It's Friday...so...Farewell Oscar Nominees

This week we actually lost three Oscar nominees. Some were more widely publicised than others but all had a good innings. So today I'm going to celebrate some of their best work.

First up is triple nominee director Arthur Penn. He was nominated for Alice's Restaurant (1969), The Miracle Worker (1962) and this his opus 1967's Bonnie and Clyde here is the final scene where the titular anti-heroes meet their fate.



Whereas Penn died in Manhattan the next Oscar nominee was born there. In his later days he became the lovable survivor of the studios' star system. Tony Curtis was only nominated for an Oscar once for The Defiant Ones (1958), but was of course in that iconic homoerotic oysters and snails scene from the 1960 Spartacus. Finding a scene I could embed was difficult but I eventually got this classic scene from Houdini.




Finally, although she was known to recent audiences as the elder Rose from Titanic (1997) for which she earned her Oscar nomination (as the oldest ever at 87) Gloria Stuart had a career prior to retiring in 1946. As fans of the Rocky Horror Picture Show are all too aware Claude Rains was The Invisible Man (1933) but Gloria played his fiancée, often acting to nothing, but having to look at where the noise of Rains voice were supposed to come from if he wasn't invisible at the time.



Quite a collection of noteables have passed on this week.

Some Like it Hot Star Dies

Today comes the news that Tony Curtis the film actor has died aged 85.

There has never been a better excuse to show a man in drag on this blog, there is also a glimpse of Marilyn Monroe in her pomp for any straight male readers.



More to follow.

Tony Curtis 1925-2010