However you put it this category was going to have some heavyweights missing. Kate has just worked with so many great leading men of her time, it’s difficult to narrow it down to just five. Still, I was surprised at the lack of any love for Spencer Tracy. After all most people seem to regard them as inseparable. Oh well.
The Nominees
Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby
Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story
Peter O’Toole in The Lion in Winter
James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story
Bogart won his Oscar for his performance in The African Queen. It wasn’t my favourite of the year, but I don’t think it’s a bad one. It’s not classic Bogart by any means and it’s obvious to see the against type role impressing voters. I like this movie, and Bogart is an important part of why it even works. He and Kate definitely had good chemistry.
Cary Grant winds up with two nods [I wonder if that’ll lead to vote splitting?] for two performances which people think should have been Oscar rewarded. Neither earned a nomination. He plays the co-lead of sorts in The Philadelphia Story but before that he was against type as a bumbling scientist in Bringing Up Baby. Two startlingly different roles.
Peter O’Toole never had a better chance of winning that elusive Oscar than in 1968 and the fact that he didn’t win only goes to show that anything can happen. He’s decades younger than Kate in the film, but the two seem made for each other in every way possible.
Jimmy Stewart is the only of the five that doesn’t play Kate’s object of affection, although that’s probably arguable. His is also the second Oscar winning performance of the lot and like Bogart’s is regarded as a makeup Oscar. I’m not sure why though. Macaulay is an interesting character and Stewart plays him to perfection.
Polls close on Wednesday. The results will be in on Thursday.
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