Kay Thompson

I'll second that, FrankStanko! I've lost count as to how many times I've seen this film, but I find Kay Thompson absolutely magnificent in this role. After all, her character is based on Diana Vreeland and her characterization is sensational. When I listen to the CD of the film, she never ceases to delight or amuse me -- her musical numbers are fabulous.

The Best Supporting Actress category for 1957 was fairly strong. I don't know that it was snobbery as much as a satirical send up of haute couture, et alia, vis a vis some very solid dramatic performances (Miyoshi Umeki won for 'Sayonara'). A nomination would have been in order, but between thee and me, we know how marvelous Kay Thompson was and continues to entertain and amaze us on film almost 50 years later.

Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.

The woman was FABULOUS! She is one of the reasons I'm musically partial to altos over the higher female voices [and to people who sing like real people instead of trying to aria all over the place]. She didn't even have to try to steal the show; for me, she WAS the show.

She should have been nominated and won an Oscar. Her supporting performance was fantastic and she delivered the best performance in this movie.

Not to mention that the film was a musical. Kay Thompson's work in this film should have at least earned her a nomination.

I've always enjoyed Kay Thompson in FUNNY FACE - the purposeful way she moves & how she commands the screen whenever she's on-camera. It's one of those perfomances I can't believe wasn't nominated for an Oscar (like Margaret Hamilton's in THE WIZARD OF OZ). In Stephen Silverman's book about Stanley Donen, she said she'd known Diana Vreeland before filming began but didn't base the characterization solely on her. "I didn't do HER," Thompson is quoted as saying. "I just did that kind of woman." But screenwriter Leonard Gershe unquestionably based Maggie Prescott on Vreeland, even putting expressions Vreeland invented into the script - like "bizzazz," which later passed into general usage as "pizzazz".

FUNNY FACE wasn't always an easy film for Thompson to make, and much of it had to do with Fred Astaire's hostile attitude. "It was clear that he (Astaire) hated doing the 'Clap Yo Hands' number with Kay, and she was very uncomfortable," director Donen later noted. Donen reasoned it was because Astaire liked his women to be "floaty," and Thompson had her feet firmly planted on the ground. "He knew she had an amazing talent - he just didn't want to be near it."

Thompson later said she could have "shot" Astaire and described him as terminally crotchety on the set of FUNNY FACE. "Fred, you expect, is going to be...a wonderful man who's going to be so polite. He was none of that." Thompson mostly ignored the barbs he threw hew way (like grabbing her and asking "Where did you learn balance?"), but was shocked at how he treated Audrey Hepburn when they were filming in Chantilly. Because of non-stop rain, conditions were extremely difficult; Hepburn was supposed to dance happily across the grass in white satin pumps, only the ground was muddy, Hepburn's pumps kept turning brown & getting stuck in the mud, and Astaire was growing impatient. "Fred stopped her four or five times right in the middle of the scene and said, 'What are you doing?'" Later that day - after filming had finished and the actors were back at their hotel, Thompson called Hepburn and said, "Audrey, no matter what you do, remember the camera is on you, and whatever he says is unimportant. Don't listen. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Hepburn, who normally spoke of Astaire only in the most reverent of terms, responded, "Yes, well, it is a bit of a strain."

I think the "snub" was more due to the fact that the movie was a musical and it's was extremely rare for a performance in a musical to receive an acting nomination pre-1960. Jean Hagen in SINGING IN THE RAIN was perhaps the only woman who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for a musical in that era and of course hers was a pure comedy role. Even Hermione Gingold who received great raves for GIGI and won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress failed to even get a nomination the following year.

Also interesting how Hermione's triumph in GIGI led to many other movies and scores of television appearances while FUNNY FACE did basically nothign for Kay. I realize GIGI was a much bigger hit but still this movie was well received and Kay admired for her work in it, you'd think it would have led to something else.

Can't believe she wasn't even nominated, but several comments here have already touched on the Academy's legendary predjudice on not taking musical film performances seriously (not to mention comedies, fantasies, science-fiction, westerns, and satires).

Not knowing the name Diana Vreeland very well (aside from seeing a great photo of her in a mink coat), I wouldn't have known whom she was channeling, but what I love is how Ms. Thompson is on the brink of a meltdown all through the film while effortlessly running and managing the magazine. Some of the film's best moments are just from her lines:

"It's very simple- just pretend that Marion can read;"
"There was A LOT to be done"
"It doesn't...speak."
"D" for down..."D" for dreary..."Deeeeeee" for dull and depressing, dismal and deadly!"

And the entirety of "Think Pink."

I always wondered if Meryl Streep in the Devil Wears Prada didn't owe a little something to Kay in this movie...

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