Redgrave speech
50th Academy Awards®
Hosts
News & Recap
This year was notably the golden anniversary (50th anniversary) of the Oscars.
Redgrave speech
During the ceremony, Vanessa Redgrave won the Best Supporting Actress award for Julia, and gave a controversial acceptance speech proclaiming her pro-Palestinian views.
- Redgrave: "My dear colleagues, I thank you very much for this tribute to my work. I think that Jane Fonda, and I have done the best work of our lives and I think this is in part due to our director, Fred Zinnemann. [Audience applause.]
- And I also think it's in part because we believed and we believe in what we were expressing--two out of millions who gave their lives and were to prepared to sacrifice everything in the fight against fascist and racist Nazi Germany.
- And I salute you, and I pay tribute to you, and I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you've stood firm, and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums [gasps from the audience, followed by a smattering of boos and clapping] whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression.
- And I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt a final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witch-hunt against those who tried to express in their lives and their work the truth that they believe in [some boos and hissing]. I salute you and I thank you and I pledge to you that I will continue to fight against anti-Semitism and fascism.
Shortly thereafter, when it came his turn to announce an award winner (for Best Writing), Paddy Chayefsky, apparently perturbed by political speeches at the Academy Awards, replied:
- "Before I get on to the writing awards, there's a little matter I'd like to tidy up--at least if I expect to live with myself tomorrow morning. I would like to say, personal opinion, of course, that I'm sick and tired of people exploiting the Academy Awards [loud applause] for the propagation of their own personal propagana.
- I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple 'thank you' would have sufficed." [Loud applause.]
Winners
See also: Annie Hall
Acting
Special honors
The Academy gave the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to Walter Mirisch and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Charlton Heston.
See also
