten years after the Oscar, and she's reduced to this", please "Carnal Knowledge" was a major critic hit, no one thought it was a step down but a very brave role in a controversial movie for the times. Before "The Ritz" she starred for five years in "The Electric" Company", a show people everyday come up to her to talk about. [quote]The pickings were incredibly slim for her after the Oscar, which led to her suicide attempt. Horseshit. She was upset over her failed love affair with Marlon Brando. Common knowledge, as well as talked about in her new one woman show.

• Obviously, Moreno's not having a career as great as many would have liked for her probably has more to do with her being Latina than it does with her having won an oscar. Still, Rita has had a very strong career, of the kind of duration most actors can only dream about, but one built primarily outside of the movie business.

• R37, they could have "given it to her for Voyage of the Damned"? Have you ever actually seen that film? Grant's performance reaches new heights of camp when she cuts off her own hair and screams of her fate as a lost Jewess aboard a ship that will not be saving her. It's a laughable performance in a moribund film honestly taking itself way too seriously. Katherine Ross, if anyone, is the female supporting performance that should've been cited. Actually, to think of it, Rita Moreno's turn in The Ritz (1976) could've easily replaced Grant's thus shutting the former up about her lack of post-Oscar success. (And, I'm not an "eldergay", btw. Just a movie fag.)

• "Jo Van Fleet - At that stage of her career, receiving an Oscar for playing Cool Hand Luke's blousy dying mother wasn't curse. It was a blessing." huh? Jo Van Fleet didn't win an oscar for Cool Hand Luke. She won an oscar for a movie that came out many years earlier. East of Eden. Mercedes Ruehl? Suicide? Mercedes Ruehl is primarily a stage star, and a great and popular one. And, as far as I know, she has a very good life and has never tried to kill herself. It's unfortunate she couldn't find the right niche in the movies though. The question is would these actresses have had bigger movie careers if oscar hadn't shone on them? Hard to see how that would have happened. The only theory I can muster is that when an actress is widely seen as giving a great performance that oscar completely ignores (this would clearly apply to Ruehl's performance in Married to the Mob), perhaps people are excited about her as, forgive the expression but we are talking Hollywood casting, "fresh meat," and so they are suddenly hot properties, and perhaps even get great roles that have "oscar written all over them." Once that victory happens, the town moves on to the next flavor of the month. That may be the case. However, is this only the case with supporting winners? It seems even some (but not all) stars with major careers somehow often don't get as interesting roles after they win best actress. That milestone past, some ladies go into a new stage of their career, one with fewer and fewer interesting movie roles (let's call this the Charlize Theron syndrome, albeit one she might be soon to recover from with her latest film, let's hope) Also consider: Helen Hunt Halle Berry Cher Reese Witherspoon Nicole Kidman Susan Sarandon Marion Cotillard works a great deal and has gotten some nice roles, but not a single lead Arguably, Winslet's career on film is slowing down as well, notwithstanding Carnage It will be interesting to see if Natalie Portman goes the way of Fay Dunaway. Might a producer with a very hot role for a leading lady who wants a star be more likely to cast someone ripe to win an oscar (someone who is seen as being owed an oscar because they haven't gotten one yet), like say a Julianne Moore or an Annette Bening, rather than a Frances McDormand or a Charlize Theron? I don't know. I'm just posing the question.

• "Mercedes Ruehl - Again, suicide doesn't mean a curse. Plus she has had plenty of chances." WTF?????

• Mercedes Ruehl is a bitch. End of discussion.

• Ruehl is really nasty. When she makes a film she refuses to do her lines for the other actors. She just does her shots then goes home.

• R56 in regards to Cotillard she stated in the past that she intentionally chose not to take on lead roles. Though that of course changes with Low Life by James Gray.

• I only take supporting roles too, Marion.

  www.goop.com

• I'm curious. Why did Cotillard, at least for a time, decide not to take any leading roles? Did she prefer the featured roles she was being offered to the leads? Did she feel it was a way of getting more experience in a variety of projects that would take less time? Or was it something else?

• Angelina Jolie. What the fuck ever happened to HER career? LOLZ!

  JA

• If there is such a thing as a curse, it does seem to visit lead winners as often as it does supporting ones. For instance, has Holly Hunter given a single significant performance on film since The PIano?

• She wasn't that comfortable acting in English. She worked really hard at her accent after she won the Oscar and so many American films wanted her. I think she wanted to start in small manageable roles and not blow her chances. (Her English has really improved BTW. She has managed to do what Penelope Cruz, Juliette Binoche, and others never could.)

• # 64: Yes, she has. She was in Thirteen in 2003 and won another supporting oscar nomination for it.

  Anonymous