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It’s Hollywood’s biggest night! The 2017 Academy Awards are airing tonight, February 26, and Decider has got all of your Oscars needs covered. You can live stream the 2017 Oscars here, and click here to check out the rest of Decider’s coverage.
When it was time for Elizabeth Taylor, then 69, to read the Best Picture nominees at the 2001 Golden Globes, she started to open the gold envelope with the winner’s name. The crowd tittered. “What? I don’t open this? I just read it from [the teleprompter] up there?” she asked the Hollywood Foreign Press and millions of viewers at home. Producer Dick Clark quietly came onstage to help guide her. “What is this for?” she challenged, shaking the envelope at him. Finally, Taylor read the nominees from the teleprompter, opened the envelope, and pulled out the card with the winner’s name. She flipped it over, checking both sides for the type. Then, in a sing-songy voice, she ended the suspense: “Glad–i–a–tor!”
Tonight’s shocking Academy Awards finale could be chalked up as another senior moment by a Hollywood legend. Warren Beatty, 79, opened the red Best Picture envelope, pulled out the enclosed card, squinted at the contents, and then checked the envelope to see if was missing anything inside. “And the Academy Award”—Beatty begins, followed by a very pregnant pause. He stare into the camera, frozen. He looks down at the card again. “For Best Picture.” He turns to his co-presenter and Bonnie and Clyde co-star, Faye Dunaway, who is telling him, “You’re awful! Come on!” He passes her the envelope. Dunaway announces the winner: “La La Land.”
Though as we now know, La La Land did not win Best Picture, even though the filmmakers gave an acceptance speech. La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz then grabbed a new card from Beatty’s hands and turned it outward, informing the world that the honor belonged to Moonlight, an absolute jaw-dropper that delighted many who fumed for months at the prospect of La La Land claiming victory of Barry Jenkins‘s tale about a black man who grows up and confronts his homosexuality.
Beatty approached the microphone again. “Hello. Hello. I want—” host Jimmy Kimmel interrupts him with, “Warren, what did you do?” Everyone laughs before Beatty finishes his thought in all seriousness. “I want to tell you what happened. I opened the envelope, and it said, ‘Emma Stone—La La Land.‘ That’s why I took such a long look at Faye and at you. I wan’t trying to be funny.” And he wasn’t. Beatty is a two-time Oscar winner who earned nominations as an actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He knows what it’s like to have his name called, and not called. He’s been in the entertainment business for 60 years, he continues to direct films (Rules Don’t Apply came out in November) and he understands exactly how many bonuses and necks are on the line based on who triumphs following such a long awards campaign. If anything, Dunaway jumped the gun by reading the movie listed without considering why Stone’s name was included as well (although Stone later swore that she never let go of her winning envelope, prompting new conspiracy theories about where the Beatty card came from). Or, instead of assigning blame, just revel in the craziness that can still erupt at a spectacle as calculated as the Academy Awards. Thank you, live television.
