How did Beatrice Straight win an Oscar for Network?

I’m not sure Jodie stood a chance or Piper either, in that role. Jane’s part was also small but not showy enough. I didn’t see Lee. I think Beatrice was swept to victory with the rest of the cast.

Her husband, Peter Cookson, was very very popular among the academy voters.

She was brilliant. That's why.

She gave a really wonderful speech.

Paddy Chayefsky's writing was splendid. Beatrice Straight's performance was equally splendid. The director had the good sense to capture it all as simply as possible. The collective power of all that good work produced an unforgettable character in an outstanding film.

That's how she won.

Piper Laurie should have won

She had been around for a really long time as a actor, mostly stage, and was friends with many. They were rewarding her for her lifetime achievement rather than the performance.

Theee iconic supporting roles in one year - Beatrice, Jodie and Piper.

She presented hole.

She was great... but the voting system was different back then.

Lee had just won, Jodie was too young, Piper was on over the top and campy, Jane barely registered. That left Beatrice in a film that voters clearly loved by virtue of three acting Oscars in four categories. Thread closed.

She was not "completely unknown" in Hollywood. She had a solid body of work for a long time. Just not "high profile" stuff. Just saw an old Alfred Hitchcock episode last night with her in it.

In the context of that time, it’s hard to think the Academy would have dismissed Jodie as too young. They had just given an Oscar to 10 year old Tatum O’Neal in the same category three years earlier. While I’ve read that there was a bit of a backlash about that award soon after, that was based on the charge that Tatum’s performance was artfully created in the editing room. Jodie’s performance in Taxi Driver was clearly the real deal, as evidenced by her turn in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore two years earlier.

I agree with the obvious interpretation that a stellar performance in a prestige film cancelled out the brevity of the role.

[QUOTE]They were rewarding her for her lifetime achievement rather than the performance.

No, they weren't, R7. Her performance is extraordinary. She manages to go through about seven different emotions within the space of five minutes. Her Oscar is one of the most deserved and her speech was a total class act. I've always loved how she called herself the "dark horse" of the race because she most certainly was in the most traditional sense of that word.

I also think she benefitted from being one of the only characters in the film who was recognizably human. Everyone else was a caricature (Faye Dunaway's character is described as "television incarnate" at one point) or a demented psychotic (Finch, Beatty) - which is not to say they were not compelling or entertaining. Straight's character was a stand-in for the normal person watching the freak show playing out on UBS.

Being in a truly exceptional movie, certainly helped.

The question is how did Rocky win best picture and director preventing Network a clean sweep?

The way she worked that line about the broads & the booze

Hollywood didn't yet realize what a hack Stallone would become. He came nowhere with a monster hit he wrote himself. At least he didn't rob Peter Finch or Paddy Chayefsky of their Oscars.

The editor of Network talks about what might have been.