The 94th Oscars ceremony will take place on Sunday, March 27 and beyond celebrities in couture gowns, the Oscars have also had some very touching moments that made more than one cry.
And although there have been memorable and funny moments such as the famous selfie in the 2014 edition, Ben Stiller coming out as avatar and when they announced the Best Picture winner wrong, there are also too many moments that showed us a more human side of some actors, from a speech to a posthumous award.
Heath Ledger wins posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar
Heath is the actor who gave life to the Joker, the main enemy of Batman in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman: The Dark Knight” (2008) and for many fans of this superhero, he’s still the best Joker of any Batman production.
This actor died at the age of 28 in 2008, January due to an accidental overdose just when his career was on the rise. By that time he had already been nominated for best actor thanks to his role on ‘Brokeback Mountain’ where along with Jake Gyllenhaal.
The category that gave him the posthumous Oscar was Supporting Actor, and the nominees included actors such as Josh Brolin, Robert Downey Jr, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michael Shannon.
Heath Ledger’s family accepted the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as the Joker in “The Dark Night” and the reactions of several actors in the audience while they listened to Ledger’s family speech definitely represented the public who were not physically there.
The first African-American to receive an Oscar
In addition to being one of the first African-American women to be played on the radio, Hattie McDaniel was also the first African-American woman to receive an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Gone with the Wind”.
Hattie was the youngest of 13 children of a couple of freed slaves. Despite being the first black woman to win an Oscar, life was very cruel to her but she still took it upon herself to challenge society in the 40s.
She was forbidden to attend the film premiere, she couldn’t sit at the same table as her co-stars and she was also unable to sit at the same table as her fellow cast member.
Just 12 years after the Academy created an award ceremony to reward themselves, a black woman received an award.
Charlie Chaplin and his honorary Oscar
Charlie Chaplin was such an important figure in the cinematography scene. He was not only an actor but a director, writer, producer, and composer.
The first award Chaplin received was in 1929 for the film The Circus and never received another award until 1972. He was given an honorary award when the actor was 83 years old and had just been exiled from Switzerland and after being accused of being a communist.
Even though Charlie gave a brief speech in which he just thanked the academy for the honor of inviting him, the audience got back on their feet and the 12-minute standing ovation began, while Charlie put on his trademark bowler and cane, the elements that became the hallmark of the legendary actor.
Five years later Charlie Chaplin in 1977 passed away.
Marlon Brando sent a female Native American Activist to represent him
Sacheen Littlefeather was the Native American Activist that attended the Oscar Ceremony on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973. By doing this, he became the first actor to use Hollywood’s most important awards as a political platform.
Brando won Best Actor for “The Godfather”, but didn’t even attend the ceremony; however, Sacheen was in his place that night, saying that very regretfully Brando couldn’t accept that generous award, all of this while she was wearing a traditional Apache dress.
The main reason for Brando’s protest was because of the treatment of American Indians and the way they were being stereotyped and portrayed at that time by the film industry; even though they prepared a very long speech, she couldn’t read it all because of the time.
On “The Dick Cavett Show”, three months later, Marlon said he didn’t regret the decision to reject that award but felt that it was a marvelous opportunity for an Indian to be able to voice her opinion to 85 million people.
The only black woman to win the Best Actress category
Halle Berry’s moment that she expressed was much bigger than her and dedicated her award to every nameless and faceless woman of color that now has a chance because of the door she opened by receiving that Oscar Award.
The movie that gave Halle the Oscar was “Monster’s Ball”, and even though her performance was extraordinary, her acceptance speech is unforgettable.
While in her speech she said she was opening a door, the truth is that she stopped feeling that way and felt that she had only opened very little, because no other black woman has won in this category.
She saw all her effort and the heart she put into that speech broke down, thinking that the moment wasn’t really bigger than she was.
