Oscar Best Actress standouts

(First of two parts)

It was a well-deserved win for Reese Witherspoon (as June Carter in Walk the Line) in the last Academy Awards in Hollywood. Except for the fans of Felicity Huffman (who plays a man wanting to be a woman in Transamerica) nobody can question the victory of Ms. Witherspoon as 2005’s Best Actress.

But then, we can also say that she just got lucky because it was basically a weak year for performances in the lead actress category.

In Walk the Line, she did what she was asked to do – and did it very well, no doubt about it. (Reese already showed a lot of acting promise even in her early movies.) The film, however, really belongs to Joaquin Phoenix, who could have brought home the Oscar for playing Johnny Cash, except that the Best Actor race was a lot tougher this year. Aside from Philip Seymour Hoffman (who eventually brought home the Best Actor trophy for Capote), there was still Heath Ledger of Brokeback Mountain to contend with.

While I applaud Reese Witherspoon’s performance in Walk the Line, I won’t say that it’s a great one. (I bet she’ll come up with a better one in the near future and win another Oscar for it.)

However, hers is still a more deserving win compared to the performances of other actresses who won the Oscar in the past for reasons other than excellence in acting. There was, for instance, Elizabeth Taylor who got the voters’ nod in Hollywood in 1960’s Butterfield 8 because everyone thought she was dying. (She more than made up for it by giving a brilliant performance in 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which gave her another Oscar.)

Witherspoon’s win, unfortunately, cannot be included in the roster of the greatest-winning performances by a lead actress.

And who were these actresses whose Academy Award-winning performances really stand out in the Oscar honor roll for Best Actress? I have my own list and I can only hope you agree with me.

Bette Davis (Jezebel, 1938) – This is Ms. Davis second Oscar Best Actress. Her first (for Dangerous, 1935) was undeserved and was merely Hollywood’s trying to make up for the studio politics in 1934 that deprived her even of an Oscar nomination for Of Human Bondage (her greatest performance ever). Playing the Southern belle Julie Marston in Jezebel, however, Ms. Davis delivers a performance worthy of an Oscar. If you watch the film today (I got my DVD copy on sale at National Bookstore a few years ago), you may cringe at the acting style of that era. But Bette Davis had always been ahead of her time and what she delivers here is a classic and sterling performance.

Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind, 1939) – Although Bette Davis’ Southern belle role in Jezebel pre-empted Scarlet O’Hara by a year (Jezebel was made for Ms. Davis by Warner Bros. to placate the actress for not getting the lead role in Gone With the Wind). Vivien Leigh still managed to give a truly wonderful performance when it was her turn to play the coquettish southerner during the Civil War era. Vivien Leigh gave her Scarlet O’Hara a fresh approach and so much energy – plus unequaled brilliance in acting – that she didn’t become just a mere part of that huge landscape of an epic movie.

Olivia de Havilland (The Heiress, 1949) – One of the greatest parts for women (done locally on the big screen by Maricel Soriano in Ikaw Pa Lang Ang Minahal), Ms. De Havilland also gave great justice to the role of the awkward spinster Catherine Sloper in this film by William Wyler.

Vivien Leigh (A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951) – Playing another southern belle this time (now a fading beauty though), Vivien Leigh gave another magnificent performance as the tragic heroine Blanche Dubois. The performances here may seem theatrical, but these were great theatrical performances nevertheless – and Vivien Leigh was at her best.

Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba, 1952) – Playing a frumpy housewife, who spends her days at home listening to soap opera on the radio (Gloria Sevilla did this role in a drama anthology in the ’70s), the role had been perfected on Broadway for many years by Shirley Booth before she jumped on the big screen (her first film done when she was already 45 years old) to reprise the part. It’s no wonder she gave a truly amazing Oscar-worthy performance.

Ingrid Bergman (Anastasia, 1956) – Today’s generation should be familiar with the animated film version of this story that was first presented in Broadway. In between that, however, was the film version that featured the great Ingrid Bergman, who delivered a strong and emotional performance as the supposedly missing daughter of Czar Nicholas II of Russia.

Joanne Woodward (Three Faces of Eve, 1957) – Playing a schizophrenic with three different personalities, there was no way Ms. Woodward couldn’t win the Oscar for this part – one of the greatest Academy Award-winning performances in the Oscar honor roll for Best Actress.

(To be concluded)