| 56th Academy Awards | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Monday, April 9, 1984 | |||
| Site | Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles | |||
| Host | Johnny Carson | |||
| Producer | Jack Haley, Jr. | |||
| Director | Marty Pasetta | |||
| Highlights | ||||
| Best Picture | Terms of Endearment | |||
| Most awards | Terms of Endearment (5) | |||
| Most nominations | Terms of Endearment (11) | |||
| TV in the United States | ||||
| Network | ABC | |||
| Duration | 3 hours, 42 minutes | |||
| Viewership | 38.0 (Nielsen ratings) | |||
|
||||
The 56th Academy Awards were presented April 9, 1984 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Johnny Carson.
The Best Supporting Actress winner this year was unique. 4' 9" Linda Hunt won the award for her role as Billy Kwan - a male Chinese-Australian photographer - in Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously, making her the first actor to win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex.
Gordon Willis, a respected cinematographer most famous for his un-nominated work on The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and Woody Allen's Manhattan, received his first Best Cinematography nomination for Zelig.
Contents |
Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.[1]
The filmmakers and studio executives were very surprised by the five Academy Award nominations for Tender Mercies, which was released ten months before the nominations were announced and had received little campaigning; the film had been exhibited in only three theaters after its release. Universal Studios had already previously sold the video rights for Tender Mercies based on their lack of confidence in the film following poor test screenings; the studio was therefore unable to redistribute Tender Mercies after the Oscar nominations were announced, and cable companies ran the film on television one week before the Academy Award ceremony.[2]
When screenwriter Horton Foote won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for To Kill a Mockingbird, he was not present at the 1963 ceremony to collect it because he did not believe he was going to win and did not attend. As a result, Foote made sure he was present for the ceremony when he was nominated for Tender Mercies; he won that Oscar as well, this time for Best Original Screenplay.[2]
|
These films had multiple nominations:
|
The following films received multiple awards.
|