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The 50th Academy Awards were held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California on April 3 1978. This incarnation of the award was notable for a politically-charged acceptance speech by Vanessa Redgrave.
50th Academy Awards®
Hosts
Redgrave speech
During the ceremony, Vanessa Redgrave won the Best Supporting Actress award for Julia, and gave a controversial acceptance speech proclaiming her pro-Palestinian views.
- Redgrave: "My dear colleagues, I thank you very much for this tribute to my work. I think that Jane Fonda, and I have done the best work of our lives and I think this is in part due to our director, Fred Zinnemann. [Audience applause.]
- And I also think it's in part because we believed and we believe in what we were expressing--two out of millions who gave their lives and were to prepared to sacrifice everything in the fight against fascist and racist Nazi Germany.
- And I salute you, and I pay tribute to you, and I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you've stood firm, and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums [gasps from the audience, followed by a smattering of boos and clapping] whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression.
- And I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt a final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witch-hunt against those who tried to express in their lives and their work the truth that they believe in [some boos and hissing]. I salute you and I thank you and I pledge to you that I will continue to fight against anti-Semitism and fascism."
Shortly thereafter, when it came his turn to announce an award winner (for Best Writing), Paddy Chayefsky, apparently perturbed by political speeches at the Academy Awards, replied:
- "Before I get on to the writing awards, there's a little matter I'd like to tidy up--at least if I expect to live with myself tomorrow morning. I would like to say, personal opinion, of course, that I'm sick and tired of people exploiting the Academy Awards [loud applause] for the propagation of their own personal propagana.
- I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple 'thank you' would have sufficed." [Loud applause.]
Winners
See also: 50th Academy Awards nominees
Feature Films
Acting
Special honors
The Academy gave the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to Walter Mirisch and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Charlton Heston.
See also
External links
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