1985 Academy Awards® Winners and History
Witness (1985)
Actor:
WILLIAM HURT in "Kiss of the Spider Woman", Harrison                 Ford in "Witness", James Garner in "Murphy's Romance",                 Jack Nicholson in "Prizzi's Honor", Jon Voight in "Runaway                 Train"
Actress:
GERALDINE PAGE in "The Trip to Bountiful", Anne Bancroft                 in "Agnes of God", Whoopi Goldberg in "The Color                 Purple", Jessica Lange in "Sweet Dreams", Meryl                 Streep in "Out of Africa"
Supporting Actor:
DON AMECHE in "Cocoon", Klaus Maria Brandauer in "Out                 of Africa", William Hickey in "Prizzi's Honor",                 Robert Loggia in "Jagged Edge", Eric Roberts in "Runaway Train"
Supporting Actress:
ANJELICA HUSTON in "Prizzi's Honor", Margaret Avery                 in "The Color Purple", Amy Madigan in "Twice in                 a Lifetime", Meg Tilly in "Agnes of God", Oprah                 Winfrey in "The Color Purple"
Director:
SYDNEY POLLACK for "Out of Africa", Hecter Babenco                 for "Kiss of the Spider Woman", John Huston for "Prizzi's                 Honor", Akira Kurosawa for "Ran", Peter Weir for "Witness"
Sydney                   Pollack's grandly-spectacular, handsome romance spanning two                   decades, Out of Africa, was based by Kurt Luedtke on                   the life, works, and memoirs of Karen Blixen (a Danish writer                   who published under the name Isak Dinesen). The romantic biopic                   had eleven Oscar nominations and captured all the major                   awards, seven in all - except in the acting categories                   (Best Picture, Best Director (Sydney Pollack), Best Screenplay                   Adaptation (Kurt Luedtke), Best Cinematography (David Watkins),                   Best Art/Set Direction, Best Sound, and Best Original Score).
Another Best Picture nominee with eleven nominations                   was director Steven Spielberg's affecting drama, The Color                     Purple (Spielberg's first theatrical feature was the drama The                       Sugarland Express (1974) directed many years earlier) -                   the first PG-13 rated film to be nominated for Best Picture.                   With a largely black cast, it was an adaptation of Alice Walker's                   Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a young black girl growing                   to maturity in rural 20th century Georgia. Five of Out of                     Africa's seven Oscars directly defeated The Color                       Purple's nominations. In fact, The Color Purple didn't                   win a single Oscar award. [This 'un-achievement' tied the shutout                   record with The Turning Point (1977) - both films had                   the most nominations (11) without a single win.]
The other three Best Picture nominees were:
Australian director Peter Weir's first Hollywood                     film - a thriller/romance among the Amish, Witness (with                     eight nominations and two wins - Best Original Screenplay                     and Best Film Editing)
Brazilian director Hector Babenco's first                     English-language film based upon Manuel Puig's novel - a                     tale of two prisoners confined together in a South American                     prison, the small-budget independent film Kiss of the                       Spider Woman (with four nominations and one win - for                     Best Actor)
79 year-old director John Huston's 40th film,                     the dark comedy about the Mafia, Prizzi's Honor (with                     eight nominations and one win - Best Supporting Actress).
[Huston became the oldest person ever nominated for                     a Best Director Oscar with this nomination. He had won many                     years earlier as Best Director for
The                     Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) .]
Steven Spielberg was the only director                   of a Best Picture nominee who was not nominated for Best Director.                   There was a tremendous lack of judgment in the Academy's humiliating                   treatment of Steven Spielberg as director. [It was the first time                   since 43 years earlier that Sam Wood, another director with                   a film with ten or more nominations - The Pride of the Yankees                     (1942) - didn't have a Best Director nomination.] Spielberg's                   Best Picture-nominated film had eleven nominations, but a nomination                   for Best Director was not one of them. [Spielberg had previously                   been nominated as Best Director in 1977, 1981, and 1982 - without                   a win - he wouldn't win until
Schindler's                     List (1993) .]
Spielberg's position in the nominees was taken                   by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa for Ran (with                   four nominations - Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography,                   Best Director, and its sole win for Best Costume Design), an                   adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, the historical                   epic of a tragic, 16th century Japanese warlord. [Kurosawa                   was later honored with a Special Oscar in 1989.]
All ten of the Best Actor/Actress nominees were                   American-born - the first time in Oscar history. In                   this year, it was also the second time in Academy history                   (the first was in 1972) that three of the Best Actor                   and Best Actress nominees in 1985 were black performers: Whoopi                   Goldberg as Best Actress for The Color Purple, and Margaret                   Avery and Oprah Winfrey as Best Supporting Actress for The                     Color Purple. But all of them lost in their categories.
The Best Actor honor was won by William Hurt                   (with his first of three consecutive nominations) for his role                   as the flamboyant, homosexual Luis Molina, a South American                   hairdresser/romantic who creates imaginary film dreams, and                   is planted by the authorities in a prison to learn revolutionary                   secrets from fellow prisoner (Raoul Julia) in Kiss of the                     Spider Woman. [Note: Kiss of the Spider Woman was                   the first independent film to be nominated for Best Picture.                   Hurt's win in the Best Actor category was the first time                   a performer won the award for playing a 'gay' person.]
The other Best Actor nominees were:
Harrison Ford (with his first nomination)                     as tough cop John Book taking refuge in an Amish community                     in the crime thriller Witness
James Garner (with his first and sole nomination)                     as an Arizonian, small-town pharmacist - a widower who falls                     in love with Sally Field in director Martin Ritt's Murphy's                       Romance
Jack Nicholson (with his eighth nomination)                     as thick-witted Mafia hit man Charley Partanna in Prizzi's                       Honor
Jon Voight (with his third nomination) as                     escaped prison inmate Manny in the nail-biting prison-action                     thriller by Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, Runaway                       Train
In the Best Actress category, Geraldine Page                   (with her eighth nomination and first and sole                   win) won her long-awaited first Oscar for her role as                   elderly, hymn-singing widow/pensioner Mrs. Watts who leaves                   Houston and returns to her hometown of Bountiful for a last                   visit before her death in The Trip to Bountiful, a debut                   film for director Peter Masterson. [Since 1953, Page had already                   been nominated three times for Best Actress and four times                   for Best Supporting Actress, and lost for some more impressive                   performances. With her long losing streak, she was the first person                   to win an acting Oscar on her eighth attempt after seven previously                   unsuccessful nominations. Her seven failed tries tied similar                   efforts of both Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton. Most people                   interpreted her Oscar win as a 'tribute' to her entire career.]
The other four Best Actress nominees were:
Anne Bancroft (with her fifth nomination)                     as Sister Miriam Ruth - a Quebec convent's mother superior                     in director Norman Jewison's Agnes of God
Jessica Lange (with her fourth nomination)                     as country-western singer Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams; Lange lip-synched Cline's recordings, unlike Beverly D'Angelo                     who played Cline five years earlier in Coal Miner's Daughter                       (1980)
Meryl Streep (with her sixth nomination, and                     fourth nomination in the 80s) as Danish baronness Karen Blixen/Isak                     Dinesen who marries and settles on an African coffee plantation                     in Out of Africa
Whoopi Goldberg (in her first film) as the                     oppressed Celie in The Color Purple
All of the nominees in the Best Supporting Actor                   and Actress categories were first-time nominees.
The Best Supporting Actor award was a sentimental                   honor won by 77 year-old veteran actor Don Ameche as Art Selwyn                   - a rejuvenated, break-dancing, retirement home resident who                   is given the chance of immortality in director Ron Howard's                   light, science-fiction comedy Cocoon. The other nominees                   in the Best Supporting Actor category were:
Klaus Maria Brandauer as Streep's disinterested                     philandering husband - the Danish Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke                     in Out of Africa
William Hickey as Don Corrado Prizzi in Prizzi's                     Honor
Robert Loggia as Sam Ransom in the mystery/thriller Jagged                     Edge (the film's sole nomination)
Eric Roberts as Jon Voight's vicious convict                     co-escapee Buck in Runaway Train
The Best Supporting Actress award was presented                   to Anjelica Huston in the role of a Mafia assassin's (Jack                   Nicholson) scorned, but cunning and long-suffering girlfriend                   Maerose Prizzi in Prizzi's Honor. [As the director's                   daughter, Anjelica was the first person to be directed                   to an Oscar by her own father. John Huston had also directed                   his own father Walter to an Oscar win in
The                     Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) . Anjelica was also                   the first Oscar winner whose father and grandfather                   (Walter Huston) were also Oscar winners. And this remarkable                   feat made the Hustons the first family with three generations                   of Oscar winners - Huston became the only director to                   have directed both his father and daughter to Oscar victories.]
Two of the other Best Supporting Actress nominees                   were African-American actresses and co-stars in their debut performances,                   in The Color Purple:
Margaret Avery as jazz singer Shug
Oprah Winfrey as Whoopi Goldberg's step-daughter                     Sofia
The remaining two Best Supporting Actress nominees                   were Amy Madigan as Gene Hackman's daughter caught by her father's                   mid-life crisis in Bud Yorkin's Twice in a Lifetime (the                   film's sole nomination), and Meg Tilly as the childlike, beatific                   Sister Agnes in Agnes of God.
The Honorary Oscar honoree was Paul Newman, "in                   recognition of his many and memorable compelling screen performances                   and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft." From                   1958 to 1982, he had been nominated six times for Best Actor                   - and failed each time. Newman's directorial effort for Rachel,                     Rachel (1968) also earned four nominations (including Best                   Picture). He would only have to wait one more year to win his first Best                   Actor Oscar for The Color of Money (1986).
Oscar Snubs and Omissions:
The unsafe, inventively-futuristic film from                   Terry Gilliam - Brazil (although                   nominated and unsuccessful for Best Original Screenplay and                   Best Art Direction/Set Decoration awards) was missing from                   the nominations for Best Director and Best Picture (although                   the Los Angeles Film Critics Society awarded it those two distinctions).                   And writer/director Lawrence Kasdan's unique western Silverado,                   Nicolas Roeg's Insignificance, and writer/director/star                   Albert Brooks' Lost in America were conspicuously absent                   from major nomination categories.
The Best Visual Effects Oscar award was won by Cocoon,                   but director Barry Levinson's nominated Young Sherlock Holmes should                   have won instead for its startling and superb CGI SFX - its                   sole nomination. The anthem Don't You (Forget About Me) by                   Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club was un-nominated                   for Best Original Song, as was writer/director John Hughes.
Akira Kurosawa's Ran (although it had                   four nominations and one win as noted above for Costume Design)                   was not nominated for Best Picture, Best Score, Best Film Editing,                   Best Adapted Screenplay, or Best Actor/Actress (for Tatsuya                   Nakadai as Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, or Mieko Harada as ruthless                   widowed warrior Lady Kaede).
The following were un-nominated roles:
Michael J. Fox as time-traveling Marty McFly                     in Robert Zemeckis' popular Back                       to the Future
Danny Glover as brutal sharecropper "Mr." Albert                     Johnson and Adolph Caesar as his father "Old Mr." in The                       Color Purple
Rosanna Arquette as bored housewife Roberta                     Glass trailing Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan
Julie Hagerty as a spoiled, Irish-Jewish young                     woman unexpectedly ending up in an Israeli kibbutz in Goodbye,                       New York
Laura Dern as a coming-of-age woman/child                     in Smooth Talk
Miranda Richardson as executed murderer Ruth                     Ellis in Mike Newell's Dance With A Stranger
Mikhail Baryshnikov as captured Soviet defector                     Nikolai "Kolya" Rodchenko and co-star Gregory Hines as exiled American expatriate                     Raymond Greenwood in Taylor Hackford's White Nights (with                     two nominations and one win for Lionel Richie's Best Song)
Rutger Hauer as tortured knight Captain Etienne                     Navarre in Richard Donner's fantasy adventure Ladyhawke
Kathleen Turner as mobster hit woman Irene                     Walker in Prizzi's Honor
Cher as defiant, motorcycle-riding biker gang                     member, but caring mother Rusty Dennis for her disfigured                     son 'Rocky' (Eric Stoltz) in Peter Bogdanovich's Mask (with                     one successful nomination for Best Makeup)
Theresa Russell as a Marilyn Monroe-like 'Actress'                     in Insignificance
In director/writer Woody Allen's comedy-fantasy The                   Purple Rose of Cairo (with only one nomination, Best                   Original Screenplay), a take-off on Buster Keaton's Sherlock,                     Jr. (1924), Mia Farrow was overlooked as unfulfilled                   waitress/dishwasher Cecilia, as was Jeff Daniels in a dual                   role as (1) the main fictional character of "The Purple                   Rose of Cairo" - a dashing explorer/archaeologist named "Tom                   Baxter", and as (2) Gil Shepherd - the real-life actor                   who played Tom on the screen.