Who was the first actor to win an Oscar and a Razzie?
Forget about the Oscars. If you want to be a real star in Hollywood, you need a Razzie, too. Since their inception in 1981, the Golden Raspberry Awards have honoured the worst that Hollywood has to offer. Whether it’s Adam Sandler clowning around a little too hard for his paycheque or Halle Berry working overtime to sully the good name of the Batman franchise, the Razzies have been addressing the elephant in the room for decades.
It will not surprise you to learn that there is no exact science to how the awards shake out. There seems to be a particularly pervasive hatred of Sylvester Stallone and Madonna, and the voters really undermined themselves when they nominated Stanley Kubrick for the ‘Worst Director’ award for The Shining back in the ’80s. However, most of the choices are pretty uncontroversial. It’s fair to say that Howard the Duck, Battlefield Earth, and Freddie Got Fingered (all of which earned the award for ‘Worst Picture’) do not have many defenders.
Although the Razzies started small – the first ceremony was a small potluck held in the founder’s living room – they have grown significantly in stature, thanks in large part to the savvy decision to hold them on the eve of the Oscars every year. By setting themselves up as the anti-Oscars, the Razzies have positioned themselves perfectly to make headlines, especially when actors are nominated at both ceremonies in the same year.
The first star to earn the distinction of being both an Oscar and a Razzie recipient was Faye Dunaway, who won an Oscar in 1977 for Network and a Razzie in 1982 for Mommie Dearest. The latter win was out of step with the general consensus, which looked favourably upon her portrayal of Joan Crawford in the hammy and apocryphal biopic. Dunaway wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for the part, but Mommie Dearest did earn nominations from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.
Who was the first actor to win the same year?
On a handful of occasions, the Razzies strike gold by nominating a person who also happens to be nominated for an Oscar. Composer Alan Menken was the first person to earn this dubious honour in 1992 when he landed a Razzie nod for his work on Newsies and a couple of Oscar nods for his work on Beauty and the Beast. He got the last laugh, losing the Razzie and winning two Oscars. He currently has eight of those little gold men, so the Razzies should have known better than to pick a fight with him.
The first actor to win for worst and best performance in the same year was Sandra Bullock. In 2009, she inflicted audiences with the stunningly terrible comedy-in-name-only All About Steve, which earned her a well-deserved Golden Raspberry. Like the class act that she is, Bullock attended the ceremony to collect the award, even though she was probably full of nerves about the much bigger event on her schedule.
The following night, she took to the stage at the Oscars to accept her award for ‘Best Actress’ for her role as a football mom in The Blind Side, officially making her the coolest star of the year, though that, unfortunately, has yet to become a formal award.
To date, no actor has reached the pinnacle of the profession, which is to win a Razzie and an Oscar for the same role. James Coco, Amy Irving, and Glenn Close are the only stars to earn nominations for the same performance, but they all fell at the final hurdle. Since the Oscars seem to be moving away from scenery-chewing biopics these days, the prospect of anyone achieving this benchmark seems more unlikely than ever.
