F. Murray Abraham, where does the bad reputation come from?

He's apparently arrogant, prickly and has lorded his Oscar over cast and crew.

Still? That seems odd given the very limited success he's had since Amadeus.

Fun fact Andrew Lloyd Weber was offered his part in Amadeus and said no.

He lucked out with Amadeus and was always destined with the life of a character actor in supporting parts. Does anyone know why Paul Scofield didn't reprise his role from Broadway? Did Forman even ask him? As great as Abraham was would've love to have seen Scofield in it.

He's great as Dar in Homeland.

OP, it's been well-documented that after Abraham won an Oscar, he felt it made him superior to everyone else.

So on his next movie, 'The Name of the Rose', Abraham told directer Jean-Jacques Annaud that he wanted to be treated as more important than Sean Connery on the set. Arnaud talks about Abraham's attitude on the DVD commentary.

(Connery would later win his own Oscar for 'The Untouchables', but in 1986, Connery wasn't yet an Oscar winner).

I'll always remember him as the mincing queen from "The Ritz".

I remember right after the Oscar win someone asked what he was going to do next and he said he really wanted to work with Bergman. I was young back then but I could sense the arrogance wafting off of him...

He taught in the theatre program at Brooklyn College after his Iscar win -- that's pretty humble.

Probably because he had so few offers of employment, R9.

He also turned off a lot of his peers with his pompous proclamation of Geraldine Page as "The greatest actress in the English Language" when he announced her Oscar win.

I worked with him many years ago in sumer stock, long before anyone had heard of him. Back then in the early 1970s he was a wild, raunchy, off-beat sexy and very funny man who seemed highly pansexual to little teen gay me. No, he never came on to me, at least, I don't think so!

He pings sometimes, but I think he is straight.

I liked him in Mighty Aphrodite. And he was, of course, brilliant in Amadeus. But, that announcement of Geraldine Page is about on par with Julia "God, I love my life" Roberts announcing Denzel as the Oscar winner in levels of arrogance and obnoxiousness.

He's great as Dar Adal on "Homeland." I wonder if he and another prickly, arrogant actor, Mandy Patinkin, ever ego clash on set. I've never really heard any backstage stories from that show. (I wouldn't be surprised one bit if you had told me that Claire Danes and Damien Lewis fucked once.)

R11 is correct. His pompous bowing and nauseating obsequiousness when presenting the Oscar to Geraldine Page truly disgusted most of the Hollywood elite. 39 years later that stench is still to wear off.

R4 is right - Abraham was never going to be a "star" in the real sense of the word. As for Scofield (who played the role in London) or Ian McKellan (who did it on Broadway to acclaim), they probably wouldn't have been considered seriously as Milos Forman is the sort of director who would not want any kind of "this is the way I did it on stage" baggage on the set, so he cast actors who had not done the play.

Abraham gives a decent performance in a supporting role in "Nostradamus" (1994) opposite Tchéky Karyo.

It's the sort of eccentric supporting turn that suits him better.

The irony is that Page's win was a popular one, some might have even said sentimental. However, Abraham's statement rubbed just about everyone the wrong way and most thought it was very disrespectful to the other nominees, much less other non-nominated actresses in the auditorium. Along with Ann Reinking's Against All Odds slaughter, it would be a prime example of what a bad Oscar performance can do to your career.

[quote]I worked with him many years ago in sumer stock

So you worked with some of the famous Sumerian actresses as well?

I didn't find his praise of Geraldine offensive or obnoxious at all. People can be so oversensitive.

He's ugly, with a pock marked face. No exactly leading man material. Tom Hulce also disappeared within a couple of years of his breakthrough role. He got obese (maybe from being in the closet too long). Last thing I saw him in was Stranger than Fiction, and I didn't realise it was him until the credits!

It's okay to praise an actress you admire, R20, but it's in appropriate to go as over the top as Abraham did when presenting the award.

Why not just present the award and leave it at that? Why the need for him to insert himself into the award announcement by editorializing & pontificating?

R15 Scofield did it in London ah I remember now. Didn't McKellan win the Tony for it?

Simon Callow originated the Mozart role, and he also has a part in the movie. He would have been great in the film, but he never seemed to break out of character roles.

It's interesting that Tom Hulce had an even less successful acting career than Abraham.

Hulce ended up having to go into directing on Broadway and giving up his film career completely.

Didn't Abraham also genuflect to Page when he presented the Oscar to her?

I always think the great makeup for the old Salieri gave him the Oscar. He was good as the young Salieri, but not really Oscar worthy.

The actress who played Mozart's wife, Elizabeth Berridge, should have gotten the Oscar, or at least a nomination. She was amazing!

[quote]Simon Callow originated the Mozart role, and he also has a part in the movie.

So only gays can play Mozart?

R28, yes. Alan Sues turned 'em all down to continue his Peter Pan Peanut Butter commercial commitments.

I think Hulce used to identify as bisexual.

Now he seems to be completely gay.

Tom Hulce continued acting for awhile even picking up an Emmy for the Heidi Chronicles and golden globe nom for Dominick and Eugene. Just looked up his IMDb his last movie gig was 2008 so he's really out of the movie biz.

Last I heard anything about Hulce was that he directed Peter Parnell's two-part stage adaptation of THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, but that was a while ago. He mostly produces now (was a lead producer of the first Broadway production of SPRING AWAKENING and of AMERICAN IDIOT).

R32, I remember the threads. People were shocked to see him when he went onstage to get his awards. Not a pretty sight.

I think Hulce is quite fat now, yes, R33?

I remember thinking that he barely resembled the way he used to look in 1984.

Fat and scraggly. Like Sondheim at his worst.

Tom and F Murray. Who looks the oldest?

I remembered seeing Hulce replace Peter Firth in Equus. As cute as he was, I was so disappointed to see his little weenie, so puny in comparison to Firth's uncut monster.

[quote]Who looks the oldest?

Oh, dear.

I worked with him before, early on as a day player, and he couldn't have been more polite and conversational with someone with had no power or sway on the set. I found these rumors surprising.

Given the way Streep's ass gets kissed at every awards gala, I don't find Abraham's statement to be that bad.

At least he didn't compare her to a Stradivarius the way Goldie did with Meryl. Talk about over the top.

He's a wonderful voice-over narrator.

But he got that way - pissy, arrogant, full of himself - because when he was a teen people would pitch pennies at his face and the coins invariably would land and stick in the pockies.

Three deep.

I loved his narration in "The Grand Budapest Hotel."

R36 God knows Abraham is not hot but that's a good pic of him. Looks like he hasn't aged in 30 years. Hulce looks older.

I was in the Amadeus movie as well. How come nobody talks about me? And I played two different Broadway shows at the same time. Let's see F. Murray do two Broadway shows at once.

Loved him as Omar Suarez in "Scarface".

Page deserved better than that pandering, condescending performance by Abraham before and during the awarding of the Oscar.

Geraldine deserved an Oscar for her supporting role in "Pete & Tillie" with Carol Burnett. She was fucking hysterical and acted Carol off the screen.

This scene is even better than the Shirley/Anne fight in "The Turning Point." I can't find the scene that precedes this one where Geraldine is asked for her age for something. She just can't bring herself to utter it.

Page should have won Best Supporting the year before for her role in Pope of Greenwich Village.

I absolve you!

I liked Page as the voice of Medusa in 'The Rescuers'.

Ugh her performance in Pope of Greenwich Village was pure unadulterated ham. You could see the work.

Page was the queen of ham. Her hankerchief in The Trip to Bountiful should have sued her for abuse. Always playing to the balcony, that one. That she received so many Oscar nominations shows what kind of rubes make up the Academy voters.

Tim Curry played Mozart on Broadway, so r28's theory is working out. Tom Hulce was adorable as Pinto in "Animal House."

I just re-watched the infamous giving the Oscar to Geraldine clip and just noticed the over-wrought, affected verklempt sound Abraham makes before he announces Page as the "greatest living actress in the English language." It's just such a tryhard, embarrassing moment.

I agree.

There's no need to make it about yourself at the Oscars.

Present the damn award and get off the stage.

I think since it was Pages eighth time at bat he wanted to sweeten it for her by announcing her that way and they obviously had worked together in the theatre and he had a lotta of affection for her so I didn't find it THAT bad. But make no mistake he did play the role of a presenter to the hilt with the darting eyes and stuff. I've seen worse presenter nonsense on awards shows.

Only Julia's Roberts' presentation to Denzel is worse.

Also, Sean Connery saying just "Catherine" when Catherine Zeta-Jones won. Kathy Bates had this look on her face like, "Really? WTF?"

Bump

Bump

I seem to remember HBT in the one of the Herbert Ross threads saying that one of his biggest disappointments was meeting Tom Hulce and he came across as very cold. Maybe Forman only cast cold arrogant douchebags in that movie.

Maybe it's his God awful complexion that makes him so difficult.

Murray was wonderful in the Fruit of the Loom commercials.

Eff Murray

BDF for days.

After a year of ill treatment from her husband, post "Amadeus," Meg Tilly learned of her husband's encounter with F. Murray Abraham in Czechoslovakia.

21:13

[Quote] I was in the hospital. I had lost the part of my life and F. Murray Abraham invited Tim [Zinnemann, Tilly's husband] to dinner [...] Then [Abraham] told him that Tom Hulce and I were having an affair. Like, we weren't having an affair. We were friends. Like, who would do that?! He's such a terrible person to do that [...] It was the worst type of, like, meanness that you could possibly do. [...] That man is a terrible man to do something like that somebody innocent who has never done him any wrong. [...] Anybody who knows Tom and who knows me, there's no way, we were just friends [...] So that was a terrible, terrible thing that he did. And I remember, I had been offered another film, and they offered me a lot of money, but it was working opposite F. Murray Abraham, and I said "No". [...] Because It thought 'If I ever see him--'. I'm not a violent person, but if I ever see him, I would punch him on the nose.

Isn’t Tom Hulce gay? Is Meg Tilly’s husband very very stupid? And why didn’t he ask her, instead of stewing and acting like a passive-aggressive cunt? What Abraham did was pretty awful, but Meg’s husband sounds like a jerk, too.

Communicate.

Her husband was indeed a dick. She let him nix multiple opportunities in her career.

She mentions in the video that her husband was chuckling before he revealed the truth. She doesn't elaborate, because she's a class act, but I expect the chuckle was because Zinnemann had found out that Hulce was gay.

He's a character player. Either you get used to it or you make everyone else miserable. Page was awful in "Bountiful", emoting all over the place, gnawing through scenery like a starving child, but giving Oscar to a distinguished actress of the "legitimate theater" once in while makes Hollywood proud of itself.

People thought he was Jewish, but he's really Lebanese Christian.

R16 'Amadeus' was a play written by an Englishman in the English language.

I thought the movie was hopeless as the Czechoslovakian director obviously knew none of the nuances of the language. I suspect he would have preferred to tell the story in Pantomime or Dumb-Show with Mozart and Salieri played by Noddy and Eeyore.

R4 Scofield was a prickly perverse man. He was more interested in Peter Brook's weird stage productions than pleasing movie audiences. (I thought there'd be a torrent of gossip about him after his death but I haven't come across much yet.)

[quote] I always think the great makeup for the old Salieri gave him the Oscar.

Well, R27, that's the exact reason the tedious Streep nabbed an Oscar for her impersonation of Thatcher.

R3 I assume you're making a joke here.

[Quote] (I thought there'd be a torrent of gossip about him after his death but I haven't come across much yet.)

Well, share what you know.

Hulce was quite thin and smooth when he was playing Alan Strang in "Equus"; he was quite good, too. He got quite a bit hairier later on, it seems.

Ian McKellen gave one of the great performances on stage as Salieri. Abraham was fine in the film, but McKellen was on stage as this old man when you arrived in the theater, the show started and he was just electric as he basically threw off the shawl and many years and morphed by his acting into a much younger Salieri. His performance just grew better from there.