FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
It’s that time of year again, folks, Oscar Time. And I genuinely believe it’s only a matter of time before one arrives here in Kilkenny! By no means wishful thinking. Let’s start with our own Cartoon Saloon, nominated a phenomenal five times for an award. FIVE TIMES! An amazing achievement.
And last year, lest we forget, American-based Mark Swift born in the UK to Kilkenny parents, was a producer on Puss ‘N’ Boots: The Last Wish nominated for Best Animated Feature. Two other Kilkenny connections to the 2023 Oscars were Kate Uí Ciobhain, daughter of the late Jack and Kathleen Lanigan from Emmet Street, who did the translation of the subtitles (to English) for An Cailín Ciúin (an absolutely beautiful film adapted from Claire Keegan’s wonderful book Foster) and the first Irish language film to be nominated for an Oscar.
The other connection to An Cailín Ciúin is a Castlecomer one: John Brennan, son of Betty and the late Seamus Brennan, was the sound engineer on the movie.
And then there’s Cillian Murphy nominated for this year’s Best Actor Award in the movie Oppenheimer and who we’ll all be rooting for. Cillian won’t mind if we claim him as an honorary Kilkenny man seeing as how he is married to a Kilkenny woman, the acclaimed artist Yvonne McGuinness. Cillian Murphy’s most recent appearance (2024) is in an adaptation of another wonderful Claire Keegan book, Small Things Like These which was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2022.
Oscar odds and ends
The first Oscar ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles in 1929. It lasted 15 minutes and just 12 awards were handed out. The longest ceremony was in 2002 and lasted about 256 minutes. The show was first televised in 1962. The late Bob Hope hosted the event a record 16 times.
In 1974 the ceremony was graced by a streaker who was later shot dead in a San Francisco sex shop. In 1978 a man pretending to be Dustin Hoffman bluffed his way in and was only evicted when the real star arrived. In 1981 an Oscar was stolen in front of the viewing millions when an imposter bounced on to the stage as the host announced that the Hungarian winner hadn’t made it. He even made a short acceptance speech.
The famous red carpet is auctioned off every year.
The statuettes are 13.5 inches high, made of bronze, plated with 24-karat gold and depict a knight on a reel of film. They’ve been known as Oscars since 1934 when Academy librarian Margaret Herrick declared that they looked like her uncle Oscar.
Walt Disney got an Oscar and seven miniatures for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs in 1938; he died aged 65 with 26 Oscars to his name. Jack Nicholson uses his 1975 Best Actor Oscar for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest as a hat stand. Woody Allen, three-time Oscar winner, never turned up to the ceremony preferring to spend the evening playing his clarinet in Michael’s Pub in New York.
After winning Best Supporting Actor for City Slickers in 1991, Jack Palance did four one-arm push ups on stage. The oldest recipient of an Oscar is Anthony Hopkins, aged 83, for The Father (2021). The youngest winners were Tatum O’Neill, aged 10, for Paper Moon (1973) and Shirley Temple, awarded an honorary Oscar, aged six in 1934. Three movies share top spot for winning most Oscars (11 each) Ben Hur (1959), Titanic (1997) and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
The longest movie to win Best Picture was Gone With The Wind (233 minutes) in 1939. The shortest to win was Marty (90 minutes) in 1955. The only X-rated movie to win Best Film was Midnight Cowboy (1969). The longest acceptance speech, five minutes and 30 second, was by Greer Garson at the 1942 Academy Awards in March 1943. The shortest are credited to Patty Duke and Anthony Quinn who simply said: “Thank you.”
