Oscars 2022: Winners and Losers
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Credit: Wikimedia
Watch the moment a streaker interrupted the 1974 Oscars ceremony
The annual Academy Awards are a defining event in movie culture. It celebrates and praises the best of the best, with numerous contributors to a film receiving the spotlight and credit for their hard work. It’s an opportunity for directors, writers, actors and others to come together to honour the medium.
Many of film fans’ most formative and infamous moments have taken place during the shows. These vary from powerful acceptance speeches that have inspired the next generation to some of the best looks on a red carpet. History has been made at the Oscars, such as Parasite becoming the first international film to win Best Picture. Hattie McDaniel also embodied change when she became the first black person to win an award in 1940 for her role in Gone With The Wind.
There have also been heavily controversial and dividing moments at the Academy Awards. The most recent example is Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage for an inappropriate joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Social media demonstrated these issues’ divisiveness, and neither side attempted to listen to the other.
Furthermore, there was the incident where activist Sacheen Littlefeather represented Marlon Brando for the Best Actor Award at the 45th Annual Oscars. Littlefeather used the opportunity to call out the mistreatment of Native Americans, receiving boos and attempted abuse from the audience.
One famous change of plans in a ceremony’s run happened at the hands of photographer Robert Opel, who made his shocking and unexpected appearance a year after Littlefeather’s. Compared to Littlefeather or Smith’s incidents, it’s a little more light-hearted and downright weird.
On April 2nd, 1974, during the 46th Academy Awards, Opel managed to sneak backstage by impersonating a journalist. After cutting down an expensive background curtain, Opel ran onto the stage, completely naked and threw up a peace sign to the audience. This interrupted actor David Niven as he introduced Elisabeth Taylor and took the audience by surprise.
As one would expect, Niven briefly lost composure by laughing from the sheer absurdity of the event. However, he collected himself and addressed the audience to regain control of the situation and maintain professionalism.
His now famous response was: “Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen… But isn’t it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?”. The show then went on without any more bizarre interruptions.
The incident is one of the most memorable Oscar moments. For some who witnessed it, the streaker represented a moment of intense freedom and liberation. Others deemed it an inappropriate display of misplaced audacity. The precise reason why Opel did it isn’t known. However, it can be tied with his stance as a progressive and unconventional artist. It perfectly clashed with the glamour of the Academy Awards.
So what was the response to Opel’s streaking?
It didn’t take too long for rumours about the reasoning for Ope’s actions to come out. The show producer, Jack Haley Jr, was later accused of staging the whole incident as a stunt. However, this was never confirmed to be fact.
A more interesting claim came from the show’s business manager, Robert Metzler. He proposed the incident was predetermined rather than a genuine interruption from the outside. He claimed that during the dress rehearsal, Niven had asked Metzler’s wife for a pen that he used to write down the famous ad-lib.
It is still undetermined whether Metzler’s claim is true or that someone else planned Opel’s streaking rather than himself. Unfortunately, the man himself cannot confirm or deny this 48 years on. He was tragically murdered five years later in an armed robbery.
