6 Memorable Unexpected Moments in Early Oscar History
The Academy Awards are turning 97 this year, and naturally, with age comes wisdom and knowledge of what works for such a widely-seen and observed ceremony. And yet, part of the excitement of watching the Oscars, alongside the glamour and waiting to see if your favorite film wins any major awards, is hoping to catch something wild and unexpected. Think about the weeks of commentary after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock back in 2022, or the collective shock when the producers discovered that La La Land had been incorrectly announced as Best Picture and that Moonlight won instead.
Over the last decade or two, though, these memorable moments where the script broke have become few and far between. For the most part, the Oscars are a well-oiled machine that keeps the show running year in and year out, despite switching up the format every now and then to reflect new cultural tastes. But if you go back through Oscar history, you’ll find a number of instances of incorrect nominees, ties, party-crashers, and more that gave the their reputation for being a night when anything could happen.
Below are six of the most memorable off-script or unexpected moments from the first 50 years of Academy history:
A Congregation of Franks
Frank Lloyd accepting his Best Directing Oscar, 1934
In 1934, legendary motion picture actor and columnist Will Rogers hosted the 6th Academy Awards, and got to present his good friend, early talkie director Frank Lloyd, with an award for Best Director. When Rogers opened the envelope and saw Lloyd’s name, he became excited and simply announced, “Come up and get it, Frank!” The only problem is that, out of the three nominees for Best Director that year, TWO of them were named Frank. And Frank Capra, director of that year’s acclaimed film Lady for a Day and one year away from his triumph with It Happened One Night, leapt to his feet and ran up to the podium to accept the award. It wasn’t until he was in front of the whole crowd that Rogers told him that he meant Frank Lloyd. Capra later regarded this as one of the most embarrassing incidents of his life, while Rogers did his best to play it off by inviting fellow nominee George Cukor on stage as well. Capra had the last laugh, though, as he would win a record-setting three Best Director Oscars by the end of the 1930s.
Two Oscars, One Performance
Harold Russell (left) holding his two Oscas next two William Wyler (right)
Upon its release in 1946, William Wyler’s drama of post-war America The Best Years of Our Lives was instantly hailed as one of the greatest films Hollywood ever produced. And though the film starred well-known performers like Fredric March, Myrna Loy, and Teresa Wright, one of the most talked-about stars was Harold Russell, a real-life WWII veteran who lost both his hands while teaching demolition work in the Army. Russell’s portrayal in the film of a young soldier named Homer Parrish adjusting to home life after losing his hands in the war felt emotionally authentic and necessary for a healing country at the time, but since he was a non-actor, he was considered a long shot for the category of Best Supporting Actor (the category for which he was nominated). To make up for this potential slight, the Academy gave him an honorary award earlier in the night for the hope he gave to his fellow veterans. Then, later that night, Russell also won Best Supporting Actor, making it the only time in Oscar history that anybody has won two awards for the same performance.
Not-So-High Society
High Society (1955, dir. Edward Bernds) vs. High Society (1956, dir. Charles Walters)
Edward Bernds was a writer-director who mostly worked far from Hollywood royalty across his nearly-20-year career as a filmmaker. His forte was in comedy shorts and B-movies, working with the likes of The Three Stooges as well as making multiple films in the Blondie and Bowery Boys series. In other words, he’s not the kind of name that got nominated for Oscars; and yet, that’s exactly what happened when the Academy announced that he and co-writer Elwood Ullman had been nominated for Best Motion Picture Story for the film High Society at the 1957 Academy Awards. The problem is, there were two films named High Society in recent memory: One an A-grade musical film starring Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, and Grace Kelly, and the other starring the Bowery Boys written by Bernds and Ullman. Everyone involved immediately recognized it as a mistake, and Bernds and Ullman voluntarily withdrew their nomination from consideration. Steve Broidy, president of the studio that released the Bowery Boys High Society, joked to the press that “This just proves what we've known all along – that the Bowery Boys series couldn't have lasted this long if not for the fine writers.” Perhaps the greatest irony, though, is that the Astaire High Society would not have even been eligible for that category, seeing as how it was based on The Philadelphia Story.
Party Crasher Takes the Stage
“The world’s greatest gate-crasher” Stan Berman (left) and Bob Hope (right)
In 1962, an NYC cabbie named Stan Berman became one of the few people to ever successfully make their way onto the stage at the Academy Awards without permission. Actors Shelley Winters and Vince Edwards had just presented the award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, and after winner Eugen Schüfftan thanked the crowd and walked off-stage, Winters and Edwards were stepping back to the mic when a small man ran up to the stage and said “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m the world’s greatest gate-crasher” and presented emcee Bob Hope with a small Oscar replica, possibly in a joking gesture about Hope having never won a competitive Oscar. Despite getting into the ceremony without an invitation and making it on live television across the country, Berman didn’t face any consequences for storming the stage and instead got an invitation from Hope to attend a post-Oscar party. According to Berman, though, his interest wasn’t in Hollywood or Bob Hope, but just the thrill of sneaking into the Oscars. In an interview he gave after the ceremony, he explained that he turned down Hope’s invitation, saying, “I don’t need an invitation to any party. In fact, if I can’t crash a party, then all the excitement is taken away and I get to feeling sick to my stomach.
Two Legends Tie for Best Actress
Barbra Streisand (center) with presenter Ingrid Bergman (background) moments after legendary tie
Ties at the Academy Awards are rare but not unheard of. When the Oscars had a much more limited voting pool (and more lax rules about ties), actors Fredric March and Wallace Beery tied for Best Actor in 1932. Since then, most ties have gone to films in much smaller categories, as recently as 2013 when Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty tied for Best Sound Editing. The one huge exception was in 1969 when the legendary Katharine Hepburn and the soon-to-be-legendary Barbra Streisand tied for Best Actress for The Lion in Winter and Funny Girl, respectively. Hepburn was not in attendance at the ceremony, which means that TV audiences missed the opportunity to see them sharing the stage together, but Streisand showed immense gratitude for the award regardless of the tie, saying that she was honored to be “in such magnificent company as Katharine Hepburn.” Price Waterhouse, the company that was responsible for tallying the votes, stood up for their count, verifying that they double- and triple-checked the result was an exact tie between Streisand and Hepburn.
A Streak of Genius
Presenter Niven with streaker Opel running behind
In 1974, co-host David Niven was setting the stage for Elizabeth Taylor to announce Best Picture when, mid-sentence, a naked man ran out from behind the stage and flashed a peace sign to the camera before running off into the distance. Niven laughed and the audience applauded. Once the crowd died down, Niven said the zinger, “Probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?” before finally giving the stage to Taylor. The streaker was a queer photographer named Robert Opel who had to pose as a journalist to sneak into the event and also cut through a very expensive curtain backstage to make it on camera. Some evidence has popped up in later years suggesting that the stunt may have been staged by the show’s producers, but it didn’t stop Opel from becoming a minor celebrity for a brief period before he opened a legendary gallery of gay male art in San Francisco. The Academy clearly didn’t hate the stunt either, because they memorialized it in a skit with a nude John Cena at the 2024 Oscars.