The most famous ways to receive an Oscar

Over decades of Oscar awards we've seen it all, including many ways to accept what is considered the most important recognition in the film industry. Winners, in their speeches, from the first edition in 1929 until today – have offered a great variety of reactions. From those who simply said «thank you» to those who spoke for several minutes, putting the evening's organizers in difficulty; from those who received it by mistake to those who refused the statuette.

Here are some of the most famous and at the same time atypical ways of accepting an Oscar, so as to be prepared for the upcoming 2024 edition.

Accepting the award by speaking too much, or too little

In 1943, British actress Greer Garson won the Oscar for "Best Leading Actress" for her performance in the film Mrs. Miniver, directed by American director William Wyler. In accepting the award, she gave a speech of over five minutes. More or less the same thing happened in 1997 when actor Cuba Gooding Jr., who received the Oscar for "Best Supporting Actor" for the film Jerry Maguire, gave a speech of over a minute. The Oscars ceremony, especially today, is based on well-defined times, usually very brief: for this reason, the organizers of the evening – to get Gooding Jr. to stop his speech, which had far exceeded the allowed time – started background music, hoping to "stop" him. The opposite happened: the American actor continued, raised his voice, started jumping, and said how much he loved everyone. The audience reacted with a standing ovation, and his became one of the most famous and entertaining speeches in Academy Awards history. Exactly the opposite of Patty Duke, who in 1963 – when accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for the film The Miracle Worker – simply said, touched, just a «thank you». Just like Joe Pesci about thirty years later: when in 1991 he was awarded the Oscar for "Best Supporting Actor" for the film Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese, he simply said «it's a privilege, thank you», and left.

Accepting the award, refusing it

During the Oscar night, it also happened that winners refused to accept the award. It happened in 1973 when Marlon Brando, who had won Best Actor for The Godfather, decided to boycott the awards. Brando was widely favored: sure of winning, after a few years of decline and clashes with major American film companies, he sent Sacheen Littlefeather, a 26-year-old woman of Apache descent – a native population of the southwestern area of North America – to accept the award on his behalf. At the moment of the announcement, Littlefeather took to the stage and refused, on behalf of Brando, to accept the statuette. She then delivered a speech of about a minute, explaining that the American actor did not want to receive the award in protest against the treatment of Native Americans in cinema and television. During her speech, Sacheen Littlefeather was interrupted by some boos and insults, and was quickly escorted off stage. In 2022, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that awards the Oscars, officially apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather for the treatment she received from the people present at the 1973 ceremony.

Accepting defeat rather than the award

During the 2017 Oscars ceremony, something almost unprecedented happened. When actors Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced the winner of the Oscar for "Best Picture," the most important of all, the envelope they received from the organizers was wrong. Consequently, the award initially went to the film La La Land, but shortly after it was revealed that the true winner was Barry Jenkins' film, Moonlight. It was evident that something had gone wrong from the moment the envelope containing the winner's name was read, with obvious perplexity. After almost two minutes of speeches by the producers of La La Land (as these are the individuals who receive the award for "Best Picture"), the only two people who knew who had won the Oscars even before the ceremony took to the stage, and they reported that the true winner was Moonlight. In the history of the Oscars, the only similar incident had occurred in 1964 when dancer Sammy Davis Jr. had announced the winner of the award for Best "Original" Score instead of Best "Adapted" Score – an award given only for a few years and which no longer exists today. In this case too, he had been given the wrong envelope, but it wasn't a big problem. In the two categories, indeed, there weren't the same films, and therefore a misunderstanding like the one that occurred in 2017 could not arise. But above all, it wasn't the most important Oscar of all.