Legendary Lives To Celebrate At The 2012 Oscars
By Jennifer Wilkov. Posted on .
On Academy Award Sunday, we all gather around the television to see the winners and losers of one of Hollywood’s most esteemed honors.
Halfway through the night’s celebration, those present along with viewers around the world will take a moment to remember and honor those who passed away in the last year – film greats who left us with phenomenal films, amazing performances and memorable moments we can never forget.
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The fun part about this solemn segment of the show is seeing if you can recognize the stars and professionals shown during the short montage of lost Hollywood notables. Here are a few helpful hints to jog your memory as you watch this annual presentation during Sunday night’s show:
Classics Names You Probably Know and Recognize
Elizabeth Taylor - One of Old Hollywood's last great screen legends, Taylor got her start as a child actress at the age of 10 and went on to make more than 50 films and earn two Academy Awards for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf?.
Susannah York – A prominent British actress of stage and screen whose most popular role was playing the Man of Steel’s Krypton mother in Superman: The Movie and Superman II. She earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
Cliff Robertson - Veteran actor, who won an Oscar for his role as a mentally disabled man in 1968's Charly. His other film credits included PT 109, in which he played a young John F. Kennedy. More recently, Robertson appeared as Tobey Maguire's Uncle Ben in Spider-Man.
Jane Russell – The brunette bombshell whose breakout role came in the 1941 western The Outlaw and who also costarred with Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
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Peter Falk – Best known as Columbo on television and as the grandfather who reads his unwilling grandson a fairy tale in The Princess Bride. He had a long and vibrant screen career that counted a number of classics. In Murder, Inc., Falk earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and was in contention again for his supporting turn in Frank Capra’s final picture, Pocketful of Miracles. He also appeared alongside the likes of Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle and Ethel Merman in the caper comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and had a sharp comedic turn in The In-Laws.
Sidney Lumet – Accomplished director over the course of six decades. His credits include 12 Angry Men, Henry Fonda in Stage Struck, Marlon Brando in The Fugitive Kind and Katharine Hepburn in Lond Day’s Journey into Night. In the 1970s he produced the classic crime drama, Serpico, starring Al Pacino. He also directed a fine adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, starring Albert Finney, Sean Connery and Lauren Bacall, before reuniting with Pacino on another crime classic, Dog Day Afternoon. His Oscar-winning satire, Network, became one of 1976’s biggest hits.
