The infamous Jessica Lange first Oscar for Tootsie

If they wanted to reward a comedic performance, then it should have gone to Lesley Ann Warren. Lange did absolutely nothing of merit in "Tootsie" to deserve that award. It was strictly a consolation prize because they knew she had no shot at Best Actress for "Frances."

I actually watched Tootsie for the first time in many years recently. At the time, it seemed completely reasonable that Lange should get the supporting Oscar. But when you see the movie now, her performance is perfectly adequate, but nowhere near Oscar worthy.

At the Golden Globes instead of Close and Garr they nominated Cher for Jimmy Dean and Lanie Kazan for My Favorite Year.

I wonder who would have got in if Lange wasn't there.

Funny Lange got tons of awards for Tootsie not just the Oscar. She got the Globe and also some critics group awards. Of the 4 big groups of the time Lange got 2 and Close got the other two .

That was a great year for that category. You could actually make a case that ANY of the four other nominees (including Lange's own co-star in Frances, Kim Stanley) would have been more deserving. Teri Garr even gives a better performance than Lange in her own film.

I would have awarded Glenn Close for her fierce Jenny Fields in The World According to Garp. A very unique performance in her oeuvre (and her first nomination). But I think Lesley Ann Warren is an absolute hoot in Victor/Victoria.

Tough and talented year.

On the men's side, quickly: I think either John Lithgow, as the trans woman Roberta in The World According to Garp, or Robert Preston as the hilarious Toddy in Victor/Victoria would have made better winners than Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman.

I seem to recall (and more eldergays can correct me) that Close was never really a factor (because it was her first nomination and she was perceived as going on to bigger/better things). We didn't have the Internet or media saturation speculating on such things, but my friends seemed to think Stanley was the spoiler if Lange somehow didn't win (which seemed foregone).

Jessica Lange is the greatest actress of our time. However, Lesley Ann Warren deserved the Oscar for Victor/Victoria. Jessica should have won Best Actress for Frances, and this endless injustice would have been solved.

Too bad they didn't finish Frances a year earlier. Lange would have walked away with it.

I wonder how Lesley Ann Warren was perceived at this time. She's made a lot of enemies since then and has the old "difficult" label on her. Not sure if she had that then and if it would have affected her vote totals.

Teri Garr wrote in her biography that she was robbed of the Oscar

Lesley Ann is a LOT of work. Bless her though - she is funny.

My Lesley Ann Warren story:

I tell this every time but it is a good one.

I used to work out at this private gym about 10 years ago. Lesley would be there with her husband and they'd always be all cutesy and she'd have to run over and give him a quick kiss every now and then and giggle like a teenager.

One day she dropped the smallest dumb bell they had on her foot. Her husband ran over and had to rub it for her while she cooed and said stuff like my footie hurts.

If she had only called him Pookie the story would be complete.

Guess you had to be there ;)

I think Glenn Close would have won had Jessica Lange not been nominated. They split the main precursor awards.

Lange won the Golden Globe, National Society of Film Critics, and New York Film Critics.

Close won the Los Angeles Film Critics and National Board of Review.

Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, Teri Garr and Charles Durning all acted circles around Lange In Tootsie, but they did have much showier roles to be honest . Lange's character just felt so uninteresting. Usually people who win supporting Oscars have at least one huge scene-stealing dramatic or comic moment, but this was not the case here.

Lange does have a certain sadness and at times anger in Tootsie that is interesting. I don't think it would be such a big deal that she won except for the fact that her competition was so good to. What she did in Tootsie is a lot better than a lot of the junk they have given supporting awards for in recent years.

The other controversy was that she was a lead in the film and not supporting but I kind of don't agree with that. Dustin is really the same star and Lange is not in huge chunks of the picture.

Kim Stanley is the one who actually should have won that year. It is a chilling performance, on the level with Nurse Ratched in Cuckoo's nest.

Kim doesn't look to happy when her co-star Jessica wins.

Sigourney is fun. "I stand in awe of talent".

neither does Lesley Ann.

I think Lange adds a lot to a nothing role - but my "issue" always was, with THAT amazing cast - Hoffman obviously, Garr, Murray , Durning, Sydney Pollack ... for Lange to be the only one who walked away with an Oscar is so...meh.

As for the men, Preston was great, but my choice would have been James Mason. Newman of course gives the performance of his life in The Verdict, but Mason's performance really grows on you - I've seen the movie many many times and his performance gets better and better every time I see it. Truly wonderful work.

Durning would have been worthy of a win had he been nominated for the right film.

All I know is I'm glad I wasn't nearly old enough to watch or track the Oscars then as so many of my favorites were nominated that year - and they all lost.

Louis Gosset Jr. had a lot of buzz about how no African American man had won besides Poitier so his win was foregone conclusion.

Lithgow was considered such a daring performance but nowadays it seems like it has been done to death. (see Jeffrey Tambor)

Jessica deserved the award for Frances.

Frances got good reviews for Lange but I think it was considered kind of lurid and over the top at times. I guess it also isn't very accurate. I never understood why Frances just doesn't go off with the Sam Sheppard character BUT then I read that the Sheppard character was fictitious.

I found Lithgow so charming and refreshingly honest in his portrayal in Garp. I'll never forget his one line after the big accident in the movie, referring to Michael Milton's cock being bit off during oral, "I mean, I had mine surgically REMOVED."

I don't think I've seen a "trans" performance quite like it since, and that includes Jeffrey Tambor's admittedly great work on "Transparent." Lithgow received back-to-back nominations for Garp and then for Terms of Endearment the following year.

He should be considered this year in the same category for his work in Beatriz at Dinner (as should Salma Hayek.

not the same year, but I'd have given Kate Jackson a nod for Making Love.

The writing was a valiant effort, but she gave a great performance.

Teri Garr was in Tootsie?

Teri Garr is actually quite funny in Tootsie playing Dustin Hoffman's girlfriend. IIRC, she's initially going for the part that Hoffman gets as "Dorothy Michaels." Her complete shock that she's lost the part to him is hilarious.

Garr's whole spiel about I read the Cinderella complex, I read the second sex....is just classic and partly improvised.

Back then I was at an Oscar party and was crushed that Close and James Mason didn't win.

A few weeks ago I watched Garp for the first time in many years. Close made such a BLAZING screen debut in that commanding role. That turned out to be her best shot at Oscar in retrospect.

Lange was GOOD in Tootsie and had support because of Frances. Everyone felt she would win for Tootsie as consolation because Streep was going to win for Sophie's Choice.

Tootsie is one of my favorite films and I've always thought Jessica deserved her Oscar. Dustin should have won also.

It was a very big deal when Jessica Lange received two Oscar nominations in the same year. At the time, she was only the fourth person in history to achieve that. And the first since 1944 (38 years earlier).

Everyone knew she wasn't going home empty-handed that night. But since Streep had a lock on Best Actress, the Academy decided to give Lange the Supporting Actress award.

Plus Lange was a real Cinderella story because the double nominations you mention r30 came after a pretty unimpressive beginning to her career starting with King Kong.

But KING KONG was the 7th highest-grossing film of 1976.

Yeah but it was savaged by reviewers and she was pegged as just a dumb blonde, not a serious actress. She was pretty devastated by the whole thing and left the business for a few years and went back to acting school.

Kim Stanley's performance in Frances was a master class in layered, nuanced acting. If you haven't seen it, you have to.

Again with the idiots using the term "master class" to describe a performance! If you had actually attended a master class in anything, you would know that it is an absurd analogy.

R35 You could just disagree with the premise. Attacking a poster with an opinion isn't productive.

What's a master class then?

R35 Will enlighten us. Please, Master, tell all.

If ever there was a year for a tie, this should have been it. Jessica and Meryl gave Masterclasses in Acting. Streep was more highbrow and nuanced while Lange's was in your face and raw.

This would have left Supporting Actress wide open. Taking Lange's spot could have been either Sandy Dennis or Karen Black for Jimmy Dean or Lainie Kazan for My Favorite Year.

The masterclasses of Oscars past really bring home how few masterclasses we get offered in film these days?

Where's the Masterclass Jennifer Lawrence ever gave him?

Tossup between Garr and Warren since they both steal every scene that they're in

Ed Norton gave a Master Class in Primal Fear

She got the Oscar for the wrong picture.

This Oscar year is interesting since it introduced both Close, Lange and Debra Winger to film awards and they would become two of the most acclaimed actresses and frequent nominees of the time and to this day.

What a year Streep, Lange, Close all giving arguably career best performances plus Garr, Warren, Stanley, Sissy Spacek in Missing. All excellent work.

Nowadays we get Brie Larson, Alicia Vikander, Emma Stone and Jennifer Lawrence.

time to close up the film industry!

You flat out can't give a master class in your 20s, as you're claiming Ed Norton was in "Primal Fear." The whole idea behind a master class is that it's an experienced and elder artist showing younger people how to do something in his or her line of art.

I actually think Lange is terrific in "Tootsie." She's really fine in the scene where Michael has come on to her as Dorothy and then she turns Dorothy down, saddened both that she can't give Dorothy what she wants and that she has misread Dorothy's friendship with her, which had meant so much to her before. It's a really complex scene to play, and she does it beautifully.

I think Lange is great in the final scene of the film. She is signing autographs on the street and then sees Hoffman standing there waiting. How her face changes from being nice to her fans and then rage towards Hoffman is just great. And the rest of the scene she plays nicely too as she tries to brush him off but then forgives him.

Lange in Tootsie is so blah.

I wonder if Hoffman gave her as much trouble as he did Streep in Kramer Versus Kramer.

I agree. Jessica is quite good in TOOTSIE, but Teri is better. That being said, Glenn should have won. Her performance in GARP is remarkable and maybe one of her best.

Frances is unwatchable like 99% of Jessica Lange's terrible acting. I don't think she deserved any Oscars and she is a bad actress. Camp TV horror suits her to a T since she is completely hammy and gross

What Teri Garr does in Tootsie is schtick. What Jessica Lange does is make you understand why Dustin's character has fallen madly in love with her.

[quote] not the same year, but I'd have given Kate Jackson a nod for Making Love.

Uh, if not in the same year then why bring it up in this thread?

R52 Exactly, a rounded real woman

actually it was the same year r53

R52 well anyone can label certain types of comedy as “schtick” but what she’s did was brilliant - to make high comedy out of insecurity - but we’re inclined to take it for granted perhaps because that by and large became her trademark.

Joan Cusack gave a similar kind of performance In In & Out and I think she also deserved the Oscar that year. Not easy to do.

Lesley Ann Warrens performance is much closer to what I would call “schtick.”

[quote]This would have left Supporting Actress wide open. Taking Lange's spot could have been either Sandy Dennis or Karen Black for Jimmy Dean or Lainie Kazan for My Favorite Year.

None of those women were nominated. The other nominees were Teri Garr (TOOTSIE), Glenn Close (THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GAR), Lesley Ann Warren (VICTOR/VICTORIA), and Kim Stanley (FRANCES).

R57 has really shitty reading comprehension.

If Kim Stanley is nominated, then Kim Stanley should win. She's Kim Stanley, fer chrissakes.

If anybody was going to get nominated from Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean...it would have been Cher. She got a Golden Globe nomination over G and Teri Garr.

Kim Stanley doesn't seem very happy for her costar Lange beating her.

R60 Lay off the sauce, should have been Karen Black, just for the blouse

Kim Stanley is not a well-wisher.

It’s a miracle!

I read there was a consideration given to nominating Cher for Best Supporting for Come Back but she said she wanted a Best Actress nomination, because she had more lines than Sandy Dennis, who was also being considered for a Best Actress nod. So Cher effectively cancelled herself out. They could have substituted Karen Black for Come Back who is just as good.