Six of the Oscars’ campest Best Actress speeches
By Ben Kelly
They didn’t win it for nothing…
Liza Minnelli (1973)
Liza Minnelli was truly iconic in Cabaret, so it was only right that she beat the likes of Maggie Smith and Diana Ross to this prize – Ms. Ross remains unapologetic about how pissed off she was, and that in itself is pretty fabulous (she played Billie Holiday in Lady Sings The Blues, if anyone’s bothered). After a classic involuntary laugh/yelp, Liza kept it short and sweet, mainly thanking “Mr Fosse” – as you do. She wraps it up by thanking the Academy “for giving me this award” – with an intonation implying either that she was glad to be out of her mother’s shadow, or that she thought the other actors in the film were shit.
Sally Field (1985)
Long before she became a TV matriarch in Brothers and Sisters, Sally Field acted more like one of our mums as she picked up her second Best Actress gong for Places In The Heart (Anyone?). In an embarrassingly gushy speech, during which she shook her curly head so much she was close to a full 360 rotation, she cried the immortal line: “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!” While this has become the much quoted and paraphrased sound bite, we feel her opening remark was cruelly over-looked – “The first time, I hardly felt it because it was all so new.” Alright love, we didn’t ask for your life story…
Cher (1988)
Yes she’s an Attitude Icon, but believe it or not, Cher did once achieve a greater triumph – the 1988 Best Actress Oscar for Moonstruck – famously camp in its own right for that ‘snap out of it’ open hander. To her credit this wasn’t even a weak year – she beat the bunny boiling Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, for God’s sake. The campest moment undoubtedly comes when Cher thanks her friend “Mary Louise Streep” (that’s just plain old Meryl to me and you), who she’d done her first movie with, and had now beaten to screen acting’s top gong. Cap it all off with a little modesty? “I don’t think that this means that I am somebody, but I guess I’m on my way.” Cher, you’re wearing a transparent slinky number with only black sequins to cover your modesty and you’ve just won an Oscar. YOU’VE MADE IT!
Gwyneth Paltrow (1999)
It’s the one we all remember, and the one she’s never lived down: Gwyneth Paltrow, clinching her career-defining prize for Shakespeare In Love and crying harder than the Bard himself would have, had he seen the movie. Wearing a pink ball gown that looked like it was designed for senior prom, Gwyneth got totes emosh as she recited a thank you list longer than the Collected Works. The presence of her parents in the audience only egged her on more, and the campest moment comes when she really loses control, and the camera cuts to her mother – the fabulous Blythe Danner – who looks positively aghast. She even mouths something back that you can’t quite make out, but our money’s on “WTF”.
Julia Roberts (2001)
After being cruelly overlooked for Pretty Woman, Julia went all the way with Erin Brokovich; which was a bit like a sequel in which she kept the prostitute clothes, but borrowed Richard Gere’s brains instead. She starts her speech by telling the conductor to sit down with his stick, “because I may never be here again.” The campest moment comes when she speaks of the ‘sisterhood’ of being a Best Actress nominee, which sounds like an amazing secret society to which only Meryl can admit you. She also trailblazed the best way to make sure you don’t forget anyone you’re meant to thank, by including “everyone I’ve ever met in my life”. Yes Rhys Ifans, she’s talking to you…
Halle Berry (2002)
Though she’s at first unable to move from her seat, on account of a very inconveniently timed heart attack, Halle eventually reaches the podium to become the first black woman to win the Best Actress prize for her turn in Monster’s Ball. Halle announced, “This moment is so much bigger than me”, before name checking all the black actresses who missed out on the achievement historically, and “for every nameless, faceless woman of colour who now has a chance, because this door tonight has been opened.” Moving stuff indeed, but Halle’s hyperventilating takes this performance to the next level. The campest moment? She thanks the academy for choosing her as “the vessel, through which this blessing might flow”. Halle now enjoys a successful career as President Obama’s speechwriter.