The loophole that caused the only tie for ‘Best Actor’ in Oscars history
From the outside, the Oscars look like a glamorous affair, but in reality, and behind the scenes, it’s always somewhat of a mess and a true hotbed of Hollywood organisational chaos.
But what did they expect when that’s exactly how it started? Rather than the story they span of launching the award show in order to honour actors, directors and the wider world of filmmakers to celebrate their incredible work. Really, the Oscars were launched to shut them up.
Louis B Mayer, the co-founder of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, basically devised the whole idea to get his performers to do what he wanted. “I found that the best way to handle [artists] was to hang medals all over them. If I got them cups and awards, they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted,” he said, “That’s why the Academy Award was created.”
So really, Oscar bait was a thing from the beginning, as Mayer was right – actors did want to do anything to get their hands on a trophy.
However, as always when dealing with artists and creatives, the actual logistical side of the event often gets a bit messed up. Most of the time, the audience would never suspect a thing. But on occasion, the slip-up is so big that it’s historic – like when two actors won best actor.
The only tie for ‘Best Actor’ in Oscars history
In 1932, at the fifth Academy Awards, the winner of ‘Best Actor’ was announced. It was awarded to Fredric March for his role in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. As he went up on stage, ready to do his acceptance speech, suddenly, there was an interruption.
A vote counter called out that something had gone wrong, leading to an awkward moment where a person needed to announce that, actually, Wallace Beery had won for his role in The Champ.
However, this wasn’t an infamous La La Land and Moonlight type mishap where simply the wrong name had been called. Instead, it was even more confusing, as in reality, both March and Beery had won through a strange voting loophole, meaning that there was a tie for first place.
It isn’t very clear, though. Back then, the winners were decided by a tiny voting team of industry heads. With such a small team, it meant that really, a tie-break was bound to be inevitable, but for some reason, rather than ensuring that couldn’t happen, the Oscars instead had a random rule, making it even more likely.
At the time, the rule was that if two performers were less than three votes apart, or if the winner won by less than three votes, the runner-up would also be considered a winner. In the case of 1932, March had won. However, he only won by one vote, meaning that, as per their own strange rule, they had to have the awkward moment, pausing the show to bring Beery up on stage as well.
Realising quickly how stupid that rule is, it was quickly changed – but not before it likely made both March and Beery want the ground to swallow them up during the uncomfortable interruption.
