Katharine Hepburn and her fourth Oscar for On Golden Pond

Keaton deserved it. After she had been seen as a ditzy comedienne, she played a dark intellectual in Mahattan and was snubbed for it. Then she stepped up the intellectual quotient and real passion in Reds. Every "speech" Beatty wrote for her was delivered to perfection as if it was actual dialogue. Her fights with Jack and Eugene, holding back tears, were unforgettable.

Mason gave one of her best performances and Sarandon gave us something new at the time. Streep was mannered and her British accent was affected. Kate was Kate. It's moving but nothing at the level that Keaton did.

It was a really weak category that year but I think Atlantic City is one of the best movies ever made so I would gladly give the Oscar to Susan Sarandon. The movie was mostly about Burt Lancaster's amazing performance but Susan more than held her own against him and they also had nice chemistry.

I love that random Roubert Goulet cameo in AC, where he serenades Susan in the phone booth:

Kate gave a truly lovely, touching performance. Was it Mary Tyrone? No. But it served the film perfectly. As they say,, no one loved it but the audiences.

Keaton was great. Her last scene when she realizes Beatty's character had died was heartbreaking.

Hepburn was quoted as saying that star quality accounted for something, that an actor's personality had to shine through to reach audiences​. This coming from someone who couldn't bear Hollywood star treatment and was rude to fans...

I never saw the Marsha Mason movie but I did see On Golden Pond and it was a very good movie. Both Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda won Oscars because of the sentimental vote - older actors who had one last big chance to win the Oscar. They both gave excellent performances, but again, the sentimental vote affected it.

Had they given Fonda the Oscar for THE GRAPES OF WRATH in 1940, instead of gifting it to the drawling one-note Jimmy Stewart in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, we wouldn't even care. I cannot stand Stewart. The only things I like about VERTIGO and REAR WINDOW were the women in it.

The last thing Meryl Streep needs is more Oscars, but that year she really deserved it for The French Lieutenant's Woman.

I read a book of short stories recently where, in one story, the character walks out of the film Only When I Laugh complaining to himself that "James Coco, who played Marsha's most trusted homosexual friend, was so gay, you just wanted to shoot him right in the anus." I fucking laughed out loud!

I loved Mason in OWIL too and think she would've been a worthy winner that year. Poor thing was nominated four times and always came up short.

I think On Golden Pond is a great film. Hepburn shines, Fonda gives best performance of his career.

And I love Diane Keaton -- probably greatest actress of her generation -- I can't think of anyone else who can do both comedy and drama at that level.

However, Marsha Mason deserved the award that year. Just a brilliant, unforgettable performance. She kilt it.

Side note: I read that Mason left Neil Simon for Joan Hackett after filming. Anyone know if that's true?

R10 op here. Not that I've heard. Wasn't Joan a dyke anyway? They did divorce shortly after her nomination. Mason looks drunk when presenter Jon Voight announces her name in the YouTube Oscar clip of Hepburns win. She probably knew she was gonna lose. Streep won the globe and the LA film critics award while Glenda Jackson won everything else for the made in 1978 released in 1981 Stevie.

Almost surprised they didn't give it to Streep a year sooner. She probably finished second. It was clearly one of those years where sentiment for older actors played a part in the voting with Gielgud and Maureen Stapleton winning in supporting.

I think Mason deserved it for her drunk scene alone in OWIL.

Hi OP, I like your thread. Award shows are so weird, awkward and embarrassing yet I'm so into them. Marsha's drunk scene was great. Painful to watch. It's always bugged me she didnt win for that role.

Yes, Joan was into women, but not sure about Marsha. I think because I love OWIL and into women myself, I've been quite curious. I thought Joan was great, too. All the actors were -- even Kristy M.

For OWIL fans: the shopping montage. Such vintage early '80s realness.

I was prepared to win my first Oscar for On Golden Pond but that fucking cunt swooped the role right out from under me. Bitch!

Keaton is amazing and should easily have two Oscars at his point.

R14 Poor Stanwyck. Don't blame me if you couldn't even win one competitively.

We all know that Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest deserved somebody's slot that year....

[QUOTE]We all know that Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest deserved somebody's slot that year....

I would've given her Sarandon's spot and bumped Sarandon to supporting.

In a perfect world, Katharine Hepburn would have one Oscar and that would be for Lion in Winter. Barbara Stanwick at least one for Double Indemnity. Marsha Mason also for Cinderella Liberty.

In a perfect world, an actor should be entitled to just one Oscar and then ineligible for any further nominations. There are too many actors whose great performances have been passed over.

I thought Marsha Mason was the most deserving. I think she should have won. And Paul Newman should have won Best Actor. Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn should NOT have won. They won because they were very old, sentimental favorites. The Oscars are such a crock.

You know the oscars are a joke when Katharine Hepburn won four oscars and Stanwyck a superior actress in every way, shape and form never won one competitively...

Stanwyck or Garbo should've won instead of Luise Rainer in 1937. No one really remembers Rainer. Hepburn deserved her three for Morning Glory (totally unique and original unlike anything Hollywood has seen before in this), Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (not really much of a stretch but was due for a win. Plus that last scene with Tracy really clinched it), and Lion in Winter (brilliant performance by any stretch).

Oscars are silly considering who has won and hasn't won but they're not meaningless .

Margot Kidder was also snubbed of a nomination that year for her work in Heartaches. Even Pauline Kael who never cared for her, gave her a rave.

R24, Kael always loved Kidder. In "Sisters", she said she was one of the sexiest actresses on screen and knew how to turn it on like a witch. She didn't like her in "Superman" calling her "coarse", but she is the sort of personality that Kael seemed to champion.

BTW, I thought the best performance in Only When I Laugh was by far Kristy McNichol who didn't even get nominated.

It should have been Liza for Arthur.

R25, I thought OWIL had a strong cast, and I agree that Kristy McNichol was great. In fact, she gave a number of touching movie performances around this time. She was quite good in The End as Burt Reynolds' daughter and excellent in Little Darlings.

She's mostly forgotten now, ore remembered for the dumb sitcom she did before she cracked, but she was a rare adolescent actress who knew how to play off other performers and hold enough back to give her characters an inner life.

We're gonna talk about me aren't we?

WHET alphabetical order?

I hate On Golden Pond. Overrated drivel. I've never liked Fonda's coldness, and a little Hepburn goes a long way. The kid was annoying as hell, a d the whole movie was one giant cliche. Terence Stamp as Zod or Karen Allen from Raiders were more deserving. But God forbid the Academy nominate actors from genre films that made up the bulk of cash in 1981.

R30, I really love both those performances! General Zod remains my favorite superhero villain and Karen Allen has a deft humor and charm that the series never recaptured until they brought her back. She was almost the only good part about Crystal Skull.

I am also not warm to Golden Pond, though I can be swayed by that much star power.

Your two alternate nominees (I would put both in Supporting, however) are superb!

She won because she carried a canoe on her shoulders.

Let's face it, it was a fantastic year as Oscar nominees go. I'd say the same about the next two years. I liked all 10 of the lead performances a lot. I still remember them. I'm sorry Harrison Ford didn't make the cut, and he same for Karen Allen (probably should've replaced Joan Hackett), but I like all of those films and loved REDS, ATLANTIC CITY and RAIDERS.

I don't hate ON GOLDEN POND as some do. It's stagey, but that scene between the Fondas when Henry tells Jane to come more often because "it would mean a lot to your mother" and cries, gets me every time. Kate's two big scenes with Henry, especially when she thinks he's dying, and the one when he comes back without the berries because he was lost... maudlin, maybe, but effective.

And yes the topic is veering from Best Actress (I'd still vote for Keaton, then Mason), but Paul Newman's performance is so multilayered and keeps you guessing – fantastic at every turn. He and Fonda had never won, so it was tough either way.

I loved Joan Hackett in THE GROUP.

She deserved it more than she did for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"

R27, McNichol in "Little Darlings" was brilliant. She made no conventional choices in the performance and after forty years, it's still very unsettling. For a teen actress to give the role that much depth is amazing.

Agreed about Kristy. Poor kid was a baby dyke in Hollywood. As of 2012 she was with her partner for two decades... hope she's better and happier now.

[quote]In a perfect world, an actor should be entitled to just one Oscar and then ineligible for any further nominations. There are too many actors whose great performances have been passed over.

That is just fucking stupid.

Just remembered Peter Coffield was in Only When I Laugh and died shortly afterward from AIDS....

More OWIL trivia: James Coco, who plays Marsha Mason's gay, is one of only two actors in history to receive both a Razzie *and* an Oscar nomination for the same performance. The other person was Amy Irving in Yentl. Both were nominated in support.

For Coco to get a Razzie for OWIL shows how ridiculous they are.

In "Little Darlings", the script probably reads very preachy, but Kristy never falls into that. Instead, she enacts the words and we feel her confusion and loneliness. When she says "we never had a chance because we started in the middle", we believe her because she made us see it. It was a performance that was certainly deserving of at least a nomination and was miles better than Tatum's winning performance in "Paper Moon."

I'm a huge Hepburn fan, but in this she was very mannered and in an awful film (one of the earliest films made directly for the purpose of winning Oscars - Jane has mentioned this herself). She already had one undeserved one for Guess Who's Coming To Dinner... the Academy ignored her stronger turns like her Mary Tyrone and even The Trojan Women which wasn't even nominated.

However, 1981 was such a bum year for Best Actress. I guess Susan or Marsha would have been fine winners, Keaton too in a dramatic performance (her first big one since Mr. Goodbar). There wasn't even much else that year they could have gone with... even the left field choices that weren't nominated aren't that strong. Bernadette Peters in Pennies From Heaven never had a shot, neither did a foreign performance like Tina Engel in the Oscar-nommed 'The Boat Is Full'. Jill Clayburgh was enjoyable in the comedy 'First Monday in October', as well as Karen Allen in 'Raiders', but they were genre films and not exactly mindblowing performances either. Judy Davis was great as a heroin addicted prostitute in the depressing Australian movie Winter of our Dreams, but I don't even know if it got a US release and the movie itself stinks

While any of these choices would have been better than Hepburn in On Golden Pond, they're not exactly inspiring alternatives. I just saw it on TV a few weeks ago actually. The "you're my knight in shining armour" is just as cringe-inducing as it was back then.

Barbara Stanwyck never did a long term contract with any major studio. She preferred to freelance. So no studio would seriously back her when she was nominated because they knew she'd go sign a short term deal with another studio. Which is a shame because she was really an amazing actress, even when her material was mediocre.

Mason should also have won an Emmy for playing Sherry on Frasier.

She was pitch perfect in that part and a much better match for Martin than Wendie Malick who was much better as Victoria Chase on Hot In Cleveland.

Marsha Mason should get an honorary Oscar at any rate.

Underrated.

As someone who hasn't seen any of these movies, which would you recommend watching on the next rainy day?

R45, Only When I Laugh might do the trick. It balances light comedy with a serious theme (alcoholism) and has a very bright cast.

Atlantic City moves very slowly, but it is a beautiful, somewhat pensive film largely about the passage of time and characters finding their place in the era they are in. In addition to Sarandon, Burt Lancaster and Kate Reid are wonderful.

Reds would make for a longer afternoon experience. I am not sure what films made today compare to this kind of historical epic. Maybe the Che movie by Soderbergh several years ago?

I am not a fan of On Golden Pond, but I can vouch for the surprise thread derailment here of Little Darlings. It's a far deeper film than the titillating synopsis and old trailers make it out to be. A gem of a movie that less about sex and more about adolescent vulnerability, uncertainty, and innocence.

Am I the only one who remembers that Joan Hackett wore earrings to the Oscars that she had made from Christmas ornaments/decorations?

"McNichol in "Little Darlings" was brilliant. She made no conventional choices in the performance and after forty years, it's still very unsettling. For a teen actress to give the role that much depth is amazing."

Oh, please. That movie was a piece of shit. The premise was nauseating: two 15 year old girls (Tatum O'Neal played the other one) at a summer camp compete in a contest to see which one of them can get her cherry popped first. McNichol's character, implausibly named Angel Bright, is very butch, very combative (in one of her first scenes she kicks a guy in the crotch) and has dyke written all over her. But the viewer is supposed to believe that the young Matt Dillon is hot for the plain-faced, skinny, stringy-haired baby dyke with no tits and no hips. O'Neal's character sets her sights on the adult camp counselor played by Armand Assanti. It's all very gross but the movie is supposed to show how two girls "grow up" by learning that sex is not just physical, it's emotional, too. How profound. Anyway, it's just a stupid teen sex comedy from the eighties. There were a lot of movies like that in that era.

But it was titillating!

She didn't even deserve her nomination in The Rainmaker, Lancaster acted circles around her. Hepburn had very little rage, she was always Hepburn on screen, very overrated actress, totally arrogant and full of herself off screen.

I loathe Sarandon, but she was great in Atlantic City, far superior movie too.

Thanks, R46. I'll go with Only When I Laugh.

I saw Little Darlings & enjoyed it. TNT, TMC or one of those channels used to air it a lot in the early 2000s, too bad it's not Netflix, I wouldn't mind watching it again.

Was a theater manager and I played them all and I can say at least my audiences adored "On Golden Pond" and it wasn't just seniors. It had a very big family audience. "Atlantic City" was ignored. Marsha had a following because of Neil Simon's work but no one I know thought OWIL was Oscar worthy. Streep was a young recent winner so she no chance. And Keaton really can't play period. Modern stuff she shines. If anyone remembers anything about "REDS", it's Maureen Stapleton who indeed deserved her Oscar.

StanWyck was hambone as was Davis....Hepburn was MODERN

I hated on golden pond. Shitty movie.

Hepburn is adorable in On Golden Pond. Some of you queens are cold hearted.

I don't know how you can watch Alice Adams or Summertime and not think that Hepburn gave some great performances.

[quote] Streep was mannered and her British accent was affected.

In other words, it was like 99% of her performances. Keaton should've won it. She was also in the best movie in that lot.

At the time, I thought Streep deserved it, but I recently saw "The French Lieutenant's Woman" and didn't like her performance at all--she's too neurotic and ticky. (She's not helped by the fact that she wears some of the stupidest wigs of all time, either.) Hepburn was basically on autopilot, so I would give it either to Keaton (who gives one of her rare dark performances) or to (my final choice) Sarandon, who is really splendid as a woman with limited options who is trying to better herself.

Mason by this time was too mannered. Her early performance in "Cinderella Liberty" is fantastic, but by this point in her career I'm not a fan of hers.

Hepburn deserved it that year.

Oh brother, that old bag....St. Katharine. SICK of HUH.

If you watch any of Hepburn's late TV interviews, she's actually quite self-deprecatory of her acting talents. Constant worry about her waiting to be found out as a minor talent.

But she very clearly understood from the beginning of her career until the end that she had enormous charisma and a unique persona and didn't mind saying so. And she had balls! She always spoke her mind and didn't let anyone boss her around.

The biggest mystery to me is why Spencer Tracy didn't win an Oscar for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. He fucking even died and they still gave one to Kate.

Would have been interesting to see Stanywck in the role and she did have a film history with Fonda, but I can't imagine her doing the little woodland dance bit Hepburn got away with. She was always more solid and real than the arch and haughty Kate, a little too Brooklyn and not enough Bryn Mawr.

[quote] Oh brother, that old bag....St. Katharine. SICK of HUH.

When Kate delivers the line, "that's a lawn chair" to Dabney Coleman's character you've seen acting at its finest.

Won't someone think of the loons?

R10, Joan Hackett did not live that much longer after OWIL. At the time of her death, Joan was involved in a relationship with Carrie Fisher.

I think Hepburn's self deprecation is disingenuous R62 , she showed real self on the 70's Cavett interview, which was only meant to be a run through. She was a pain in the ass , demanding furniture and set changes and generally acting like a spoiled prima donna, which contrasts sharply with her self advertised no-nonsense , cold-swimming, log-chopping, hearty nature. She was an aristocrat whose career path was unencumbered by the need to make a living, for all that she can be very watchable.

R41, The best performance in "Little Darlings" was given by Armand Assante's gorgeous hairy chest.

R67, Joan Hackett's grave.

In Summertime I love Hepburn's moment her first afternoon at the pensione when everyone is coupled up and off to spend an afternoon in Venice and she's left by herself so unbearably lonely despite being surrounded by all that beauty you ache for her.

There is also that look on her face when she realizes Brazzi sees the chair leaning against the table and walks off.

How did she not get an Oscar for this?

They should of made a musical of the film and not Laurents' play. Saw it at Encores and it's got to be one of the worst musical books ever. No wonder Rodger's hated all those queens. Who wouldn't?

Though the score is uneven his work is still better than anyone else's in that show.

Hepburn should have won best actress for Summertime. Her performance was the best of that year.