Oscar's Kiss Of Death, By Tanith Carey [Archive] - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

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05-26-2004, 12:54 AM

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OSCAR'S KISS OF DEATH Mar 1 2004
By Tanith Carey Us Editor

THIS year's Oscar winners are basking in the glory of landing the highest
honour in entertainment.
But as they savour their triumphs this morning they should remember that
getting an Academy Award is no guarantee their careers will thrive.
And it could be positively bad for their love lives.
For all the winners who have led charmed lives, there are many who have seen
their public or private lives take a nosedive.

Hollywood even has a name for it: the Curse of the Oscar.
The phenomenon first came to light in 1938 when Best Actress Bette Davis
said the nude statuette's bottom reminded her of her husband, Harmon Oscar
Nelson.
The joke lasted. The marriage did not. Within a year the couple had split
up.

Although the curse can strike anyone, female recipients have been most
vulnerable.
It's uncanny how many of the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress
winners have faded away - and how many have seen their relationships fall
apart.

Halle Berry, for instance, won an Oscar but lost a husband.
That night of her Best Actress win for Monster's Ball at the 2001 awards,
she gushingly thanked her husband Eric Benet, describing him as "just a joy
in my life".
But behind the scenes, singer Eric was already allegedly being unfaithful
with ex-girlfriend Julia Riley.
It has since been claimed he cheated with at least 10 other women and had to
seek treatment for sex addiction.
They separated last September after Halle announced they needed "time apart
to re-evaluate" their marriage.
The star, who has also chosen some questionable film roles such as the
widely slated Gothika, has yet to find love again.

It was a similar story with actress Angelina Jolie, who won Best Supporting
Actress for Girl, Interrupted in 1999.
Soon after the ceremony, she eloped with her second husband, actor Billy Bob
Thornton.
DESPITE declarations of undying love - and swapping phials of each other's
blood - they were divorced within a year.
Kim Basinger's friends claim her Oscar win in 1997 was one reason for the
breakdown of her marriage to fellow actor Alec Baldwin.
Nor did love work out for Julia Roberts after she snared an Oscar in 2000
for Erin Brockovich.
She was ditched three months later by her actor boyfriend Benjamin Bratt
because she was afraid to commit to marriage and kids.
Helen Hunt, too, found that getting Best Actress for As Good As It Gets in
the 1997 awards was exactly that. Soon afterwards her brief marriage to
Simpsons voice actor Hank Azaria ended in divorce.

And Whoopi Goldberg's love life suffered after her win in 1990 for Best
Supporting Actress in Ghost.
The star threatened to quit Hollywood altogether when her affair with Cheers
star Ted Danson was revealed.
It all turned sour after he turned up at an event made up with a black face
and presented a routine that included details of their sex life.
Sister Act, her only big hit after Ghost, resulted in a $100million
(£54million) lawsuit over copyright and allegations that the movie was
lifted from an earlier screenplay.

Liza Minnelli, Best Actress in 1972, was married four times. The Cabaret
actress was accused of being an alcoholic husband-beater by her latest,
producer David Gest.
He launched a £7million lawsuit against her, saying he now lives in
"virtually constant, unrelenting pain". She has countersued, claiming he
stole £1.5million from her.

Movie legend Vivien Leigh was badly hit by the Curse of the Oscars. The
two-time winner was struck down with tuberculosis two years after winning
her first in 1939. Then illness and two miscarriages with Laurence Olivier
sent her into manic depression.

In 1945, Joan Crawford walked away with Best Actress, but it was the
beginning of a long decline.
In 1977, her reputation was forever tainted with a tell-all book, Mommy
Dearest, by her adopted daughter Christina. Her career was over and she died
of cancer later the same year, aged 69.

A long line of male winners, too, have had their share of personal problems.
Marlon Brando won Best Actor twice, but his life has been blighted by two
failed marriages and the suicide of his daughter. He is fighting health
problems ranging from pneumonia to congestive heart failure.

Best Director winner Woody Allen saw his personal life disintegrate when his
actress lover Mia Farrow discovered his relationship with their adopted
daughter Soon-Yi, finding nude pictures of the girl, then 21, in Allen's
flat. Some say Woody never regained his popularity after his troubled private life
became public knowledge.

Kevin Costner won Best Director for Dances With Wolves in 1990 - only to
suffer the double blow of having to watch his career belly-flop and his
personal life collapse.
Just two years after his win, he made Waterworld, which quickly sank. Within
four years he split with his college Cindy after three children and 16 years
of marriage.
DR Cynthia McVey, a lecturer in psychology at Scotland's Glasgow Caledonia
University, says an Oscar can put huge pressure on a relationship.
"While long, stable marriages might survive Oscar night, if the partner is
insecure they will feel threatened," she says.

"When a woman is particularly successful in her chosen field, a man feels
less powerful and will find it difficult to remain in a relationship. People
also think they will be too expensive or will have become prima donnas."
New York relationship counsellor Debra Burrell warns: "When you win an award
like that, you get more offers than you could possibly deal with. It's hard
not to get caught up in it and to keep yourself grounded in a relationship.
"Whether it's fate, pure coincidence or that the relationship falls to
pieces because of the pressures of winning the grand movie prize, Oscar
triumphs are usually followed by personal disasters among the top leading
ladies."

Careerwise too, it can be difficult to follow an Oscar-winning role. Because
of the lack of roles for older women, respected character actresses Brenda
Fricker and Mercedes Ruehl have been reduced to Trivial Pursuit questions
since My Left Foot and The Fisher King.
Twice-nominated Marcia Gay Harden, who won in 2000 for Pollock and was
nominated again this year for Mystic River, says the award was one of the
worst things that ever happened to her career.
"The Oscar is disastrous on a professional level," she says. "Suddenly the
parts you're offered become smaller and the money less. There's no logic to
it."

Damien Bona, author of Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History Of The Academy
Awards, agrees that finding that elusive follow-up role after winning the
biggest entertainment award around is never easy.
"Often, what happens is the woman who wins for Best Supporting Actress is a
character actress, but she has the Oscar, and she, or the studio, or her
agent sees her as sort of a leading lady," he says.

Winning exacted a cruel toll on child star Tatum O'Neal, on whom the honour
fell before it had really been proved whether she could act or not.
The daughter of hellraising actor Ryan was only 10 in 1973 when she won Best
Supporting Actress for Paper Moon. The expectation quickly proved too much
to live up to. Nicknamed Tantrum for her behaviour on film sets,
she was a
full-blown cocaine addict by the age of 20.
When the film roles failed to materialise, she became better known for her
stormy marriage to tennis star John McEnroe.
After they split and her mother died of cancer in 1997, Tatum descended to
using heroin - first sniffing, then using needles.
McEnroe sued her for custody of their three children, and she had to submit
to regular drug testing to be allowed to see them.
But two Oscar winners met an even more tragic fate.

Gig Young, who took Best Supporting Actor for They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
in the 1969 awards, committed suicide when his career stalled after his
prophetically named film.
His personal life was troubled. He was married five times - three ended in
divorce and one wife died.
NINE years after his win, Young shot and killed his wife of three weeks,
German actress Kim Schmidt, in their New York apartment and then turned the
gun on himself.

Suave British actor George Sanders was also to take his own life.
His career peaked when he won Best Supporting Actor for All About Eve at the
1950 awards, but away from the screen the deeply troubled star went to seven
psychiatrists and was married four times.
He killed himself by swallowing a large amount of nembutal while staying in
Barcelona.
His suicide note in April 1972 famously read: "Dear World: I am leaving
because I am bored."
But the award for sheer bad luck must go to Haing S Ngor, who won Best
Supporting Actor in 1984 for The Killing Fields,
A former doctor, Ngor had never acted before he won the role of photographer
Dith Pran. He based his performance on his real-life experiences at the
hands of the cruel Khmer Rouge.

But after surviving the horrors of war-torn Cambodia, the peace campaigner
was shot and killed outside his Los Angeles home in 1996.
Although many felt that his political views were behind the murder, the
official police report said Ngor died resisting a street-gang robbery.

Nor does the Curse of Oscar ignore those behind the camera.
On the night Titanic swept the board in the 1997 awards, one of the most
memorable sights was director James Cameron's wife Linda Hamilton clapping
wildly as the film landed 11 Oscars.
But even on the night of Cameron's triumph, there were signs that all was
not well.
Walking down the red carpet, the director was seen yanking the Terminator
actress by the arm and shouting at her.

The truth was that their marriage was disintegrating. On the set of the
film, he had fallen for actress Suzy Amis - who played the central character
Rose's granddaughter.
Shortly after his win, his wife filed for divorce after a mere 17 months of
marriage. And Linda,who described Cameron as an "absolutely miserable,
miserable, unhappy man", had the last laugh.

The huge success of the film meant the director was forced to give her more
than half his revenues from the epic - more than £30million.
When she was asked if the Oscars had changed him, the actress simply
replied: "He was always a jerk. So it's hard to measure."

KIM BASINGER
Best Supporting Actress, LA Confidential 1997
KIM'S win was final confirmation for the stunning blonde star that her
acting talent had been recognised - but it may have cost her her marriage to
fellow actor Alec Baldwin.
Despite the fact he is nominated this year, friends claimed that at the time
he was jealous of her success.
Kim's close friend Eileen Ford says: "He dragged her down for years with his
jealousy. Their marriage prevented her from making the most of her talent."

The couple finally split in 2002 after eight years of marriage. They are now
locked in one of the ugliest custody fights in Hollywood history over their
eight-year-old daughter Ireland.
Recriminations have included Kim's claims that Alec beat her. He hit back by
saying she has a drink problem, which she denies.

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The Oscar-winning actress has never quite shaken the bizarre stigma that comes with being a sex symbol.

The twisty 1997 crime drama L.A. Confidential starred a murderer's row of top-tier actors: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell. But when Oscar season rolled around, only one of the film's stars took home a prize for acting: Kim Basinger. "If anyone has a dream out there," said Basinger as she accepted the trophy, "just know that I’m living proof that they do come true."

The irony, of course, was that Basinger had achieved her Hollywood dream by playing a woman who had failed to achieve it. Basinger's L.A. Confidential character, Lynn Bracken, was a failed actress-turned-prostitute who went through plastic surgery so she could conform to a fantasy entertained by a number of wealthy johns: a one-night stand with screen starlet Veronica Lake. In the end, Bracken does get her own kind of Hollywood ending, riding off into the sunset with Bud White, the L.A.P.D. cop played by Russell Crowe.

Today, nearly 20 years after L.A. Confidential first graced theaters, there's an unlikely kind of second chapter. Basinger and Crowe have reunited on the big screen for The Nice Guys—but the power dynamics have shifted. This time, Crowe is a lunkheaded enforcer so low-rent that he doesn’t even have a P.I. license, let alone a badge. And Basinger is the head of Los Angeles' Justice Department, exercising colossal political power in a missing-persons case in which she has a very personal interest.

It's not quite a comeback. Over the years, Basinger has occasionally turned up in wife/mom roles in movies like Charlie St. Cloud, and Grudge Match, and she toplined a long-gestating passion project called The 11th Hour, which arrived on VOD last summer. But unless you've been actively following Basinger's career over the past decade, it's still a little startling when she suddenly pops up in The Nice Guys—like stumbling into an old friend you rarely think of and never visit.

Hollywood has an exceedingly short memory, so it's easy to forget how omnipresent Basinger was in the 1980s and 1990s. She costarred in a miniseries remake of the Best Picture-winning drama From Here to Eternity. She held her own opposite James Bond and Batman. She worked with directors as varied and talented as Robert Altman, Adrian Lyne, and Robert Benton. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for her supporting turn in The Natural. There were also costly mistakes; at the height of her career, Basinger turned down starring roles in both Thelma & Louise and Sleepless in Seattle.

But even as her acting career was pushing forward, the tabloid headlines were beginning to overwhelm her body of work. Basinger was linked to a string of purported high-profile romances: Richard Gere, Prince, and Alec Baldwin, who she married in 1993. That same year, a protracted legal battle between Basinger and Main Line Pictures over a bizarre erotic drama called Boxing Helena ended in disaster when a jury decided that Basinger had breached an oral contract by first agreeing to star, and later pulling out of the project. She was ordered to pay $7.4 million—a decision that sent her into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Hollywood is a difficult business at the best of times, but it’s particularly cruel to its sex symbols. Basinger, as the Hollywood trades repeatedly reminded everyone, had posed for a full-frontal Playboy centerfold spread that ran in 1983. Many of her buzziest roles explicitly cast her as a sex symbol; when she branched out, in films like the under-seen comedy Nadine, the audience didn’t follow.

And then, in 1995, Basinger did something considered unthinkable by most Hollywood stars on the rise: She stopped acting. At the height of her career, she spent a few years not acting, and might have continued that way if L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson hadn't aggressively sought her out for the role. "Having played so many sexpots and femme fatales in the past, [Basinger] didn’t want to play a prostitute in L.A. Confidential," reported the Los Angeles Times. The film's casting director, Ed Johnston, summed it up in a single sentence: "She started out as a sex symbol, and the powers that be in Hollywood couldn't see her as anything else."

L.A. Confidential was an ideal showcase for Basinger, and following the film's exceptionally well-received premiere at Cannes, the actress was showered with praise by many outlets that had previously written her off and drubbed her—a coronation that ended with the Oscar statuette. So how did Basinger respond? By taking another hiatus from acting. When she returned in 2000, it was for a passion project: a big-screen adaptation of Kuki Gallmann's memoir I Dreamed of Africa. Though Basinger's performance was widely praised, the film tanked. In the years that followed, Basinger acted only sparingly—most notably, she re-teamed with L.A. Confidential director Hanson to play Eminem's mother in 8 Mile.

Basinger's career is a complicated one to parse. Some of her breaks from acting were clearly her choice; in interviews, she's quick to describe how much of her focus since 1995 has been on raising Ireland, her daughter with Alec Baldwin. Some of her movies were terrible and justly panned. But it's still a little galling to see Basinger opposite her L.A. Confidential costar Crowe in The Nice Guys—gray and paunchy, in one of the sharpest leading roles of his career, while she languishes in an underdeveloped and underwritten bit part at the periphery of the narrative. This remains the reality for the vast majority of Hollywood actresses, and particularly those who were so explicitly lauded for their sex appeal, as Melanie Griffith, Kathleen Turner, and Kelly Le Brock could attest. At the very least, it's hard to imagine Basinger's similarly aged male costars being subjected to an insipid Q&A like this one:
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But if we're not quite in the midst of a Basinger-aissance, there's at least one more role on her docket that's higher-profile than anything she's done in at least a decade. In an elegant bit of casting, next year's Fifty Shades of Grey sequel Fifty Shades Darker has cast Basinger as Elena Lincoln, the "Mrs. Robinson" who seduced the teenaged Christian Grey and paved the way for his sadomasochistic sexual preferences. It's another role that hearkens back to a key touchstone in Basinger's career—in this case, playing a woman in the midst of a sadomasochistic sexual affair in 1986's 9 1/2 Weeks. And if it's yet another sex symbol role in a career that has turned out to be narrower and more limiting than the one Basinger might have chosen — well, at least she’s the one in control.