Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Young vs. Overdue -- Best Supporting Actress 1962

And the nominees were....


  • Mary Badham as Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Patty Duke as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (winner)
  • Shirley Knight as Heavenly Finley in Sweet Bird of Youth
  • Angela Lansbury as Eleanor Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate
  • Thelma Ritter as Elizabeth Stroud in Birdman of Alcatraz

The Field: This year is somewhat of a good look at the overall preferences that the Academy tends to have when it comes to Supporting Actresses. It has the caring mother role (Ritter), the precocious young child (Badham), the despicable villain (Lansbury), a character with disabilities (Duke), and the beautiful young woman (Knight). Some of those traits even overlap between the characters. The field also covers every single acting award won that year, so that alone makes me excited to watch all of these films. I've only seen To Kill a Mockingbird, because at most high schools the book is basically required reading, and the film was shown right after we finished. I'm not too familiar with the actresses, though I know this is Ritter's last of her six nominations even though it's the first I'll be watching. I'm hoping for a wide variety of performances that gives me my first truly great year, but either way it'll be fun.

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