You have questions. I have some answers.
George C. Scott and Marlon Brando both turned down their best actor Oscars, for “Patton” and “The Godfather” respectively. Have there been any other Hollywood or Broadway performers who have also turned down this much coveted award? I would find it hard to believe.
Besides Scott and Brando, the Oscar was turned down by a third person, Dudley Nichols, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay award for his script for “The Informer” in 1936. The book “Inside Oscar,” by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, says that two new unions, the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, were scrapping with the Hollywood studios and the Oscar-issuing Motion Picture Academy. That included a boycott of the 1936 Oscars ceremony and Nichols refusing to accept his Oscar. In fact, according to the book, Nichols sent his Oscar back twice. Two years later, Nichols — by then the president of the Writers Guild — accepted his award.
It should be noted that the Oscars are not the only awards people have said no-thank-you to. For example, Candice Bergen, after winning five Emmys for “Murphy Brown,” decided enough was enough and no longer sought nominations for that show. (She was later nominated for work on “Boston Legal.”) With the Tony Awards, Julie Andrews famously declined her 1996 nomination for the stage musical version of “Victor/Victoria” after she was the only person involved with the show who was nominated; she called the other participants “egregiously overlooked.”
I saw a Movie of the Week back in the ’70s called “Vampire” starring Richard Lynch. Do you know if this movie is on DVD?
