1979 Oscar Retrospective

The final year of the decade

“I had a terrible image,” said Sally Field. “Because I had appeared in the TV series Gidget and The Flying Nun, nobody ever suggested me for a movie. Who in America would have wanted to pay to see anything like me in the movies? I was a continual put-down, a national joke, a running gag. Bob Hope, every comedian, had jokes about The Flying Nun that went straight to my heart; I couldn’t separate myself from the role and I though they were laughing at me.”

Field finally separated from The Flying Nun when she split into sixteen different personalities in the TV-movie, Sybil. After winning an Emmy, Field earned credibility as an actress but still wasn’t being offered many movie roles besides costarring in Burt Reynolds’ movie, they were an item off-screen. Then came director Martin Ritt, who was trying to cast the title of Norma Rae, a poor textile worker who becomes involved in the unionization of her company. Jane Fonda wasn’t interested in the role, neither was Jill Clayburgh, Marsha Mason, or Faye Dunaway. Eventually, Sally Field ended up with a copy of the script. After Burt Reynolds read it he told Field, “May I have the envelope, please? And the winner is Sally Field for Norma Rae.” She took the role, and Ritt told interviewers, “In my opinion, she’s going to be one of Hollywood’s biggest stars; she’s sexy, funny, photogenic, zany, bouncy and tough — possibly another Carole Lombard.”

When Norma Rae opened in March, the Hollywood Reporter wrote, “Martin Ritt has always demonstrated his deep concern for the poor and inarticulate. So far as the movies are concerned, he has become their voice — and in Norma Rae, it is an eloquent voice indeed.” Though some like Newsweek complained, “What Norma Rae really tells us is that Hollywood is still capable of making condensing paeans to the ‘little people’ with with all the phoniness of yesteryear.” People profiled the basis of the film, Crystal Lee Sutton, and observed, “So far she hadn’t a dime to show for the filmed version of her life or from the magazine article and book from which it was drawn.” When Sutton was critical of Ritt’s interpretation of her life, the director replied, “She’s obviously no longer the free spirit of my movie. She’s turned into a middle-class bourgeois woman who doesn’t want anyone to know about her life.”

While Ritt suffered criticism, his star was earning rave reviews. “With her sassy charm and her natural bounce, Sally Field transforms Norma Rae into one of the most zesty, beguiling heroines in screen history,” remarked the New York Daily News while Vincent Canby of the New York Times declared that: “Her triumph in Norma Rae is to have shucked off at long last all need need to associate her with her TV beginnings, not because they are vulgar but because the performance she gives is as big as the screen that presents it.”

Jane Fonda, despite not taking the role of Norma Rae, was doing her radicalization act again in a movie about the dangers of nuclear energy. Actor-producer Michael Douglas had a story called Power, about a TV news team that accidentally witnesses an emergency at a nuclear power plant. Richard Dreyfuss was supposed to play the role of Douglas’ fellow journalist, but after he dropped out, the role switched genders. Fonda had been wanting to do a film about Karen Silkwood, the deceased nuclear energy safety activists, but after that project was tied up in legal complications, Fonda signed onto Douglas’ project and arranged for her company to coproduce it. For her role as a TV reporter who is pressured by her bosses to look beautiful, Fonda decided to change her hair color. She turned to her husband for advice to which he said, “I’ve never had a relationship with a redhead.”

The role of a conscience-stricken nuclear plant employee was rejected by both Jack Nicholson and Robert Redford, so Douglas turned Jack Lemmon, who had narrated two documentaries against nuclear proliferation. “When Michael Douglas gave me the script, I flipped,” Lemmon said. “A whole year went by and I literally did not work because I was afraid that if I did something else and this finally did jell I might lose it on a physical conflict.”

Retitled The China Syndrome, the movie opened in March to praise from the critics and pans from the energy companies. An executive at Westinghouse called it “an overall character assassination of an entire industry” and the Edison Electric Institute said the film required “a suspension of disbelief by the audience in order to provide its thrills.” However, two weeks after the film’s premiere, life imitated art at a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania where a leak sent radioactive steam into the atmosphere. When reporters rushed to ask Michael Douglas about the rush of free publicity, the producer exclaimed, “I’ve never had an experience like this. It goes beyond the realm of coincidence; it’s enough to make you religious.” It made The China Syndrome a profit, netting in $26 million domestically.

Woody Allen returned to his Annie Hall terrain with Manhattan, a modern-day La Ronde photographed in black-and-white by Gordon Willis. The women whirling past Allen in this roundelay were Diane Keaton, as a neurotic editor; Meryl Streep, as his lesbian first wife; and the seventeen-year-old Mariel Hemingway, as faithful teenage lover. After finishing the film, Allen was very unhappy with it and asked United Artists not to release it. He offered to make a film for no fee instead.

Critics didn’t agree with Allen. Gene Siskel called it “a remarkable motion picture. ‘Manhattan’ may turn out to be the year’s best comedy and drama.” In the Saturday Review Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., rhapsodized, “Mariel Hemingway acts with the ecstatic gravity of one for whom love is close and death unimaginably distant.” Roger Ebert said the young actress “deserves some kind of special award for what’s in some ways the most difficult role in the film.” Andrew Sarris raved, “Woody Allen’s Manhattan has materialized out of the void as the one truly great American film of the 70s. It tops Annie Hall in brilliance, wit, feeling and articulation.” Variety put it simply: “Woody Allen never seems to tire of topping himself.”

“Concentrating exclusively on big-budget films can lead to creative suicide,” stated British director Peter Yates. “After The Deep, I had to do something different. I felt it was time to get back to characters and human relationships. And I wanted to make a film about class distinction in America. Coming from England, I was always told that it doesn’t exist here. But of course, it does.” Yates found what he was looking for in two scripts from Yugoslavian immigrant Steve Tesich, a Indiana University alumni who attended on a wrestling scholarship. “The script I wrote eight years ago was about the annual Little 500 bicycle race between the school’s fraternities and the townies,” said Tesich, “and the other, about the fathers of the townies who worked in the limestone quarries around Bloomington, I wrote six years ago. It was Peter’s idea to combine them.” The new script, now called Breaking Away, was to be filmed on location in Bloomington. Convincing Barbara Barrie to play the hero’s mother proved difficult. “I don’t think I’m quite right,” Barrie told the director. “She’s such a plain, down-home kind of woman, and I — well, I feel I’m more sophisticated.” Still, a job was a job and the actress packed her bags to Bloomington.

“The kids in Breaking Away are not Heroin addicts, muggers, vampires, duck-tailed cretins from Grease, pelvis-churning disco dummies or freaks from outer space,” rejoiced Rex Reed when the film opened in August. “They are neither trendy nor retarded, but real people with real emotions and needs and gently embroidered senses of humor.” Time said, “This is the kind of small, starless film film that big studios sometimes do not know what to do with.” This claim was substantiated by Film Comment, which referred to Breaking Away as the year’s “worst-marketed film,” explaining “the summer playoff permitted no time for the low-key film to build word of mouth.” Fox was busy with the performance of the space horror movie Alien, which was released on the anniversary of Star Wars’ premiere. Alien ended up making $45 million, Breaking Away earned a “disappointing” $9 million.

The star of Fox’s TV show MASH, Alan Alda, had written a screenplay for himself about a senator who has an affair. But when The Seduction of Joe Tynan released in August, it was Alda’s costars getting the attention. Janet Maslin wrote that Meryl Streep, as the mistress, was “more stunning with each new appearance on the screen.” And the Saturday Review opined, “The best thing about the film, however, is the superb rendition by that splendid actor Melvyn Douglas of an aging Southern senator.”

James L. Brooks, creator of TV’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi, was now branching out to movies. He had written a romantic comedy titled Starting Over, starring Burt Reynolds, Jill Clayburgh, and Candice Bergen. Reynolds hoped the urban comedy would do to his image what Norma Rae did to Sally Field’s. Variety assured the actor that he succeeded in his goal: “It’s a performance that should get the critics off his back once and for all.” The critics left him alone, but Hollywood didn’t seem to care. “I hoped that the critical success of Starting Over would mean I would be offered similar roles. I wasn’t.” Reynolds said. “I can’t see over the top of the scripts on my desk, but they’re all the same as Smokey and the Bandit.”

The critics pounced on director Franco Zeffirelli’s update on The Champ with Jon Voight. “If it was shameless when Wallace Berry and Jackie Cooper first played it,” declared Newsweek, “it’s downright decadent in the hands of the operatic Zeffirelli.” Faye Dunaway, having rejected Norma Rae, played the kid’s high-fashion mother and led Time to comment that her “repertoire of neurotic mannerisms brings back unwanted memories of her performance in Chinatown, even to the point of imbuing The Champ with bizarre incestuous undercurrents.”

The sex symbol of the art house was Hanna Schygulla in the German satire, The Marriage of Maria Braun. “With her bee-stung lips, poodle-cut blond hair and blood-raising sensual fullness, Schygulla is one of the ripest and funniest screen images in years — an improbable cross between Dietrich and Harlow,” drooled David Denby in New York magazine. According to industry observed Stuart Byron, Maria Braun’s $1 million gross was “blockbuster status for an import,” but the German film paled in comparison to a French sex farce picked up by United Artists.

The studio thought La Cage aux Folles, a story about two homosexuals directed by Edouard Molinaro, would draw a few bucks in urban markets and reviews were mixed. Newsweek said: “In any language, the film is laugh-out-loud funny,” and Time called it “a giddy, unpretentious and entirely lovable film.” But the New York Times’ Vincent Canby was laughing too hard. “La Cage aux Folles is naughty in the way of comedies that pretend to be sophisticated but actually serve to reinforce the most popular conventions and most witless stereotypes.” To United Artists’ amazement, La Cage aux Folles was a breakout hit in the States. Andrew Sarris documented, “Everywhere I went, and particularly out on sybaritic Long Island, the only topic of film conversation was La Cage aux Folles. I couldn’t get on a tennis court or sit at a dinner without being regaled about the glories of this hot-weather sleeper.” The comedy shot up to be one of the highest grossing non-English language films of all time, pulling in over $7 million with $2 million alone coming from a tiny Manhattan theater where it ran for nineteen months.

Although the success of La Cage aux Folles threw Hollywood for a loop, the studios had been trying for years to lure the song who first made her mark parodying Carmen Miranda in a gay bathhouse in New York. From the Continental Baths, Bette Midler net on to conquer the Broadway with two record-breaking concerts. The Divine Miss M was terribly picky about screenplays, though; she turned down Nashville, The Fortune, Foul Play and Rocky. “We’re looking for something to make Bette a legend,” explained her manager Aaron Russo. Finally, they came across a script called The Pearl, based on the life of Janis Joplin. “I chose it because it was a big film, with music, sound and lights, not an everyday picture,” Midler said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get a part like that again. I hope I do.” Fox produced three picture, now titled The Rose after being revised and fictionalized when Joplin’s family wouldn’t give the producer the rights to the later singers story. Midler said of filmmaking, “Well, I loved my trailer.”

“The word’s our that Bette Midler’s going to be Oscar-nominated for her first movie, The Rose, and it’s a little premature since she’s only been filming two weeks,” said Earl Wilson. “But her director, Mark Rydell, says she was brilliant in some emotional street scenes, chasing her man, Frederic Forrest, yelling, crying, with mascara running.” Pauline Kael confirmed this advanced word when the film opened in November: “The Picture is shaped to tear you up, and, as one of the Dionysian stars (such as Janis Joplin) who ascended to fame in the 60s and OD’d, all within a few years, Midler gives paroxysm of a performance — it’s scabrous yet delicate, and altogether.” Midler returned to Broadway for a show called Divine Madness after the film’s premiere, and she instructed her audience to go see the movie. “It’s great and I get to die at the end,” the actress said. Her fans followed her instructions and made The Rose another hit for Midler.

Frederic Forrest was almost unavailable for The Rose because he was caught up in Francis Ford Coppola’s latest epic, Apocalypse Now. The filmmaker’s most ambitious effort yet, an update on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness set during the Vietnam War. John Milius had approached had first approached his friend George Lucas to direct but due to Stars Wars, Lucas had to pass. Coppola was drawn to the script and acquired the rights, eventually deciding to film it himself. That was when the troubles began.

The director was able to cast Marlon Brando in their role of the film’s antagonist Kurtz because of what should have been a short film schedule for the character. The lead role proved to be difficult to find someone willing to stay in the jungle for months. Robert Redford and Jack Nicholson declined, as did former Coppola collaborators Gene Hackman, Al Pacino and James Caan. Eventually, Steve McQueen accepted, but just a month before filming was set to start, Coppola told Women’s Wear Daily, “I’ve got a $17 million picture uncast. I had Steve McQueen and all that group, but they all backed out at the last minute because they didn’t want to spend six months in the jungle.” Coppola found a replacement in Harvey Keitel but once filming got started, Coppola didn’t like Keitel’s take on the character and replaced him with Martin Sheen. Sheen suffered a heart attack while filming reshoots, being replaced by his brother Joe Estevez for some long shots and voice-overs while Sheen was recovering. Brando didn’t cause Coppola as much trouble, but did shock the director when he showed up ninety pounds overweight.

After over of 200 days of filming and budget that had greatly expanded, the picture was finished production. By the spring of 1979, the director had a 150-minute version of the film that he showed at the Cannes Film Festival, calling it “an out-of-town tryout.” It turned out to be successful when the jury awarded Coppola his second Palme d’Or of his career. “It’s taken a long, long time, but I feel I’ve staged a real piece of work about an important American era,” Coppola said after winning. “I think it’s a monument.”

“Apocalypse Now was worth the wait,” Variety declared when the movie opened. in exclusive engagements, complete with free programs. “Alternately a brilliant and bizarre film, Francis Coppola’s four-year ‘work-in-progress’ offers the definitive validation of the old saw, ‘War is hell.’” Roger Ebert wrote wrote: “Apocalypse Now achieves greatness not by analyzing our ‘experience in Vietnam’, but by re-creating, in characters and images, something of that experience.” But New West magazine argued, “Coppola has come up with a movie that unwittingly mirrors the spirit of the Vietnam war: a heartless exercise in logistics, a monumentally oversized catastrophe.” The New York Daily News wrote, “Only Robert Duvall seems to have realized that for an actor to be noticed in the psychedelic horror show, he must play it big, and his performance as the rabid militarist, who is so supremely cocky he never so much as flinches when standing in the line of fire, is so full of manic energy he all but leaps off the screen.”

Coppola’s Omni Zoetrope had another production, one that went a lot more smoothly. Director Carroll Ballard filmed the children’s book The Black Stallion without any problems and premiered it at the New York Film Festival. Time said Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography “consists of one stunning view after another: coral seas, scarlet sunsets, moonlight landscapes, stormy skies. Almost every shot is suitable for framing.”

For acting, praise went to Mickey Rooney, described by New York magazine as “a figure out of a semi-mystical past.” Variety was more direct: “Mickey Rooney gives his best screen performance in years.” For Rooney, The Black Stallion was one half of the double-whammy comeback; he and Ann Miller had just opened to critical acclaim and capacity audiences on Broadway in a burlesque revue called Sugar Babies.

Coppola’s old Oscar adversary, Bob Fosse, also had problems with his latest production, a semi-autobiographical probe called All That Jazz. Richard Dreyfuss had left this project too, so Fosse hired Roy Scheider to play the sexually compulsive choreographer-director juggling a Broadway musical and the editing of a motion picture who suffers a heart attack, paralleling Fosse’s own experience handling Chicago and Lenny. Fosse was such a stickler for realism, he enlisted the cardiac surgical team of a New York hospital for the film’s graphic open-heart surgery scene and gave them screen credit. Scheider told Playboy about another method Fosse used to bring a layer of truth to the movie: “Of course, many women in the cast were women whom Bob had gone with at one time, which I found very interesting, though, of course, all were hired strictly on the basis of talent.” Schneider added, “This is Bob Fosse’s 8½. We never discussed the Fellini film, yet Fosse has the same wonderful confusion about women in his movie.” Fosse also had Fellini’s cinematographer, Giuseppe Rotunno, to blend the fantasy scenes seamlessly within his portrait of the New York theater world.

When All That Jazz opened in December, Playboy’s Bruce Williamson prophesied, “The people who don’t think Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz is a flaming goddamned masterpiece are apt to tell you it’s the worst piece of self-indulgent claptrap they ever sat through.” Vincent Canby called it an “uproarious display of brilliance, nerve, dance, maudlin confessions, inside jokes, and especially ego”; Liz Smith said it was “a dazzling, overlong, and flawed ego trip”; and Variety said it was “all that jazz and plenty of ego.” Fosse contested these claims, “I’m afraid of saying, yes, there is a lot of me in Joe Gideon because people have used the word ‘self-indulgent’ about the film, but the critics are constantly saying that an artist should draw more from himself and less from others. This is what I’ve done. So why do I get this reaction? It frightens me.”

Roy Scheider, meanwhile, was delighted at the attention he received when All That Jazz premiered just days before he opened on Broadway in Betrayal. “This is a different plateau; it’s the place I’ve always wanted to get to,” the actor said. “It’s the place where people say, ‘Hey, this is an actor. He can do this and he can do that — he can surprise us.’”

Jerzy Kosinski was surprised when after he published his novel Being There, about a simpleton named Chance the Gardener, that he received a telegram from the fictional character. “Available in my garden or outside of it. C. Gardener,” read the message, with a phone number attached. Kosinski called the number and Peter Sellers answered. “This character was created for me to play on the screen,” the actor asserted. “Since my heart attack in 1964, my life has been dictated by chance.” Sellers took no chances with the screen adaptation and sent the book to Hal Ashby while he was editing The Last Detail. “Neither of us had the power then to raise the money for it,” Ashby said, but after he directed Shampoo and Coming Home while Sellers resurrected the Pink Panther series, a production company called Lorimar decided they were good investments and came through with the cash.

Kosinski wrote the screenplay, and marveled at Sellers ability to play the imbecile who, through luck, becomes President of the United States. “Nobody thought Chance was even a character, yet Peter knew that man,” the author said. “Most actors want to play Othello, but all I’ve really wanted to play is Chance the Gardener,” Sellers told interviewers. “I feel what the character, the story is all about is not merely the triumph of a simple man, an illiterate; it’s God’s message again that the meek shall inherit the earth.”

Costar Shirley MacLaine thought Laurence Olivier would be perfect to play the billionaire that launches the simpleton’s political career, but he turned the role down. “I called Larry about it the other day,” MacLaine said. “He didn’t like the idea of being in a film with me masturbating.” Seventy-eight-year-old Melvyn Douglas had no such qualms and ended up taking the part.

The critics agreed that Sellers was born to play Chance when Being There released in December. The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Mr. Sellers makes Chance not simply amusing but also the sweetest of simpletons as well.” So popular was Sellers that buttons bearing of Chance’s lines in the film, “I like to watch,” became big sellers for sidewalk vendors. Variety felt that “Melvyn Douglas almost steals the film with his spectacular performance as the dying financial titan. Avoiding all clichés, the veteran actor movingly creates a crusty old character of Full human dimensions.”

Unlike Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman didn’t feel destined to play the lead in the adaptation of Avery Corman’s bestselling novel about a child-custody battle, Kramer vs. Kramer. However, producer Stanley Jaffe envisioned it as a Hoffman vehicle, written by Robert Benton and directed by François Truffaut. Benton didn’t see it that way, he wanted to be the one in the director’s chair. Jaffe consented and the two turned to trying to get Hoffman, who rejected Benton’s first draft. After several drafts, Hoffman eventually accepted but only if he could improvise, demand extra takes, and oversee the editing. “I’ve never let an actor in on the writing of the editing before,” responded Benton. “I always thought the actor’s were hired to ruin the writer’s lines.” Benton put his pride to the side and relented to Hoffman’s demands.

To play the wife who walks out on Hoffman, the trio wanted Charlie’s Angels’ Kate Jackson but Columbia executive Sherry Lansing rejected the choice and suggested Meryl Streep instead. Streep had met Hoffman earlier at an audition, as she reminisced to Time: “He came up to me and said, ‘I’m Dustin — burp — Hoffman’ and he put his hand on my breast. What an obnoxious pig, I thought.” The filmmakers found difficulty with the actor playing Hoffman and Streep’s son, six-year-old Justin Henry. “The first few days his concentration was terrible,” Hoffman reported. “He kept looking at the camera. He like a young colt or, more accurately, he was a normal six-year-old. By the third week, he was becoming an actor.” Someone asked the young actor what his favorite film was. “Jaws 2!” Justin exclaimed. “What about Jaws?” was the next question. “Oh,” Justin shrugged, “that was before my time.”

When Kramer vs. Kramer relwaedk as Columbia’s big Christmas releasee, Charles Champlin gave it his blessing in the Los Angeles Times: “Kramer vs. Kramer is as nearly perfect a film as can be.” When Michael Douglas exited the premiere, he told Women’s Wear Daily: “Dustin’s is the first performance I’ve seen that will give Jack Lemmon something to worry about when the Academy Awards roll around.” Lemmon had more worries when Time devoted a cover story to the movie and said of Hoffman, “Like Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, he has turned the screen into a mirror, a magical looking glass into his own head and heart.” Hoffman revealed that the role had made him long to give birth to a child himself and the magazine noted, “When he was preparing to play Ted Kramer, he kept staring at young mothers and pregnant women, especially the woman wheeling children in carriages. ‘They have an aura that you don’t see in a man with his kids,’ he said. ‘I hear music when I see them — definitely strings.’”

Hollywood took notice of another change in Hoffman, he was actually cooperating with the publicity of the film. “The normally press-shy actor has been promoting the film as he’s never promoted one of his pictures before,” reported Liz Smith. “And recently, at one of the Kramer New York unveilings, it reaches the point of extreme. Hoffman endeared himself to a group of about 3 photographers by posing — by himself, with his parents, with juvenile costar Justin Henry, and then with Justin and Justin’s parents — for 20 minutes.”

Henry was also earning rave reviews: the New York Daily News said he was “an astonishing natural actor with none of e affectations that plague lost child stars” and Rex Reed called him “a saffron-haired dumpling.” Justin didn’t fall for the hoopla. “People think I’m a big-shot movie star,” said the now eight-year-old. “This hasn’t changed me at all.” Meryl Streep also declined to see herself in grandiose terms. “I don’t care about being a star,” the actress informed New York magazine. “I feel horribly embarrassed in a limousine. I’d rather that they humanize the subways. I don’t want a mink coat.” Still, Meryl was celebrated by the press as the great blond hope for having appeared in Manhattan, The Seduction of Joe Tynan, and Kramer vs. Kramer. The Ladies’ Home Journal dubbed her “a throwback to what used to be called ‘a classy dame.’”

For all the excitement over Streep, she had yet to have a leading role, leaving a some vacancies in the Best Actress category. When producer Ray Stark read Vincent Canby’s paean to Hanna Schygulla in the New York Times that prompted her as a possible contender, the Hollywood veteran thought it would be ridiculous to waste a nomination on a German art-house movie. Stark rushed to move the Marsha Mason vehicle Chapter Two from spring of 1980 to December 1979 to qualify. Chapter Two presented Mason with a unique challenge, playing a character based on herself. Neil Simon’s play was about his whirlwind marriage to Mason and the problems that occurred when he realized he wasn’t over his first wife. Mason was not in the original Broadway production, telling the New York Times, “It would have been weird to do the role at that time.” She did feel ready to tackle the movie version, “I feel much more separated from it now.” “Mason is as fetching as ever,” raved Stanley Kauffman, “the ideal magazinestory heroine, with suggestions of Nanette Fabray and Rosalynn Carter blended into a funny, sexy, appealing snuffy persona.”

At the New York Film Critics Awards there was only one first-ballot winner, Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer. Kramer vs. Kramer also took home Best Picture while Woody Allen won Best Director for Manhattan. Steve Tesich got the plaque for Best Screenplay for Breaking Away. Sally Field in morning edged out Bette Midler in The Rose for Best Actress. Melvyn Douglas got sixteen votes for The Seduction of Joe Tynan but won for Being There with forty-six points. Meryl Streep got thirty-two votes for Joe Tynan and thirty-three points for Kramer vs. Kramer, the organization ended up awarding Best Supporting Actress for both.

Dustin Hoffman and Sally Field became a virtual traveling team after winning almost every pre-Oscar awards. Hoffman even accepted his Los Angeles Film Critics Award on The Merv Griffin Show. Hoffman’s enthusiasm dimmed a bit when Justin Henry lost both awards he was nominated for at the Golden Globes, including Most Promising Male Newcomer to The Champ’s ten-year-old Ricky Schroder, and burst into tears. When Dustin inevitably won, he said in his speech: “I think awards are silly. They put very talented people against one another and they hurt a lot when you don’t win.” Hoffman told reporters that he sympathized with his costar: “What Justin was feeling was why I had been feeling when I lost Awards in the past.”

Kramer vs. Kramer ended up getting both actors to be among their leading nine nominations, tied with All That Jazz. Bob Fosse couldn’t believe it, but he told Marilyn Beck that his movie “doesn’t have a chance. It’s going to be mostly Kramer vs. Kramer. I’m such a long shot I think anyone who bets on me should get a toaster, like they give out in banks, for having made the investment.” Fosse also was skeptical because, for the third time this decade, he was competing with Francis Ford Coppola, whose Apocalypse Now had eight nominations.

Michael Douglas couldn’t expect a Cuckoo’s Nest style sweep, The China Syndrome only managed four nominations and missed out on both Best Picture and Best Director. Columnist James Bacon contended that Jack Lemmon still had a shot at his third Oscar: “There are a lot of Academy voters who will tell you that Lemmon’s performance was the best of a career that has already produced two Oscars.” The likelihood of nominee Jane Fonda earning her third award were slimmer, with journalists suggesting her roles had began to become too similar. Aljean Harmetz wrote in the New York Times, “Jane Fonda, who won last year as the gradually radicalized army wife in Coming Home is back for her gradually radicalized television reporter in The China Syndrome.”

“Perhaps the biggest surprise in any major category,” Harmetz continued, “was the fifth directorial nomination — Edouard Molinaro for the sunny French farce about a pair of middle-aged homosexuals, La Cage aux Folles.” Molinaro was also up for Best Adapted Screenplay, while the film earned a third nomination for Costume Design. This surprise nomination led to Woody Allen being snubbed for Manhattan, which only got two nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Mariel Hemingway in Best Supporting Actress. This meant that Gordon Willis’ photography went unrecognized once again. Daily Variety termed the omission of Willis and Caleb Deschanel for The Black Stallion “the talk of the town.” Willis said, “I have no idea why they don’t nominate me. Maybe if I bought a house in Hollywood I’d have a better chance.” Conrad Hall told Variety it wasn’t Willis’ residency that bothered the branch. “The veterans want to see the eyes, always the eyes,” he said, referring to Willis’ signature dark photography. “They said they would have been fired if they’d shot that way.” Caleb Deschanel confessed, “I’m disappointed. The fact that so many people told me I was sure to get the nomination has made made it harder to take. On the other hand, who am I? I’m just a young punk making his name in this business. But to ignore Gordon Willis is a crime.”

Deschanel could go commiserate with Burt Reynolds. Not only did Sally Field get her nomination, his Starting Over costars Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen also got nominated while he got overlooked. The fifth nominee in Best Actor turned out to be Al Pacino for …And Justice for All, a film largely ignored by critics. For Reynolds, he was hosting Saturday Night Live the week the nominations were revealed. The first joke of the show centered on his lack of a nomination, with each cast member consoling him until he finally exploded. Offstage, Reynolds told reporters, “If I want to be up for an Academy Award, I’m either going to have to play a tour de force of some kind or have a tracheostomy just before the nominations.”

Sally Field was sounding off about the Academy. “I think it’s exploitative, overcommercialized, frequently offensive and shouldn’t be televised,” she told reporters even though Norma Rae earned a surprise Best Picture nomination. “Sure I’ll be there,” the nominee said. “If I said I wasn’t coming, they’d still go on with the show.” The show’s costume designer, Bob Mackie, was in charge of making everyone look eloquent. When the designer called Field, she told him, “I know nothing about clothes. You can design for me anything you want.” She then told reporters, “I’m leaving it all up to Bob and have no idea what he’ll put me in, though it probably will be pinafores to suit by personality.”

Sally Field did end up wearing her Bob Mackie outfit: a white suit with a beaded Hawaiian shirt underneath the jacket. Her date for the night wasn’t Burt Reynolds but rather comedian David Steinberg. Jill Clayburgh came with playwright husband David Rabe, as did Marsha Mason with her own playwright husband Neil Simon. Bette Midler arrived with actor Peter Riegert while Jane Fonda brought her family once again. Dustin Hoffman also brought his family, his parents and his new significant other Lisa Gottsegen. The only other Best Actor nominee present was Jack Lemmon. Roy Scheider was watching the show from from Joe Allen’s restaurant in New York, while Al Pacino and Peter Sellers weren’t paying any attention. “I never go to those things,” Sellers had said earlier. “I’m very antisocial.”

Mickey Rooney arrived to be a presenter, getting a night off from Sugar Babies. When asked if he thought this would be his night, Rooney said, “I’m just so pleased, my cup runneth over.” Rooney’s competition, Frederic Forrest of The Rose, entered with white hair as he was currently filming the latest Omni Zoetrope production, Hammett. Justin Henry was accompanied by his parents, and told Army Archerd that he already had written his speech. The oldest nominee, Melvyn Douglas, didn’t bother to come. “The whole thing is absurd, my competing with an eight-year-old,” he told reporters.

The telecast began with helicopter shots following celebrities arriving. Henry Mancini led the orchestra in a medley of all the Best Original Score nominees, including his own for 10. After Johnny Carson’s opening monologue, Cloris Leachman and Jack Lemmon walked out to present Best Supporting Actress. All the nominees were there and the winner was Meryl Streep for Kramer vs. Kramer. Streep had forgiven Hoffman for their first meeting and bussed him on the way to the stage. “Holy mackerel!” she exclaimed at the podium. “I’d like to thank Dustin Hoffman and Robert Benton, to whom I owe this. To Justin…” and she blew him a kiss. When she returned to her seat, Justin walked over to inspect her award.

Mickey Rooney and his Sugar Babies costar Ann Miller walked out to present the Art Direction Award. It went to All That Jazz. After the winners gave their thanks, they exited backstage with the presenters. “All right, guys,” Rooney instructed them, “this is your big night, so live it up.” “Good luck to you, later on,” they told the Best Supporting Actor nominee. “Ahhh,” laughed Mick, “I don’t take this award crap seriously.”

Next up All That Jazz won two more awards, for Best Original Song Score and Best Costume Design. Georges Delerue took home the other scoring award for A Little Romance. Fox’s Alien took home the award for Visual Effects. It beat out Star Trek: The Motion Picture, who’s stars William Shatner and Persis Khambatta presented the Documentary Awards. The winner was Ira Wohl for Best Boy. After a speech that lasted just under four minutes, Shatner quipped, “I’m glad he didn’t have a larger family.” The Documentary Short winner was briefer, saying, “All my life I’ve wanted one of these.”

Johnny Carson was in charge of presenting a Special Award to Alan Splet for his Sound Effects Editing work on The Black Stallion. Splet didn’t show up and the comedian commented, “It always happens. First George C. Scott doesn’t show up, then Marlon Brando, and now Alan Splet.” After Ray Stark accepted the Irving G. Thalberg Award, Carson rushed out and announced, “We just heard from Alan Splet. He missed the off-ramp at the Music Center and he’s somewhere in Ensenada — but he’s on his way here.”

The momentum All That Jazz had was cut short when Apocalypse Now took the Cinematography Oscar. “Francisco thank you for the freedom to express myself in Apocalypse Now,” said Vittorio Storaro. Coppola’s brother-in-law David Shire, who Coppola fired from working on Apocalypse Now score, expressed more sentiment when accepting the award for Best Song for his theme song to Norma Rae, remarking, “I’d like to thank my young son and his mother, Talia Shire, who taught my heart something it needed to know before I could find out what my music could really be about.” The couple ended up divorced a few months later.

“Here’s an Alan Splet update,” Carson reported. “He’s had trouble with his carburetor outside of Barstow.” Then, after All That Jazz took home Best Editing, Walter Matthau and Liza Minnelli stepped out to reveal Best Supporting Actor. The winner was the sole absentee, Melvyn Douglas for Being There. The camera caught Justin Henry roll his head back as if to say, “Not again.” Carson was back and quipped, “It’s not Melvyn Douglas’ fault he’s not here. He’s in a car pool with Alan Splet.” Even Justin laughed.

Bob Fosse sat nervously as Steven Spielberg presented the award for Best Director. The award went to Robert Benton for Kramer vs. Kramer. The director kissed his wife and son before almost tripping on his way to the stage, thanking “all the people at Columbia, past and present.” He also saluted his agent, Sam Cohn.

Neil Simon showed up to hand out the Writing Awards. Best Original Screenplay went to Breaking Away’s Steve Tesich, who, like Robert Benton, had Sam Cohn as his agent. “Where’s Sam, I need Sam up here,” the writer fretted. “I was going to do original stuff.” Tesich thanked “the present Fox people,” and reminisced about “seeing Stagecoach in Yugoslavia. I’m grateful to send back a film that’s just like the one I saw originally.” The Adapted Screenplay winner was Robert Benton for Kramer vs. Kramer, who once again tripped on his way to the stage. “This really is one of the five best days of my whole life,” Benton declared.

Jane Fonda strolled out to name the Best Actor. “I’m very pleased to tell you the nominees,” Fonda said, “and to remind you that each has given a remarkable body of work in their careers.” After giving a brief tribute to all the nominees, the winner was declared to be Dustin Hoffman for Kramer vs. Kramer. The crowd erupted as Hoffman kissed his family, Justin Henry, Meryl Streep and Jack Lemmon on his way to the stage, he only shook Mickey Rooney’s hand. Onstage, Hoffman glanced at his statuette and remarked, “He has no genitalia and he’s holding a sword. I’d like to thank my mother and father for not practicing birth control. We are laughed at when we are up here sometimes for thanking, but when you work on a film you discover that there are people who are giving that artistic part of themselves that goes beyond a paycheck and they are never up here.”

Hoffman began thanking some of these people, and mentioned Justin Henry: “If he loses again, we’ll have to give him a lifetime achievement award.” The camera saw Justin beaming. “I’m up here with mixed feelings,” the winner continued. “I’ve criticized the Academy before, with reason. I refuse to believe that I beat Jack Lemmon, that I beat Al Pacino, that I beat Peter Sellers…We are part of an artistic family. There are sixty thousand actors in the Screen Actors Guild who don’t work. You have to practice accents while you’re driving a taxicab because when you’re a broke actor, you can’t write and you can’t paint. Most actors don’t work and a few of us are so lucky to have a chance. And to that artistic family that strives for excellence, none of you have ever lost and I am proud to share this with you and I thank you.” Dustin’s mother was in tears as he walked off. Carson editorialized, “I think we can all agree that was beautifully said.”

Richard Dreyfuss hooped out to crown the Best Actress. Opening the envelope, Dreyfuss laughed, “I’m not going to tell you.” But he did, the winner was, just as Burt Reynolds predicted, Sally Field for Norma Rae. Shaking her fist triumphantly as she walked to the podium, Field announced, “I’m going to be the one to cry tonight, I’ll tell you that right now. They said this couldn’t be done.” The actress thanked her cinematographer before adding, “Martin Ritt is Norma Rae; he’s fought all his life to put on films that have something to say.” She concluded by thanking her two sons: “No matter how many awards I win, if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be worth a damn.” As Field walked off with Dreyfuss to loud applause, she held the Oscar over her head.

There was little suspense over Best Picture when Charlton Heston announced that the winner was Kramer vs. Kramer. “Oh, boy!” Stanley Jaffe exclaimed at the podium. When he was done, the winners and presenters came out and stood uncertainly to perform “That’s Entertainment” until the telecast ended.

“Hey!” a voice cried outside of the ladies’ bathroom, “Somebody left an Oscar in here!” Meryl Streep retrieved her trophy while saying, “How could I have done that? It shows how nervous I really am.” Meanwhile, Foreign Film winner Volker Schlöndorff was being grilled by the press on his crack that “we all know why” Germany had never won an Oscar. “I did not intend to say that the country was being penalized by the Academy for its Nazi last,” the director explained. “I meant that all our great directors came over here and took their talent with them. We had no fathers to copy.”

With no Melvyn Douglas in sight, reporters turned to Mickey Rooney, who didn’t appear upset about the Best Supporting Actor loss. “Believe me, win, lose, or draw or otherwise, I’m just so proud to be an infinitesimal part of a great evening,” the veteran said. “Remember, three years ago, I wasn’t even in the ball game — and now I’m in the Super Bowl.”

Sally Field did not take such a grand view. “I do feel like the Academy is slacking off in the class quotient — after all, I won,” she stared, “Its like the Groucho Marx line about I wouldn’t want to be in a club that would have me as a member.” Someone asked if the Cannes Award meant more to her, but Field said, “No, the Oscar means more. This is my state and my home. I’ve wanted to be an actress since I was two and growing up in Encino.” No asked Field about Burt Reynolds, but he told a reporter later, “I sat home alone like a wounded Citizen Kane, visualizing her dancing with Dustin Hoffman at the Academy ball. After that, nothing was the same. I had become obsessed with the notion that two stars could not coexist.”

Hoffman spent the night at the Governors’ Ball with his Kramer collaborators and his Lenny director, Bob Fosse. In New York, Fosse’s latest leading man, Roy Scheider, was consoling his fifteen-year-old daughter, who began weeping when her father lost. Newspaper photographers snapped Scheider as he comforted his child, but the Best Actor loser maintained that he was happy for his Marathon Man costar. “This was Dustin Hoffman’s year,” he said, “just as it was Jack Nicholson’s year, just as it was John Wayne’s year.”

The day after the ceremony, Justin Henry returned to his home in Rye, New York, where he finally won an award — his Bobcat badge from Cub Scout Pack 5.

(Most of the information in this article was found and parlayed from the book Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards by Mason Wiley & Damien Bombs as well as other articles about this year)