It’s become cliche for actors, writers, and directors to say that they don’t care about winning an Academy Award, even if they do. But in the 90-year history of the Oscars, there have been very few people who won a golden knight statuette and then told the Academy of Motion ...read more
1. Ben Kingsley – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in “Gandhi” (1982)The son of an Indian father and a British mother, Krishna Pandit Bhanji combined his father’s nickname (Benji) and his grandfather’s (King Clove) to come up with his now-famous stage name: Ben Kingsley. After working ...read more
As recognizable as any Hollywood celebrity, the golden Oscar statuette has been around since the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. The iconic trophy depicts a knight holding a sword and standing on a film reel with five spokes, each representing one of the Academy of Motion ...read more
On this day in 2010, Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win an Academy Award for best director, for her movie “The Hurt Locker,” about an American bomb squad that disables explosives in Iraq in 2004. Prior to Bigelow, only three women had been nominated for a best ...read more
“Mutiny on the Bounty” (Best Picture, 1936)Director: Frank Loyd Based on a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall that chronicles the true tale of a 1789 mutiny aboard the British ship Bounty, this early Best Picture winner stars Clark Gable as the rebel Fletcher ...read more
As part of his first visit to the United States in 20 years, British film pioneer Charlie Chaplin accepts an honorary Academy Award for his “incalculable” contribution to the art of filmmaking. Chaplin, once America’s most successful movie star and director, had left the country ...read more
The name Scott Joplin is now nearly synonymous with ragtime—the loose, syncopated musical style that swept the nation in the late-19th century and laid the groundwork for the emergence of jazz in the early 20th. Yet the most important figure in the history of ragtime was a ...read more
After marking his arrival in Hollywood with a string of English-language films, including Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Ice Storm (1997) and Ride with the Devil (1999), the Taiwanese film director Ang Lee decided to return to his roots for his next picture, which he intended ...read more
On October 5, 1919, a young Italian car mechanic and engineer named Enzo Ferrari takes part in his first car race, a hill climb in Parma, Italy. He finished fourth. Ferrari was a good driver, but not a great one: In all, he won just 13 of the 47 races he entered. Many people say ...read more