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The Academy Awards have celebrated the talents of the film industry for over 96 years, honoring outstanding performances and achievements. Many celebrities dream of winning an Oscar once they come into the Hollywood scene, and a lot of them do achieve it.

Some secure it at a very young age while others get the chance to hold the coveted trophy much later in their careers.

So, let’s look at some child prodigies and veterans who have achieved this incredible feat at an age that will leave you in shock.

1. Timothy Hutton Timothy Hutton wins an Oscar | Credits: YouTube

Winning an Oscar is the pinnacle of success for any actor, and many put in a lot of work to achieve this no matter the age and the time it takes to get to the lectern and hold the golden statue. But for some, they just got a knack for acting and...

Nathan Lane remembers working with the late Gene Hackman on “The Birdcage” as “the thrill of a lifetime.” Sitting with Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” Tuesday, the actor shared that one of the more memorable scenes between their characters in the 1996 Mike Nichols movie actually featured unscripted ad-libs that made it all the more memorable.

“I think I told him every morning that he was my favorite actor … He was like Spencer Tracy, you couldn’t catch him acting. He could do comedy or drama beautifully. And he was such a smart actor,” Lane told Colbert before recalling the scene where his character — who is in drag — and Hackman’s sing and dance to “I Could Have Danced All Night” from “My Fair Lady.”

“And then at the end, we’re leaving the scene, we’re going into dinner, and I ad-libbed, I said, ‘You know I played Eliza in high school?...

Films With the Most Oscar Wins (Photo Credit – Instagram)

Oscars 2025: The 97th Academy Awards will be held in a few hours, and we are waiting with bated breath to see this year’s winners. We have already made our picks for the six main categories, but we will know the rest once the event occurs. But this article will reveal the movies with the most Oscars. Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King are among the top films, while Oppenheimer took home seven significant awards last year, but some movies have won more than that. Scroll below for more.

This year, Emilia Perez is leading with the most nominations, followed by The Brutalist and Wicked. Zoe Saldana’s movie has 13 nods, while the other two movies are tied with 10 nominations. This year, the list has a diverse mix of genres, with fresh talent meeting established actors,...

There's a lot wrong with Stewie Griffin from "Family Guy." Why is he evil? Why is his head shaped like a football? Why can he and the dog talk? And even accepting that Stewie can talk, why is he talking like that?

Stewie Griffin talks in a sort of upper-class English accent, which is weird because the rest of the Griffins (especially his parents) talk with distinct Rhode Island accents. Even Brian, who's speaking skill origins are similarly unexplored throughout the series, still talks in a standard American accent you'd expect from someone who grew up in America. Why is the dog's voice more normal than the baby's? And while we're asking questions, can someone in Quahog do something about that pedophile who lives down the street?

In a 2010 interview, MacFarlane explained how he thought up Stewie's voice. Turns out, he was reading about the production of one of his favorite movies,...

The promenade dance, commonly referred to as a prom, is a dance party that high school students attend and which is typically held near or at the end of the school year. The event may be for either junior or senior year students individually or act as a combined event that includes both demographics. A Prom King and Queen may be revealed as well, and the event is noteworthy for many of those who attend. Girls may spend months looking for the perfect gown to wear at prom, which may end up being quite pricey as well. Providing a corsage for a prom date is another important aspect of prom, one which is meant to signify generosity and consideration and which should complement the colors of the dress for a unified look.

The tradition of prom has been depicted in numerous motion picture productions over the year as well, and...

The movie musical has morphed drastically over a century. When the musical genre first came to prominence in the sound era of Hollywood, it was a space for revues with little care or thought as to a storyline connecting musical numbers. Eventually, just as the stage musical changed with "Oklahoma!" and "South Pacific," Hollywood morphed in the same way. But it wasn't just that films such as "An American in Paris" or "The Band Wagon" told full stories with song-and-dance numbers; Hollywood went straight to the source to take stage musicals and adapt them into features. Although we're not in a Golden Age of movie musicals the way that things were in the 1960s, there are plenty of big-budget musical adaptations that burst onto the scene, as well as more low-key affairs meant to match their source material, everything from the mid-2000s adaptation of "Dreamgirls" to "Dear Evan Hansen.

Robert De Niro won his second Oscar in 1981 for playing a boxing champ in Raging Bull. And now he has been chosen as the acting champ when it comes to Academy Awards.

His performance for the Martin Scorsese film from 1980 has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actor winner ever, according to a Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts, critics, and editors, who ranked all 97 male leading actors.

Anthony Hopkins finished second for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), with Marlon Brando following in third for The Godfather (1972). Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood (2007), and Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird (1961) rounded out the top five.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actor winners is Warner Baxter for In Old Arizona (1928). George Arliss in Disraeli (1929), Lionel Barrymore for A Free Soul (1930), Paul Lukas for Watch on the Rhine (1942), and Paul Muni for The Story of Louis Pasteur...

Robert De Niro won his second Oscar in 1981 for playing a boxing champ in Raging Bull. And now he has been chosen as the champ of all actors.

His performance for the Martin Scorsese film from 1980 has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actor winner ever, according to a Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts, critics, and editors, who ranked all 97 male leading actors.

Anthony Hopkins ranked second for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), with Marlon Brando following in third for The Godfather (1972). Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood (2007), and Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird (1961) rounded out the top five.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actor winners is Warner Baxter for In Old Arizona (1928). Just above that film performance in the rankings are George Arliss in Disraeli (1929), Lionel Barrymore for A Free Soul (1930), Paul Lukas for Watch on the Rhine...

Quick LinksCharade Starred Cary Grant and Audrey HepburnCharade Bears a Resemblance to Other Hitchcock FilmsThe Film Charade Is Technically in the Public Domain

Charade is a film that almost defies categorization. It's part mystery, part suspense, part romantic comedy, and it's often mistakenly credited to one of Hollywood's most iconic directors: Alfred Hitchcock. But another Hollywood icon, Stanley Donen, led the film. It featured music by Henry Mancini and a title song with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Anyone who's watched a Hitchcock film can see why it's often mistaken for one of his own. Its twists and turns and suspenseful style often mirror the horror front-runner's.

Following its release, the film garnered a handful of award nominations. It's leading cast members were also recognized for their performance with the same honor. Charade would mark a clear turning point in both Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn's acting careers. And it's...

The late humanitarian Audrey Hepburn starred in a number of motion picture hits in the 50s and 60s. Between My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hepburn solidified herself as a Hollywood household name. Hepburn is also known for the movie Roman Holiday starring opposite Gregory Peck, which came out in 1953. Now, Roman Holiday is coming to Paramount+ on February 1. The romcom follows Hepburn, a European princess who steals away to Rome tired of her life and all the pressures that come with it. The basic plot, timeless for a feel good rom com, with the trope being done again and again in movies and television over the last 70 years.

As we wrap an epic day of coverage of the Oscar nominations, here are some final observations:

—It’s ironic that there will be no Best Song performances at this year’s 97th Academy Awards, because music-driven movies have rarely, if ever, made such an impact. This is the first time that three music-oriented/musical films have been nominated for Best Picture in the same year: Emilia Pérez (with its chart-topping 13 nominations), Wicked (with its 10), and the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (with eight). The last times that even two musicals faced off for Oscar’s biggest prize was in 1964 with My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins and in 1968 with winner Oliver! and Funny Girl.

—Emilia Pérez snared more noms than any foreign language film ever with 13, to lead all comers Thursday. It joins an impressive list of other 13-time Oscar nominees that includes The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,...

In my Oscar predictions piece on Wednesday, I warned about the possibility that this year’s list could be even more international than in recent years, partly because of the L.A. wildfires, which moved the Academy to extend the voting period twice and by nearly a week overall. It was indicative that voters in Los Angeles, where a lot of them live, might have been preoccupied. This said to me that the ever-growing international base of Oscar voters, not affected by the fires, might have more influence than ever on the nominations.

There is no question that happened.

Let’s start with Best Picture. Since Z in 1969, there have been 11 films simultaneously nominated for Best International Feature (formerly known as Best Foreign Language Film) and Best Picture. This year, for the first time, there are two: France’s Spanish-language Emilia Pérez and Brazil’s highly political I’m Still Here,...

Wicked‘s Cynthia Erivo and Emilia Pérez‘s Karla Sofía Gascón earned their widely predicted Best Actress Oscar nominations on Thursday. Their bids represent a rare double in Oscar history: This is the second time — and first in 60 years — that multiple musical performances are nominated in Best Actress.

Counting just traditional musicals with non-diegetic music, the last time this happened was, naturally, during the heyday of musicals in the 1960s. Julie Andrews and Debbie Reynolds were nominated for their respective 1964 films, Mary Poppins and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, with the former winning. There could’ve been a third musical nominee that year had My Fair Lady‘s Audrey Hepburn made the cut.

Andrews’ victory has been seen as a bit of sweet revenge after producer Jack Warner cast Hepburn instead of Andrews, who originated the role of Eliza Doolittle on Broadway in the film adaptation of My Fair Lady. Not...

When it comes to predicting Oscar nominations it is always a crap shoot, but I think it is safe to say that there is music in the air in the Best Picture race with original musical Emilia Pérez, Bob Dylan musical biopic A Complete Unknown and the Broadway musical adaptation Wicked all likely to be the talk of the town around 5:45 a.m. or so when the noms announcement is over and done with Thursday morning. All will be nominated for Best Picture, making it the most musical lineup in the category since My Fair Lady fought off Mary Poppins 60 years ago.

To invoke the name of another Best Picture contender (that is not a musical), you should be able to Sing Sing this group.

Related: Where To Watch 30 Of The Oscar Contenders, From ‘Emilia Pérez’ To ‘Conclave’

The aforementioned Netflix marvel Emilia Pérez has some pundits wondering whether...

It’s one of the most memorable scenes in “Babygirl,” a visual, musical big screen moment that has taken on a life of its own on TikTok: A shirtless Samuel (Harris Dickinson) sensually dances to George Michael’s 1987 “Father Figure” for his older lover Romy (Nicole Kidman), the married CEO at the robotics company where he interns. While on a recent episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, writer/director Halina Reijn broke down the numerous decisions and inspirations that went into creating the scene, including her own experience as an actress stripping on camera and her desire to play with gender roles. As to the choice of the song itself, Reijn explained it was tied to the central question she posed to herself when she sat down to write “Babygirl.”

“For this movie my question was if it would be possible to love and accept all the different layers of myself,...

This claim, included in Universal’s thorough and impressive list of box office achievements for 2024, is technically true: “Domestically ‘Wicked‘ is now … the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation of all-time at the domestic office ahead of ‘Grease’ ($188.62M).”

Also technically true is that “The Grinch” is bigger than “Gone with the Wind,” “Sing” is bigger than “Jaws,” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is bigger than “The Godfather.” Also, the 1977 first “Star Wars” is only the third biggest success of that franchise.

Presenting grosses without adjusting skews the real picture of how they compare. It is a prime case of film history erasure, an all-too common occurrence these days. The somewhat (but not impossible in most cases) effort to sort out the true success of films through history starts with adjusting box office takes to current ticket prices. Normally, that is fairly simple, since we know the costs by year and can do the math.

There has always been a strong influence of Broadway on the film industry, and not just because there is a shared interest in the development of performing arts. Broadway birthed many iconic stories, characters, and moments that were adapted to the big screen, as much of the “Golden Age of Hollywood” was made up of musical theater. Not every musical adaptation is necessarily successful; for every rousing success like West Side Story or Chicago, there is a colossal failure like Cats or Dear Evan Hansen. However, the classical musical My Fair Lady showed how to translate a stage success and managed to somehow become just as significant of a phenomenon as the stage show that had inspired it.

Over the past 50-plus years, film historian Joseph McBride has been one of the great chroniclers and analyzers of American directors. His 1972 volume on Orson Welles was one of the first essential works on that great filmmaker, and in the years since, he has published the definitive biographies of John Ford, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, and Steven Spielberg — along with a couple more terrific books on Welles and one of the best tomes on screenwriting (“Writing in Pictures”) ever written.

McBride has always been expert at finding the intersection between biography and personal expression, as rigorous in his research as he is insightful in his visual and literary analysis. Now, he has turned his keen eye toward director George Cukor, and the result, “George Cukor’s People: Acting for a Master Director,” is one of McBride’s most innovative works to date and indispensable for anyone interested not...

Casting was announced for Broadway’s upcoming Just in Time starring Jonathan Groff as Bobby Darin, with the Merrily We Roll Along Tony winner to be joined on stage in the new musical by Joe Barbara (A Bronx Tale The Musical), Michele Pawk (Wicked), Lance Roberts (The Music Man), Caesar Samayoa (Come From Away), Christine Cornish, Julia Grondin (Funny Girl), Valeria Yamin (Moulin Rouge!), John Treacy Egan (My Fair Lady), Tari Kelly (Mr. Saturday Night), Matt Magnusson, Khori Michelle Petinaud (Lempicka), and Larkin Reilly (Bad Cinderella).

Producers Tom Kirdahy, Robert Ahrens and John Frost announced the casting today. With a book by Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver, music supervision and arrangements by Andrew Resnick, choreography by Shannon Lewis and based on an original concept by Ted Chapin, Just In Time, developed and directed by Alex Timbers, will open Wednesday, April 23, 2025, at Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theatre,...

Disney has just released a great special on the making of Mary Poppins that's a perfect tribute to the film's anniversary!

In the long history of Disney films, there have been a lot of live-action hits. There have been Oscar winners, there have been beloved films, cult classics and more. Yet somehow, 60 years after its release, Mary Poppins has a magic unlike any others. From those iconic songs to Julie Andrews Oscar-winning turn to Dick Van Dyke's wild accent to the groundbreaking special effects, the movie is arguably the best live-action Disney film ever and the last truly great one Walt Disney had a hand in. 

The movie has been celebrated often, yet 20/20 has worked with Disney for the new special The Untold Story of Mary Poppins. Airing on November 27 and now easy to stream on Disney+, the special may seem "fluff" at times, but it's good insight as...

Walt Disney was the producer and studio mogul who pioneered in the field of animation, proving it could be used for more than just creating amusing shorts for kids. Let’s take a look back at all 19 animated features produced during his lifetime or that he personally worked on, ranked worst to best.

After years producing amusing shorts, most of them staring a lovable mouse named Mickey (voiced by Walt himself), Disney broke new ground with the first feature length animated film: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). Both a radical experiment in filmmaking and a revolution in storytelling, it proved cartoons were a viable means of artistic expression. Russian director Sergei Eisenstein, in fact, called it the greatest movie ever made, no small praise for the man who made “Battleship Potemkin” (1925).

With each subsequent feature — “Pinocchio” (1940), “Fantasia” (1940), “Dumbo” (1941), and “Bambi” (1942) — Disney and his team of animators refined their visual and narrative techniques,...

The Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece “The Godfather” (1972) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Picture winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 29 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 96 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is the Michael Curtiz classic “Casablanca” (1943). Following in third place is the powerful Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” (1993). Rounding out the top five are Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II” (1974) in fourth place and Billy Wilder‘s “The Apartment” (196o) in fifth place.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Picture winners is “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) from Cecil B. DeMille. Just above that film in the rankings are “Cimarron” (1931) from Wesley Ruggles, “The Broadway Melody” (1929) from Harry Beaumont, “Crash” (2005) from Paul Haggis, and “Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) from Michael Anderson.

Our photo gallery above features the full top 10. See the complete rankings of all 96 films below.

The Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece “The Godfather” (1972) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Picture winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 29 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 96 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is the Michael Curtiz classic “Casablanca” (1943). Following in third place is the powerful Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” (1993). Rounding out the top five are Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II” (1974) in fourth place and Billy Wilder‘s “The Apartment” (196o) in fifth place.

The worst among 96 Best Picture winners is “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) from Cecil B. DeMille. Just above that film on the bottom of the rankings are “Cimarron” (1931) from Wesley Ruggles, “The Broadway Melody” (1929) from Harry Beaumont, “Crash” (2005) from Paul Haggis, and “Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) from Michael Anderson.

Our photo gallery below features the full top 10. See the complete rankings of all 96 films below.

One might think, looking at the above headline, that this will be an article about the legendary composer John Williams, but that is not the case. Williams, perhaps shockingly, has only won five Oscars in his decades-long career, specifically for "Fiddler on the Roof," "Jaws," "Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," and "Schindler's List." The famed composer, however, has been nominated for more Oscars than anyone in history (save for one), having been recognized 54 times since 1968. Williams' most recent nomination was for "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny."

Others might also think of director John Ford or actor Katharine Hepburn as the most decorated talents in Oscars history, but they each only have four wins to their names. To be fair, winning four Oscars in one's field is still a huge achievement. Also, Ford holds the record as the most awarded director, and Hepburn the most awarded actor.

Years ago, Elric Kane, film director and co-host of the Colors of the Dark podcast, was on a podcast talking about his at-the-time film students' feelings about movie lengths when one of his students said something that I've been thinking about for the better part of a decade: "The first 90 minutes are free, but you gotta earn every minute after that." The idea is that the average moviegoer has the attention span and dedication for an hour-and-a-half-long movie, but if you stretch beyond those 90 minutes, you have to make them count.

For the most part ... I tend to agree with that sentiment. I love a long movie (shout out to "Rrr"), but there's nothing worse than a bloated movie that feels like it's overstaying its welcome. "Dune Part Two" director Denis Villeneuve fired back at people who critiqued his sci-fi epic's two-hour and 46-minute runtime, but "Dune Part Two" is...

Hold on, here’s the big mega-budgeted and marketed blockbuster that could make the multiplex spin like a farmhouse in a twister. Yes, it has its roots in a much beloved iconic movie, but this version harkens back to another trend dating back to Hollywood’s Golden Age. I’m speaking of the “event” films that were taken from Broadway “smash” shows. Of course, the studios mounted so many original musicals, like the 1939 classic I mentioned earlier, though the stage ‘transplants” really became the “prestege” flicks through the 1950s and 60s with the Rodgers and Hammerstein adaptations, and the “roadshow presentations” that often garned Oscar gold, like The Sound Of Music and My Fair Lady. Plus the “behind the scenes” wheeling and dealing filled the gossip columns as fans wondered if the original stage casts would be on film, or would they be replaced by “name” movie stars. The success...

The Paramount+ Holiday Collection ‘Tis The Season for Streaming returns to the service today with hundreds of seasonal movies and beloved specials for the whole household to enjoy, including the debut of the streaming service’s first original holiday film, Dear Santa.

The Farrelly Brothers holiday comedy Dear Santa stars Jack Black, Robert Timothy Smith, Keegan-Michael Key, Brianne Howey, Hayes MacArthur, and Post Malone in a story of a young boy who mails his Christmas wish list to Santa with one crucial spelling error, resulting in a devilish Jack Black’s arrival to wreak havoc on the holidays. The film premieres on November 25 exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and the following day in the UK and Australia.

Dear Santa

This year’s Paramount+ Holiday Collection will also include the debut of SpongeBob SquarePants – “SpongeBob & Sandy’s Country Christmas,” an all-new half-hour special where one of Sandy’s experiments...

In the history of the Oscars, the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw set an impressive record that stood for more than seven decades. The Oscars, also known as the Academy Awards, are recognized as the most prestigious award that can be won in the movie industry. Since its establishment nearly a century ago, many winners have set different records in Oscars history, including John Ford, who set a directing record that has lasted 72 years, and La La Land, which broke an 86-year-long Oscar record in 2017.

The Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, is often regarded as one of the greatest playwrights in history. Across his life, he wrote more than 60 plays that focused on history, education and class privilege, with some of his best works including Arms and the Man (1894), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), and Saint Joan (1923). In 1938, he set an impressive record at the Oscars that wasn't achieved again for 77 years.

Universal is revealing “Wicked” to Academy voters and media as the film adaptation of the global musical juggernaut finally heads for screens November 22. On Sunday afternoon, the Academy screening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre on Wilshire drew some 900 attendees, the best showing since last year’s “Oppenheimer,” and drew a rousing standing ovation as the credits rolled.

On Friday night, when the DGA hosted a screening and Q&a for SAG and Academy members as well as press, attendees were also ebullient. (Sandwiched between the two was the film’s Hollywood premiere.)

With a hit show whetting appetites for the screen version, many fans turned up at these screenings. However, it will not be boosted by critics groups at year’s end. They will want to support other, less commercial prospects. When reviews come in and box office numbers climb, we’ll see where “Wicked” winds up in the Oscar race.

Before it became an Oscar-winning movie, My Fair Lady was a Broadway stage musical starring a young Julie Andrews. However, if Andrews had played Eliza Doolittle on screen, she might not have had the opportunity to take on one of her most iconic roles: Mary Poppins. When the musical was adapted into a movie, Andrews was passed over for the lead in favor of movie star Audrey Hepburn, even though Hepburns singing voice was dubbed over.

In the same year as her My Fair Lady disappointment, Walt Disney offered Andrews the chance to lead the cast of Mary Poppins, his upcoming musical project. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins were both huge hits in 1964, competing against each other in major Oscar categories, although not Best Actress. Over time, Mary Poppins garnered a more lasting impact on pop culture, remaining one of Julie Andrews' best movies from her incredible career that would go on for decades.

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It's not all that surprising that, in a more than 30-year run, "The Simpsons" has undergone major transformations. When the series debuted in 1989, it stoked the ire of conservative figures who were dismayed by a show that seemed to celebrate dysfunctional families and featured a bratty kid who was proud of his own insubordination. The most obvious example was when President George W. Bush famously stated in a 1992 speech that he wanted American families to be "a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons."

But by the end of the '90s, the Fox show had lost some of its subversive edge, and not just because it had slowly been subsumed by mainstream culture. In 1999 -- ten years after "The Simpsons" debuted, and on the exact same network -- "Family Guy" arrived and was immediately more brash,...

Paramount has announced the lineup of movies, TV shows, and live sports coming to the Paramount+ streaming service in November. The Paramount Plus November 2024 schedule includes Taylor Sheridan’s Landman, which navigates the fortune-seeking world of Texas oil rigs.

Sports fans can also enjoy an incredible spread of games over the holiday week, including the Nwsl Championship and UEFA Champions League marquee matches, as well as NFL on CBS and Big Ten on CBS action.

Landman

In November, audiences will be treated to the premiere of the new original series Landman, from Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Yellowstone and starring Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton, Golden Globe nominee Demi Moore, and Emmy Award winner Jon Hamm.

Set in the proverbial boomtowns of West Texas, the series tells the gripping story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires in the world of oil rigs fueling a boom so big that it’s reshaping our climate,...

From the mid-1950s through the early 1970s, many lavish Broadway musicals were successfully adapted to film, from “The King and I” to “West Side Story” to “Cabaret.” One of the most successful and enduring of all time premiered on October 21, 1964, when “My Fair Lady” hit the theaters after much anticipation, drawing people to the box office in droves despite its lengthy near-three-hour run time. Read on for more about the “My Fair Lady” 60th anniversary.

The origin of “My Fair Lady” dates back farther than the 1956 Tony-winning play. Music collaborators Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe were inspired by George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play “Pygmalion,” the tale of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle who takes speech lessons from Professor Henry Higgins in order to pass as a “proper lady.” The two men thought it would be “loverly” to turn the story into a musical, and wrote the book for “My Fair Lady,...

Mitzi Gaynor, the leggy entertainer whose saucy vitality and blond beauty graced the big screen in South Pacific and on Las Vegas stages and in spectacular TV specials, has died. She was 93.

Gaynor, who received top billing over The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 16, 1964, and was famed costume designer Bob Mackie’s first celebrity client, died Oct. 17 of natural causes, her team announced in a statement.

“As we celebrate her legacy, we offer our thanks to her friends and fans and the countless audiences she entertained throughout her long life,” Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda of Gaynor’s Mgmt team said in a statement shared on the entertainer’s X (formerly known as Twitter.)

“Your love, support and appreciation meant so very much to her and was a sustaining gift in her life. She often noted that her audiences were ‘the sunshine of my life.’ You truly were.

Ken Page was best known as a stage actor, with Deadline referring to him as one of Broadway’s most familiar character actors, but he did earn several film credits over the decades as well, appearing in films like Torch Song Trilogy, The Kid Who Loved Christmas, I’ll Do Anything, and Dreamgirls, as well as TV shows like Gimme a Break!, Family Matters, Touched by an Angel, and more. Page also did a good amount of voice acting work – with his most popular credit coming when he provided the voice of Oogie Boogie in the Henry Selick / Tim Burton stop-motion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. Page would go on to voice Oogie Boogie again for the Kingdom Hearts video games, the video game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge, and the ride walk-through short Haunted Mansion Holiday. Sadly, it’s being reported that Page passed away in his sleep...

In a major development in the leadership of New York City’s non-profit theater scene, Lincoln Center Theater has named directors Lear deBessonet and Bartlett Sher to the roles of Artistic Director and Executive Producer, respectively.

The appointments take effect when longtime Lct artistic director André Bishop concludes his 33-year tenure this June, as previously announced. The transition comes in conjunction with the close of Lincoln Center Theater’s 40th anniversary season.

“It is the deepest honor of my professional life to serve as the next Artistic Director of Lincoln Center Theater, following the astonishing legacy of André Bishop,” said deBessonet, whose current tenure as Artistic Director of Encores! at New York City Center has included well-received productions of Once Upon a Mattress (currently on Broadway), Into the Woods, Oliver!, Jelly’s Last Jam and Titanic.

“I believe the theater is a space for the creation and restoration of community...

Lear deBessonet will be the new artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, succeeding André Bishop after his 33-year tenure.

DeBessonet is currently the artistic director of Encores! at New York City Center, which produces revivals of musicals and has seen a number of its productions, including the recent revivals of Into the Woods and Once Upon a Mattress, move to Broadway. She will work with Bartlett Sher, a well-known Broadway director and Lincoln Center Theater’s resident director, who will assume the new role of executive producer.

As previously announced, Bishop will end his tenure in June 2025, and will oversee this season which includes Robert Downey Jr. in McNeal, opening this month, and the revival of Floyd Collins this spring. Bishop first joined Lct as artistic director in January 1992, and was appointed producing artistic director in July 2013. Under his leadership, Lct, which is known for its large-scale revivals of musicals...

What is your favorite Sherman Brothers song from the endearing 1964 Walt Disney musical fantasy “Mary Poppins”? Perhaps it’s Robert B. and Richard M’s peppy “Spoonful of Sugar.” Or the Oscar-winning “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and tongue-twisting “”Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” It’s no secret that Disney himself loved the haunting “Feed the Birds.” Disney would often summon Richard M. to his office to play the ballad. “It’s about a lot more than birdseed for birds,” Sherman told me in a 2018 L.A. Times interview. “The song is about the simple act of giving. He’d just say, ‘Play it for me.’ And I’d sing and play it for him, and he’d say ‘Yep, that’s what it’s all about.”’

And it seems that even decades after his death in 1966, it was still what it was all about for Disney. Back in 2015, the studio unveiled the restoration of Disney’s office on the Burbank lot.

James Bond has been played by some iconic actors, but there are plenty of other classic performers who could have easily been definitive in the role themselves. The early James Bond films established the tone and style of the series, which continues well into the 21st century. While discussions are still being held at the time of this writing over who will replace Daniel Craig in the upcoming James Bond 26 following his swan song in No Time to Die, those kinds of debates have been waged for decades.

Even looking back at the era of Sean Connery's James Bond films, several classically trained actors of the stage and screen would have made fitting additions to the franchise. Many of them were even actively considered or offered the part, but all ultimately turned it down for various reasons. Still, it's worth looking back at some of the most interesting classic...

Plenty of movies can be accredited as an actors' finest work, but there's a smaller list of best acting debuts in cinematic history. As should be expected, a lot of debuts don't always rank highly in a performer's filmography. Their best-rated movies often come later in their careers as their skills have developed.

However, those who had a stellar debut in the film are well worth taking note of. The likes of Alan Rickman, Barbra Streisand and Jennifer Hudson made the most of their first movies. They were able to convey all they were capable of in their first roles and give themselves the best chance of a promising career ahead.

Julie Andrews Was the Original Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins 7+MusicalFamilyFantasy

In turn of the century London, a magical nanny employs music and adventure to help two neglected children become closer to their father.

Director Robert StevensonRelease Date June 18, 1965Studio Walt Disney ProductionsCast Julie Andrews,...

Exclusive: Sigourney Weaver will make her West End stage debut as storm-creating sorcerer Prospero in The Tempest and Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell will play sparring lovers Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing when director Jamie Lloyd returns Shakespeare early this winter to the historic Theatre Royal Drury Lane, a landmark venue in Covent Garden owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Weaver, star of Ridley Scott’s Alien movies and James Cameron’s Avatar epics, last starred in one of Will’s plays when she played Portia in a 1986 off-Broadway revival of The Merchant of Venice.

As a sophomore at Stanford, she played Goneril in a traveling production of King Lear.

The star once revealed that she pretended “I was doing Henry V the entire time” she was playing Ripley in Alien. “I thought, ‘Well, as a woman, I’ll never be cast as Henry V, so this is my Henry V,...

Exclusive: Married actors Harry Hadden-Paton and Rebecca Night on Friday morning announced the launch of Symphony Films, a new production company that they’ve co-founded.

Based out of London, the company will be active across a variety of genres, in both film television, pursuing projects that embody the values of diversity, inclusion, sustainability and equality.

Symphony Films’ first project is Legacy, a dramatic comedy short starring James Purefoy, Luke Norris and Amelia Gething, which marks Hadden-Paton’s first as writer-director, and Night’s first as a producer. In it, a girl brings her fiancé home to meet her father for the first time. But… home is not merely a home. And her father is from a very different world. Social classes and generations clash in this black comedy of manners set in the stunning English countryside, where the responsibility of conserving the family legacy is not for the faint-hearted.

Already completed,...

Song and dance man or gangster? Few stars of Hollywood’s Golden Era could claim they were equally well known for two such diverse genres. Yet, the legendary James Cagney worked hard to be able to make such a claim.

He was born on July 17, 1899, in New York City. His family was poor, and Cagney was sickly as a child. While growing up in a rough neighborhood, he learned a variety of skills, including tap dancing, street fighting, baseball and boxing. When he was 19, his father died, and he took odd jobs to help support his mother and siblings. On a whim, he auditioned for a role of a chorus girl in a local production. Although he had never had professional training, he landed the role and learned the dances from watching the other performers – and it never bothered him to dress as a girl and perform. Despite his mother...

Famous for being a stage actress, Lisa O'Hare has broken into television, with roles in various series spanning different genres. O'Hare often only appears in one-episode performances in shows like The Closer and Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart. The actress' most significant role is a 17-episode arc on New Amsterdam, in which she played Georgia Goodwin.

English theater actress Lisa O'Hare has appeared in several notable television shows since 2010, usually in key roles. O'Hare has had a long winding journey to American television. She began her career as a ballet dancer, and quickly moved into musical theater, with starring roles in Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, the last of which won the Tony Award for Best Musical. It was not until 2010 that O'Hare appeared in her first television role in an episode of The Closer.

Since then,...

Exclusive: Bartlett Sher, nine-time Tony Award directing nominee and winner for 2008’s South Pacific, will direct the recently announced Dolly Parton musical Hello, I’m Dolly, set for Broadway in 2026.

“How lucky I am to have the great Bartlett Sher direct my Hello, I’m Dolly musical,” Parton said in a statement. “When you decide to put your whole life up on stage, you hope and pray to find the right director with the right creativity and sensitivity to present all the blood, sweat, tears, light, love, and laughter that I’ve experienced over seven decades of living. My heart tells me that Bartlett is the man and the director for the job.”

Said Sher, “Dolly is one of the great songwriters in the American canon, and being entrusted with the opportunity to help her translate that glorious talent into the American musical theater is not only an honor, but absolutely a thrill.

At the 27th Academy Awards, Oscar helped Edmond O’Brien win an Oscar.

O’Brien played sleazy show biz publicist Oscar Muldoon in 1954’s “The Barefoot Contessa,” which starred Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner. Bogart had been crowned Best Actor of 1951 for “The African Queen,” and had also contended for the same award for 1943’s Best Picture, “Casablanca.” Gardner was coming off of her first and only nomination, for Best Actress in 1953’s “Mogambo.” “The Barefoot Contessa” was written and directed by Academy favorite Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who had won back-to-back Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars for 1949’s “A Letter to Three Wives” and 1950’s Best Picture, “All About Eve.”

”The Barefoot Contessa” didn’t fare quite as well at the Oscars as “Letter” or “Eve.” Neither Bogart or Gardner received nominations, though Bogart was cited for his role in that same year’s Best Picture entry “The Caine Mutiny.

Throughout the 1950s, big-budget musicals were de rigueur for Hollywood, and there was a sudden glut of epics that sported gigantic budgets, recognizable stars, and no small amount of studio hype. Such films were exhibited as touring roadshow productions, which was a great way for films to make fistfuls of cash. Roadshow epics were also, it should be noted, a concerted ploy by studios to distract audiences from the rising threat of television. Studios felt the need to invest a lot of money into musicals and epics, hoping the massive productions could draw people into theaters and keep the industry afloat.

One might logically predict, however, that Hollywood tried to ride the trend of epics for a little longer than was healthy, and foolish overspending eventually became common. The age of the "roadshow epic" pretty much came to a close with the release of the notorious bomb "Cleopatra" in 1963. 

But then,...

Dame Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza Doolittle in the Broadway production of My Fair Lady, but Audrey Hepburn was cast in the film version because the producers wanted her star power. Hepburn was a good actress, but her singing parts were dubbed by Marni Nixon because her voice was not as strong as Andrews. Andrews later won the Best Actress Oscar for Mary Poppins, which was released the same year as My Fair Lady.

Dame Julie Andrews has had a prosperous acting career spanning over seven decades. Her lengthy list of accolades includes an Academy Award, three Grammys, two Emmys and various other awards. From Mary Poppins to The Sound of Music, Andrews took the 1960s by storm with her fabulous acting and singing performances as a leading woman. Before she became involved in the film industry, Andrews made her stage debut in London's West End. At only 20 years old,...

“I felt ashamed of myself for watching. No one should have a chance to see so much desire, so much need for a prize. And so much pain when [it] was not given … I felt disgusted with myself. As though I were attending a public hanging.”

Those were the words of the late Glenda Jackson, as she described to The New York Times her recent experience watching the Academy Awards on television in 1979.

Ironically, it was well after she had already been gifted with two Best Actress Oscars herself. She was not present to accept those honors — for 1970’s “Women in Love” and 1973’s “A Touch of Class.” She was also absent when she was Best Actress-nominated for 1971’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and 1975’s “Hedda.”

See Watch our lively chats with dozens of 2024 Emmy contenders

I have to wonder if Miss Jackson ever watched the now-infamous clip of her winning her...

The original 1964 Broadway production of "Hello, Dolly!" was considered a showcase for its star, Carol Channing, and little else. At the time, critics were not entirely kind, saying the show had "unnecessary vulgar and frenzied touches," and that they "wouldn't say that Jerry Herman's score is memorable." Despite the middling reviews, "Hello, Dolly!" won 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Leading Actress (for Channing), Best Direction, Best Choreography, and Best Original Score.

The mid-'60s were a weirdly fraught time for major Hollywood musicals, as the genre provided some of the era's biggest hits, but also some of its biggest bombs. In 1964, Disney had a big hit with "Mary Poppins" and Warner Bros. made bank with "My Fair Lady," so musicals were suddenly on the rise. In 1965, Fox released "The Sound of Music," adapted from the stage production by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and it proved to be one of...